2019-05-13 11:13:56
Some animals display amazing regenerative abilities. Not only primitive vertebrates, such as lizards or salamanders, can regenerate lost organs that may have been taken from them by a predator attack, but mammals such as dolphins have an extraordinary ability to close serious wounds inflicted by shark bites, and this without sign of infection and without leaving scars.
The absence of a scar is, for the experts, a clear sign that in the case of the dolphins something more than the closure of the wound is taking place, and that the tissue itself and the cells that compose it are regenerating until reaching return to the state prior to the injury.
The regenerative capacity of dolphins and other marine animals, including sharks, has spurred research into the genes and molecules that could be responsible for it, some of which probably also acted as antibiotics to prevent infection. , or stimulated the immune system to control it. This is how a natural molecule present in the skin of a species of shark was discovered. This molecule was baptized, thanks to the legendary imagination of scientists to come up with original names, such as MSI-1436. Research on this molecule has revealed that it can act as a drug capable of enhancing tissue regeneration in laboratory mice, a necessary step before being able to think about using the compound in humans.
Let’s stop for a moment to calmly visit what the regeneration process entails. Dead or damaged cells must be replaced by healthy cells. These must be generated from stem cells or precursor cells, and this must happen with all the different cell types that make up a tissue or an organ. To do this, not only cell division processes must be set in motion, but also cell maturation processes that, from the precursor cells, generate adult cells of the correct types, in the correct proportions and in the correct places in the organ to be regenerated. , so that aberrant structures do not occur during regeneration. All these processes require the coordinated functioning of hundreds of genes, and also require orderly communication between cells, so that they can organize themselves correctly.
Despite the complexity of this process, once triggered, it works automatically. This should not surprise anyone, because if regeneration is complex, the generation of the entire organism from a fertilized ovum is even more so, and it also happens automatically. Consequently, the fundamental problem of the regeneration process is to trigger it, since normally this process is stopped and, moreover, in most of the higher animal species, the process is not activated in adult individuals, which can close wounds, but not actually regenerate damaged organ parts. However, if it gets started, the process progresses on its own.
A new regenerative molecule
This situation supposes, in many cases, what I call an evolutionary “somersault”. The most primitive animals can easily regenerate damaged or lost organs or limbs. Something had to happen throughout evolution for the most complex animals to lose that ability. However, the investigations carried out indicate that the higher animals have not completely lost it, but simply have it “asleep”. In particular, we have the ability to strongly stimulate cell multiplication, an essential requirement to start the regeneration process.
This is where the new molecule steps in. MSI-1436. This molecule acts by inactivating the brake for cell reproduction. In the case of humans and other mammals, although perhaps not in the case of dolphins, this brake is too potentiated and blocks cell division. the molecule MSI-1436 prevents the functioning of the most important enzyme for the activity of this brake.
Studies carried out in laboratory mice have revealed that when they are subjected to an experimentally controlled myocardial infarction and their hearts are thus damaged, they regenerate the damage in a clearly superior way when administered MSI-1436. Drug-stimulated regeneration may be even superior to that achieved by stem cell infusion. The administration of MSI-1436 doubled the blood-pumping capacity of untreated hearts, the extent of the scar was reduced by half, and cardiac muscle cells proliferated six times more than without treatment.
Mice given myocardial infarction in the laboratory are not a good approximation of the human case. The best approximation to this are pigs, since their hearts are much more similar to ours (and their brains are sometimes indistinguishable from those of depending on which people). For this reason, studies with pigs have been initiated to analyze the regenerative capacity of MSI-1436 in the hearts of these animals. If successful, these studies will allow the start of clinical trials with MSI-1436 in patients who have suffered myocardial infarctions.
These studies are good proof that natural molecules generated by some animals, some of them forgotten by evolution and by science, could be of great help in treating diseases that plague humanity. Let us hope so in the case, at least, of MSI-1436.
Referencia: (1) Ashley M. Smith (2017). The protein tyrosine phosphatase 1B inhibitor MSI-1436 stimulates regeneration of heart and multiple other tissues (2) Strange, K and Viravuth Y (2019). A shot at regeneration. Scientific American April 2019, pp 57.
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