Will we be able to use them for limb regeneration?
From Bill Cipher’s last words (Gravity falls reference)to this adorable GIF on the side, axolotls have been very frequent in pop culture recently, yet not a lot of people are familiar with the great axolotl. Which seems very wrong because (as mentioned above) axolotls are great, they are the only creatures that could regrow limbs their whole life, they are 1000 times more resistant to cancer than mammals (which means we could probably use them in a cure for cancer) and they can regrow each limb up to 5 times!
As much as I would love to nerd out about axolotls for the whole of this article, this is not what this article is about; this article is about a theory revolving axolotls, so let’s start with the theory:
The sequel to The Fourteenth Goldfish came out about a year ago (The Third Mushroom) which follows the life of Ellie after her grandpa discovers a way to use axolotls to regenerate body parts, and while The Fourteenth Goldfish is a great book, it is also (sadly) a work of fiction- which means we still don’t know how to use axolotls to regenerate limbs… But if we did how would we do it?
Before we can even think about regrowing limbs, we have to get VERY familiar with how axolotl’s cells work during limb regeneration. Thankfully, scientists have already done that and discovered a thing called ‘macrophages’ in the axolotl. This, when axolotls have been injected a drug to get rid of it during limb regeneration, instead of regenerating limbs, they accumulate scar tissue.
An issue with this method, however, is that it relies on removing a crucial part of a healthy body. Scientists have done some research and “By comparing the genes that were turned on or off when the axolotl’s limb wasn’t able to regrow, scientists have found more molecules and processes to study that hold promise for kick-starting regeneration in humans. Perhaps one day, drugs can be made to modulate these genes, causing them to turn on and help a human limb to regrow after amputation.” (source http://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2018/regeneration-axolotl-can-teach-us-regrowing-human-limbs/ )
We are still a long way from being able to regenerate limbs, but as science advances, we are getting closer to finding a new way for people who lose a limb to continue their lives as normal. And that “new way” would (partially) be thanks to the great axolotl.
