Biology Department, University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras Campus, Puerto Rico.
Curr Pharm Des. 2010;16(8):942-55. doi: 10.2174/138161210790883426.
Organisms of the phylum Echinodermata show some of the most impressive regenerative feats within the animal kingdom. Following injury or self-induced autotomy, species in this phylum can regenerate most tissues and organs, being the regeneration of the muscular systems one of the best studied. Even though echinoderms are closely related to chordates, they are little known in the biomedical field, and therefore their uses to study pharmacological effects on muscle formation and/or regeneration have been extremely limited. In order to rectify this lack of knowledge, we describe here the echinoderm muscular systems, particularly the somatic and visceral muscle components. In addition, we provide details of the processes that are known to take place during muscle regeneration, namely dedifferentiation, myogenesis and new muscle formation. Finally, we provide the available information on molecular and pharmacological studies that involve echinoderm muscle regeneration. We expect that by making this information accessible, researchers consider the use of echinoderms as model systems for pharmacological studies in muscle development and regeneration.
棘皮动物门的生物在动物王国中表现出一些令人印象深刻的再生壮举。在受到损伤或自我诱导的自切后，该门的物种可以再生大多数组织和器官，其中肌肉系统的再生是研究得最多的。尽管棘皮动物与脊索动物密切相关，但它们在生物医学领域鲜为人知，因此它们在研究肌肉形成和/或再生的药理学效应方面的用途受到了极大的限制。为了纠正这一知识匮乏的问题，我们在这里描述了棘皮动物的肌肉系统，特别是躯体和内脏肌肉成分。此外，我们还详细介绍了已知发生在肌肉再生过程中的各个阶段，即去分化、成肌生成和新肌肉形成。最后，我们提供了涉及棘皮动物肌肉再生的分子和药理学研究的现有信息。我们希望通过提供这些信息，研究人员能够考虑将棘皮动物作为肌肉发育和再生的药理学研究的模型系统。
