Scientists have gained clearer understanding of how some body parts regenerate. Carnegie Institution of Washington scientists Alejandro Alvarado and Phillip Newmark showed the introduction of specific double-stranded RNA molecules into cells associated with tissue regeneration in flatworms alters those cells' behavior. They say this is a major step in trying to understand the molecular mechanisms dictating why some animals are able to regenerate missing body parts, a question to which the answer has eluded researchers for over 250 years. The study is reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Flatworms are good study subjects because their regenerative abilities are quite pronounced.
A discovery linking the shape of a unit called the heme in a protein to protein function may prove useful in a range of scientific advances, including finding cures for diseases and cleaning up pollutants, says discoverer John Shelnutt. He's a physicist at the Department of Energy's Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque. The first time such a correlation has been made, the discovery is being heralded by the biochemical and biophysical communities as an intriguing finding. A single protein may contain as few as one heme or as many as 10. They weren't aware that the heme acted as part of the protein 'machine' and changed shape or even had shape.