Regeneration is a trick, in which many animals, including lizards, starfish and octopus, have mastered. Exolotles can do a lot of everything more than a salamander species originating in Mexico, through the eyes and parts of the brain, in the spinal cord, the eyes and parts of the brain. Mammals, however, have mostly lost this ability somewhere along their evolutionary route. Reinogenous remained in a limited number of tissues, some mammals remained in species such as rabbits or goats.

Wei Wang, a researcher at the National Institute of Biological Sciences in Beijing, says, “We were trying to find out how some animals lost their regeneration during development and then retrieved the gene or route responsible for re -activating the regeneration program.” Wang’s team has found one of the passive regeneration genes, activated it, and withdraw a limited regeneration for mice which was not previously.

Mice and bunny

Wang and his colleagues conducted a comparative study to compare how the wound healing process works in a regenerated and non-puzzled mammalian species. They chose rabbits as non-purpose species as their revived mammals and mice. As a reference organ, the team chose Kan Pina. “We wanted a relatively simple structure that was easy to inspect and yet made of many different cell types,” Wang says. The test consisted of punching holes in the ear pina of rabbits and mice and tracking the process of wound-refinement.

The healing process began in the same way in rabbits and mice. Within the first few days after the injury, a blastma – a mass of asymmetrical cells – is located on the site. “Both rabbits and rats will heal the wounds after a few days,” Wang explains. “But between the 10th and the 15th day, you will see the major differences.” In this deadline, earhole began to be smaller in rabbits. There were outbreaks over the blastma – animals were producing more tissue. On the other hand, in mice, the treatment process stopped completely, causing a hole in the ear.