ArticlePLoS biology2007
Systemic bud induction and retinoic acid signaling underlie whole body regeneration in the urochordate Botrylloides leachi.
Article in PLoS biology, 2007. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 32 papers.
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Who cites it
32 citing papers in PubMed, 111 citations in OpenAlex.
- Structural immunity: immune cells as architects of tissue barriers.Nature reviews. Immunology · 2026Review
- Proteome-Wide 4-Hydroxy-2-Nonenal Signature of Oxidative Stress in the Marine Invasive Tunicate Botryllus schlosseri.Proteomics · 2025Article
- From fragment to form: whole-body regeneration in a model urochordate.NPJ Regenerative medicine · 2025Review
- De novo genome assembly and comparative genomics for the colonial ascidian Botrylloides violaceus.G3 (Bethesda, Md.) · 2023Article
- Comparing dormancy in two distantly related tunicates reveals morphological, molecular, and ecological convergences and repeated co-option.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- A pan-metazoan concept for adult stem cells: the wobbling Penrose landscape.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2022Article
- Articulating the "stem cell niche" paradigm through the lens of non-model aquatic invertebrates.BMC biology · 2022Review
- Studying Regeneration in Ascidians: An Historical Overview.Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.) · 2022Review
- Studying Tunicata WBR Using Botrylloides anceps.Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.) · 2022Article
- Article
- PiRNA pathway in the cardiovascular system: a novel regulator of cardiac differentiation, repair and regeneration.Journal of molecular medicine (Berlin, Germany) · 2021Review
- Review
- Stem Cells and Innate Immunity in Aquatic Invertebrates: Bridging Two Seemingly Disparate Disciplines for New Discoveries in Biology.Frontiers in immunology · 2021Review
- Beyond Adult Stem Cells: Dedifferentiation as a Unifying Mechanism Underlying Regeneration in Invertebrate Deuterostomes.Frontiers in cell and developmental biology · 2020Review
- De novo draft assembly of the Botrylloides leachii genome provides further insight into tunicate evolution.Scientific reports · 2018Article
- Animal regeneration: ancestral character or evolutionary novelty?EMBO reports · 2017Review
- Retinoic Acid affects Lung Adenocarcinoma growth by inducing differentiation via GATA6 activation and EGFR and Wnt inhibition.Scientific reports · 2017Article
- Uncovering the pathways underlying whole body regeneration in a chordate model, Botrylloides leachi using de novo transcriptome analysis.BMC genomics · 2016Article
- Evolutionary origins of retinoid active short-chain dehydrogenases/reductases of SDR16C family.Chemico-biological interactions · 2015Article
- The roles of endogenous retinoid signaling in organ and appendage regeneration.Cellular and molecular life sciences : CMLS · 2013Review
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Regeneration in adult chordates is confined to a few model cases and terminates in restoration of restricted tissues and organs. Here, we study the unique phenomenon of whole body regeneration (WBR) in the colonial urochordate Botrylloides leachi in which an entire adult zooid is restored from a miniscule blood vessel fragment. In contrast to all other documented cases, regeneration is induced systemically in blood vessels. Multiple buds appear simultaneously in newly established regeneration niches within vasculature fragments, stemming from composites of pluripotent blood cells and terminating in one functional zooid. We found that retinoic acid (RA) regulates diverse developmental aspects in WBR. The homologue of the RA receptor and a retinaldehyde dehydrogenase-related gene were expressed specifically in blood cells within regeneration niches and throughout bud development. The addition of RA inhibitors as well as RNA interference knockdown experiments resulted in WBR arrest and bud malformations. The administration of all-trans RA to blood vessel fragments resulted in doubly accelerated regeneration and multibud formation, leading to restored colonies with multiple zooids. The Botrylloides system differs from known regeneration model systems by several fundamental criteria, including epimorphosis without the formation of blastema and the induction of a "multifocal regeneration niche" system. This is also to our knowledge the first documented case of WBR from circulating blood cells that restores not only the soma, but also the germ line. This unique Botrylloides WBR process could serve as a new in vivo model system for regeneration, suggesting that RA signaling may have had ancestral roles in body restoration events.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.