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Salamander regrows lost legs and tails—as its DNA does

Have you ever fallen off a bike? Broken your knee? You know that excruciating moment when it hurts and then the skin heals for weeks? Now imagine: you have a finger cut off, and two months later, a new one grows in its place, with a nail, nerves, and bones. Magic? No. It's a normal thing for an axolotl salamander.

Axolotl is a pink salamander with fluffy gills on its head. It lives in the lakes of Mexico. And it can do what all medicine dreams of: regrow lost body parts. A paw. A tail. A piece of the heart. Even part of the brain!

When a salamander loses a limb, a special tumor of cells called a "blastema" forms at the site of the wound. These cells seem to forget who they were before. Skin, muscles, bones - everything becomes the same "blank slate". And then the blastema reprograms itself and begins to build a new paw. Exactly the same as the previous one. With the same bones, nerves, blood vessels.

In 8 weeks, the new paw is ready. It works like the old one. And this can happen several times during the salamander's life!

Scientists managed to decipher the axolotl genome in 2018. It is 10 times larger than a human's! And it contains the secrets of regeneration. Perhaps in 20-30 years, doctors will learn to grow organs in humans. Because our DNA has the same genes - they are simply "sleeping.".

Every living being is a library, see Axolotl - one of the most important books. Let's take care of it until we finish reading it.