How A Zebrafish Could Repair Its Spinal Cord Completely After An Injury? Study Finds

The scientists just discovered an amazing find on how a freshwater zebrafish could heal its spinal cord completely after being severed and paralyzed. They found a and special protein that is a key to its healing.

The study was printed in the journal Science on November 4, 2016. It was led by researchers from Duke University in North Carolina. The scientists had watched how the zebrafish repair own spinal cord injuries.

Kenneth Poss, a professor of cell biology and director of the Regeneration Next Initiative at Duke and the senior investigator of the study said that the finding is one of nature's most remarkable feats of regeneration. He further said that given the limited number of successful therapies available today for repairing lost tissues, they need to look to animals like zebrafish for new clues about how to stimulate regeneration.

IFL Science reports that the researchers found 12 specific genes that are particularly active after the injury. One of these is the connective tissue growth factor (CTGF) that rose in the glial cells, which is a set of supporting cells that shape the bridge between severed ends in the first two weeks following an injury.

Mayssa Mokalled, the lead author of the study said that they were astounded that it was expressed in only a fraction of glial cells after the injury. They thought that the glial cells and this gene must be significant. Meanwhile, when the scientists removed the CTGF from those cells, the zebrafish did not repair their spinal cord. The zebrafish would take about eight weeks to regenerate much nerve cells to wholly reverse their paralysis.

According to Medical Express, the humans and zebrafish share most protein-coding genes including the CTGF. The CTGF protein in human is almost 90 percent similar in its amino acid building blocks to the zebrafish form. The team will persist in studying the zebrafish and will also look at how the CTGF is used by mammals such as mice. The discovery indicates new hints on how to better use the CTGF.