Ellen Heber-Katz
The MRL mouse - how it regenerates and how we might do the same
We will present an overview of the current state of mammalian regeneration in the context of recent and ongoing discoveries in the MRL mouse system. The MRL mouse is the first and to date the only genetically dissectable mammalian model for regeneration and as such provides a "laboratory" for assessing theories and potential clinical approaches to achieving the medical goal of regeneration. The very recent finding that the turning off of a single gene – p21 - related to the regulation of the cell cycle can convert an otherwise non-regenerating mouse to a regenerator leads to two important conclusions. First, the molecular apparatus for regeneration has survived the long evolutionary gap between lower species such as hydra and salamander up through the advent of mammals. And second, the fact that the capacity to regenerate can be “uncloaked“ through the turning off of a single gene gives impetus to the possibility that regeneration can be induced by drug therapy alone.
