Cut off. They're leaving. Forgot. Three years later, he was still growing in seawater.
The severed fragment of the sea cucumber was to collapse quickly. Instead of decaying, the sample lived in the running sea water for more than three years, closed the damaged areas, rebuilt the cells and continued to grow. Scientists have not yet received a new animal from it, but the durability of the amputated material already makes you look at the regeneration differently.
The study was conducted by specialists from the Newfoundland Memorial University with the participation of Rachel Sipler from the Laboratory of Ocean Sciences Bigelow. The team studied Psolus fabricii, a cold-water species of sea cucumbers. These animals refer to essentials, like sea stars and sea urchins. Many needles are able to restore damaged parts of the body, but biologists usually expected that a remote area without the body would die over time.
The observation began with a mindset to the discarded material. One fragment of the Umbular leg of the Psolus fabricii did not decompose a few weeks after the deletion. The ambulacral legs help the echinates to move, attach to the surface and interact with the environment. The sample did not just retain the form. The fabric looked alive, changed and gradually increased new structures.
After this discovery, the researchers staged a series of experiments with running sea water. Scientists separated fragments of legs, the main part of the body and the tentacle in three individuals of Psolus fabricii. The samples were kept not in a sterile nutrient solution, but in natural water with bacteria dissolved organic matter and microbial communities. For ordinary cell culture, this composition often means contamination and death of the material, because microbes quickly violate controlled conditions.
Against this background, the result is markedly different from the classic immortal cell lines, including HeLa. Since the mid-20th century, biologists have been growing cell lines that can divide in the lab for a very long time and help study diseases, medications and gene function. But such cultures require strict control: the environment is cleansed of bacteria and other organisms, and the cells are supported in artificial conditions. Fragments of sea cucumber remained active without such protection and showed not only survival, but also signs of healing.
In the separated areas, cellular diversity, immune activity and internal restructuring were found. Damaged edges were gradually closed. The pigmented cells were assembled into dense groups, and the transparent connective tissue formed a more ordered structure. Pictures taken a year and a few years after removal showed a gradual recovery, rather than simply preserving the dead fragment.
A separate issue is related to food. Such a material does not have mouth, intestines and organs that usually get food. The researchers suggest that the cells took amino acids directly from seawater. Amino acids are needed to build proteins, so dissolved organic matter could support metabolism. In this sense, the germ-rich water became not the enemy of the sample, but part of the environment that helped him to live and heal damage.
By the time the experience was completed, the fragments were still active. Scientists stopped observations to publish the results, not because of the death of the samples. For biology, not only the term itself is important, but also the behavior of the material outside the body. The cells experienced prolonged stress, continued to respond to Wednesday and maintained a complex tissue organization in conditions far from sterile laboratory culture.
The authors consider the Psolus fabricii a convenient model for studying regeneration. Marine invertebrates usually cause fewer ethical and legal limitations than vertebrates or human cell lines. Such material is easier to use in laboratories and training programs, where there is no expensive sterile infrastructure or permits to work with human and mammalian cells.
Medical interest is also understandable. Fragments of sea cucumber show how a living tissue can cover damage, maintain structure and coexist with microbes without sterile protection. This mechanism can help in studies of regeneration, resistance to infections, and antimicrobial healing. So far, we are not talking about a ready-made medicine or organ growing technology. The scientific value of the find in another: nature has given a system where restoration can be observed for years and disassembled in individual processes.
Researchers do not yet know how far recovery can go. Separate areas of Psolus fabricii have not turned into a full-fledged animal, so the comparison with the revived tissue works only as an image. The main result is more specific: amputated fragments of sea cucumber remained active until the end of the experiment, changed the structure in natural sea water and gave biologists a new model to study long regeneration outside the body.
The severed fragment of the sea cucumber was to collapse quickly. Instead of decaying, the sample lived in the running sea water for more than three years, closed the damaged areas, rebuilt the cells and continued to grow. Scientists have not yet received a new animal from it, but the durability of the amputated material already makes you look at the regeneration differently.
The study was conducted by specialists from the Newfoundland Memorial University with the participation of Rachel Sipler from the Laboratory of Ocean Sciences Bigelow. The team studied Psolus fabricii, a cold-water species of sea cucumbers. These animals refer to essentials, like sea stars and sea urchins. Many needles are able to restore damaged parts of the body, but biologists usually expected that a remote area without the body would die over time.
The observation began with a mindset to the discarded material. One fragment of the Umbular leg of the Psolus fabricii did not decompose a few weeks after the deletion. The ambulacral legs help the echinates to move, attach to the surface and interact with the environment. The sample did not just retain the form. The fabric looked alive, changed and gradually increased new structures.
After this discovery, the researchers staged a series of experiments with running sea water. Scientists separated fragments of legs, the main part of the body and the tentacle in three individuals of Psolus fabricii. The samples were kept not in a sterile nutrient solution, but in natural water with bacteria dissolved organic matter and microbial communities. For ordinary cell culture, this composition often means contamination and death of the material, because microbes quickly violate controlled conditions.
Against this background, the result is markedly different from the classic immortal cell lines, including HeLa. Since the mid-20th century, biologists have been growing cell lines that can divide in the lab for a very long time and help study diseases, medications and gene function. But such cultures require strict control: the environment is cleansed of bacteria and other organisms, and the cells are supported in artificial conditions. Fragments of sea cucumber remained active without such protection and showed not only survival, but also signs of healing.
In the separated areas, cellular diversity, immune activity and internal restructuring were found. Damaged edges were gradually closed. The pigmented cells were assembled into dense groups, and the transparent connective tissue formed a more ordered structure. Pictures taken a year and a few years after removal showed a gradual recovery, rather than simply preserving the dead fragment.
A separate issue is related to food. Such a material does not have mouth, intestines and organs that usually get food. The researchers suggest that the cells took amino acids directly from seawater. Amino acids are needed to build proteins, so dissolved organic matter could support metabolism. In this sense, the germ-rich water became not the enemy of the sample, but part of the environment that helped him to live and heal damage.
By the time the experience was completed, the fragments were still active. Scientists stopped observations to publish the results, not because of the death of the samples. For biology, not only the term itself is important, but also the behavior of the material outside the body. The cells experienced prolonged stress, continued to respond to Wednesday and maintained a complex tissue organization in conditions far from sterile laboratory culture.
The authors consider the Psolus fabricii a convenient model for studying regeneration. Marine invertebrates usually cause fewer ethical and legal limitations than vertebrates or human cell lines. Such material is easier to use in laboratories and training programs, where there is no expensive sterile infrastructure or permits to work with human and mammalian cells.
Medical interest is also understandable. Fragments of sea cucumber show how a living tissue can cover damage, maintain structure and coexist with microbes without sterile protection. This mechanism can help in studies of regeneration, resistance to infections, and antimicrobial healing. So far, we are not talking about a ready-made medicine or organ growing technology. The scientific value of the find in another: nature has given a system where restoration can be observed for years and disassembled in individual processes.
Researchers do not yet know how far recovery can go. Separate areas of Psolus fabricii have not turned into a full-fledged animal, so the comparison with the revived tissue works only as an image. The main result is more specific: amputated fragments of sea cucumber remained active until the end of the experiment, changed the structure in natural sea water and gave biologists a new model to study long regeneration outside the body.
