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Jellyfish's "Superpowers" Gained Through Cellular Mechanism
2019.10.01
Jellyfish are animals that possess the unique ability to regenerate body parts. A team of Japanese scientists has now revealed the cellular mechanisms that give jellyfish these remarkable "superpowers."
Their findings were published on August 26, 2019 in PeerJ.
"Currently our knowledge of biology is quite limited because most studies have been performed using so-called model animals like mice, flies, worms and fish etc. Given that millions of species exist on the earth, it is important to study various animals and broaden our knowledge," said Yuichiro Nakajima, Assistant Professor at the Frontier Research Institute for Interdisciplinary Sciences, Tohoku University in Japan, and corresponding author of the study.
"Jellyfish are one of such animals with interesting biological features," Nakajima said. "For example, they have stinging cells, called cnidocytes, to capture prey."
Cnidarian jellyfish - named for their stinging cells - have existed on the earth for more than 500 million years. They form part of a unique group of animals that are not bilaterally symmetrical and also possess the capacity to regenerate body parts -- a trait most of the complex animals, including humans, have lost. These early-diverging primitive animals could play a pivotal role in helping us better understand the evolutionary biology of bilaterally symmetrical animals, like us humans.
For their study, the researchers used Cladonema pacificum -- a jellyfish species from the Cnidaria phylum that has branching tentacles -- to investigate the spatial pattern of cell proliferation and their roles during jellyfish development and regeneration, aiming to establish the cellular basis of these phenomena. "With easy lab maintenance and a high spawning rate, Cladonema is suitable for studying various aspects of jellyfish biology," Nakajima explained.