Source: Stanford University
Date: August 4, 2010
Summary:
New research suggests a reason why mammals are unable to re-grow a limb or produce new heart muscle cells: Restricting cells' ability to pop in and out of the cell cycle at will -- a prerequisite for the cell division necessary to make new tissue -- reduces the chances that they'll run amok and form potentially deadly cancers.
Scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine have taken a big step toward being able to confer this regenerative capacity on mammalian muscle cells; they accomplished this feat in experiments with laboratory mice in which they blocked the expression of just two tumor-suppressing proteins. The finding may move us closer to future regenerative therapies in humans -- surprisingly, by sending us shimmying back down the evolutionary tree. The research will be published in Cell Stem Cell.
Wired magazine published a news story based on this news release.
