Das überraschend einfache Rezept, um mit dem Wachsen einer Gliedmaße zu beginnen

“A team led by Harvard Medical School geneticists just took a step forward on that long road.

As described Feb. 5 in Developmental Cell, the researchers identified the special ingredients needed to kick off limb creation in mice and chicks.

“People in the field have known a lot of the proteins critical for limb formation, but we found that there are proteins we missed,” said study co-first author ChangHee Lee, research fellow in genetics in the lab of Cliff Tabin at HMS.

The team found that a combination of just three proteins — Prdm16, Zbtb16, and Lin28a — is necessary and sufficient to turn certain non-limb-forming stem cells into limb-forming ones. A fourth protein, Lin41, speeds the process along.

Part of a family called gene transcription factors, these proteins activate a handful of genes inside certain cells in embryonic tissue known as mesenchyme, the researchers revealed. This change in gene activity is what transforms the cells into limb progenitor cells, the team showed.”