ROLE OF ION FLUXES DURING REGENERATION

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This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. Regeneration is a key goal of medicine, as it bears on therapies for injuries, birth defects, cancer, and aging. Using a variety of molecular tools, we are investigating the ability of certain animals (planarian flatworms and Xenopus tadpoles) to regenerate central nervous system cells. We have discovered that wound cells rapidly up-regulate the expression of specific ion channels and ion pumps, and that their bioelectric activity is crucial for the regeneration of nerve, muscle, and other cell types. The ability to understand the biophysical properties of the wound currents are crucial to future biomedical approaches (aimed to induce regeneration of damaged tissues in humans), and we depend on the BRC for the technology necessary to characterize wound currents and the bioelectrical action of cell recruitment and tissue regeneration.