Positional plasticity in regenerating Amybstoma mexicanum limbs is associated with cell proliferation and pathways of cellular differentiation

The Mexican axolotl can regenerate limbs by forming a blastema, a group of cells that can differentiate into missing tissues. Cells in the connective tissues retain memory of their original position and use this to generate the pattern of the missing structure. Some blastema cells are plastic and can be reprogrammed to obtain new positional information, while others are stable. Early bud and apical late bud blastema cells are plastic, while basal-LB cells are stable. Histological and transcriptional approaches were used to compare early bud, apical late bud, and basal late bud cell populations to identify the cellular and molecular basis of variation in positional information.

• 1
  Basal-LB samples showed greater tissue organization than EB and apical-LB samples.
• 2
  Cell proliferation was more abundant in EB and apical-LB tissue compared to basal-LB and mature stump tissue.
• 3
  Genes associated with cellular differentiation were expressed more highly in the basal-LB samples.