Vitulo Nicola, Dalla Valle Luisa, Skobo Tatjana, Valle Giorgio, Alibardi Lorenzo
Department of Biotechnology, University of Verona, Verona, Italy.
Department of Biology, University of Padova, Padova, Italy.
Protoplasma. 2017 Nov;254(6):2127-2141. doi: 10.1007/s00709-017-1107-y. Epub 2017 Mar 29.
Amputated tails of lizards regenerate while limbs form scars which histological structure is very different from the original organs. Lizards provide useful information for regenerative medicine and some hypotheses on the loss of regeneration in terrestrial vertebrates. Analysis of tail and limb transcriptomes shows strong downregulation in the tail blastema for immunoglobulins and surface B and T receptors, cell function, and metabolism. In contrast, in the limb blastema genes for myogenesis, muscle and cell function, and extracellular matrix deposition but not immunity are variably downregulated. The upregulated genes show that the regenerating tail is an embryonic organ driven by the Wnt pathway and non-coding RNAs. The strong inflammation following amputation, the non-activation of the Wnt pathway, and the upregulation of inflammatory genes with no downregulation of immune genes indicate that the amputated limb does not activate an embryonic program. Intense inflammation in limbs influences in particular the activity of genes coding for muscle proteins, cell functions, and stimulates the deposition of dense extracellular matrix proteins resulting in scarring limb outgrowths devoid of muscles. The present study complements that on upregulated genes, and indicates that the regenerating tail requires immune suppression to maintain this embryonic organ connected to the rest of the tail without be rejected or turned into a scar. It is hypothesized that the evolution of the adaptive immune system determined scarring instead of organ regeneration in terrestrial vertebrates and that lizards evolved the process of tail regeneration through a mechanism of immuno-evasion.
蜥蜴被截断的尾巴能够再生,而肢体形成的疤痕其组织结构与原始器官有很大不同。蜥蜴为再生医学以及一些关于陆生脊椎动物再生能力丧失的假说提供了有用信息。对尾巴和肢体转录组的分析表明,在尾巴芽基中,免疫球蛋白、表面B和T受体、细胞功能及新陈代谢相关基因表达强烈下调。相比之下,在肢体芽基中,与肌生成、肌肉和细胞功能以及细胞外基质沉积相关的基因(而非免疫相关基因)表达有不同程度的下调。上调的基因表明,再生的尾巴是一个由Wnt信号通路和非编码RNA驱动的胚胎器官。截肢后强烈的炎症反应、Wnt信号通路未激活以及炎症基因上调而免疫基因未下调,表明截肢后的肢体没有激活胚胎程序。肢体中的强烈炎症尤其影响编码肌肉蛋白、细胞功能的基因活性,并刺激致密细胞外基质蛋白的沉积,导致肢体长出无肌肉的疤痕组织。本研究补充了关于上调基因的研究,并表明再生的尾巴需要免疫抑制来维持这个与尾巴其余部分相连的胚胎器官,使其不被排斥或形成疤痕。据推测,适应性免疫系统的进化决定了陆生脊椎动物形成疤痕而非器官再生,而蜥蜴通过免疫逃避机制进化出了尾巴再生过程。