Tweak a gene to grow a new head

摘要

If you can't keep your head when all about you are losing theirs -then why not grow a new one? Decapitated flatworms have had their genes tweaked so that they can regrow a head. Some flatworms are champions at regrowing body parts, but not all flatworm species have such a talent. Jochen Rink at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden, Germany, and his colleagues investigated what gives some flatworms regenerative properties. They discovered a network of genes controlling head regeneration that is essentially the same in all flatworm species, but different species express different levels of some genes.