Signal transduction pathways from wound healing to regeneration

The phenomenon of regeneration was discovered in freshwater polyps more than 200 years ago

Animals vary in their ability to regenerate

At the heart of their research is Anja Tursch's doctoral dissertation

Regardless of where it occurs, any injury triggers nonspecific signals through the production of calcium ions and reactive oxygen species that trigger injury responses, such as wound healing

"Our experiments show that the Wnt signaling pathway is a major component of the initial general injury response and, depending on the strength of the signal, directs tissue head or foot development," explains Prof.

Wnt/β-catenin is a fragment in the Wnt signaling pathway that is known to encode positional information for the formation of new head structures

This research was carried out under the auspices of the "Mechanisms and Functions of Wnt Signaling" Collaborative Research Center (CRC 1324) funded by the German Research Foundation

Injury-induced MAPK activation triggers body axis formation in Hydra by default Wnt signaling