Recent advancements in understanding fin regeneration in zebrafish

Abstract

Zebrafish have the remarkable ability to fully regenerate a lost appendage, faithfully restoring its size, shape and tissue patterning. Studies over the past decades have identified mechanisms underlying the formation, spatial organization, and regenerative growth of the blastema, a pool of proliferative progenitor cells. The patterning of newly forming tissue is tightly regulated to ensure proper rebuilding of anatomy. Precise niche regulation of retinoic acid and sonic hedgehog signaling ensures adherence to ray—interray boundaries. The molecular underpinnings of systems underlying re‐establishment of pre‐amputation size and shape (positional information) are also slowly starting to emerge. Osteoblasts play an important role as a cellular source of regenerating skeletal elements, and in zebrafish both osteoblast dedifferentiation as well as de novo osteoblast formation occurs. Both dedifferentiation and proliferation are tightly controlled, which makes it interesting to compare it to tumorigenesis, and to identify potential players involved in these processes. This article is categorized under: Adult Stem Cells, Tissue Renewal, and Regeneration > Regeneration

Zebrafish: A Resourceful Vertebrate Model to Investigate Skeletal Disorders

“…Zebrafish's ability to repair caudal fin rays and scales has led to the optimization of specific histological protocols for these tissues involving both tissue sectioning as well as whole organ analysis (263). The analysis of histological sections has made clear that during regeneration in the caudal fin rays, cells near the site of injury can dedifferentiate, proliferate and replace the damaged or missing cells (196,264).…”

Zebrafish: A Suitable Tool for the Study of Cell Signaling in Bone

“…In mammals, the capacity to repair bone defects is limited because of restricted osteoblast potentiality, particularly reduced in the elderly and in pathological conditions [ 53 , 54 , 55 ] is and completely absent in case of large bone lesions or appendage amputation. By contrast, zebrafish is able to regenerate a variety of tissues, including bone, and whole body parts such as fins―following amputation―by completely and repeatedly restoring size, shape, and tissue patterning [ 56 ]. After fin amputation, mature osteoblasts dedifferentiate into preosteoblasts by losing the mature osteoblast marker bglap/osteocalcin and then migrate toward the amputation/regeneration site, where they re-differentiate, maintaining their commitment to the osteoblast fate.…”

Genetically encoded thiol redox-sensors in the zebrafish model: lessons for embryonic development and regeneration

“…The regeneration process easiest to study in zebrafish is probably fin regeneration, which is initiated for example by clipping of the distal part of the tail fin (Sehring and Weidinger 2020). In an initial wound response, leukocytes are recruited and the wound is closed by an epidermal cap.…”