The report published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States on the 23rd shows that sea spiders have amazing regeneration capabilities.

(AFP)

[Compiled by Guan Shuping/Comprehensive Report] The scientific community has a good understanding of the ability to regenerate severed limbs of arthropods, but it is not believed that the body organs of arthropods also have this ability to regenerate.

However, a new study published on the 23rd reversed this view, pointing out that sea spiders can not only regenerate broken limbs, but even lose reproductive organs and anus, they can grow new and functional new organs, which made researchers Big surprise.

The study, a collaboration between Gerhard Scholtz, professor of biology at Humboldt University, and Georg Brenneis, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Vienna, cut off the hind limbs and rear body of sea spiders (Pycnogonum litorale) and found that this This kind of organism can regenerate multiple body structures and organs, including muscle tissue, hindgut, anus, and even the genitals of sea spiders have this regeneration ability.

"No one expected this," Shorts said. "In terms of arthropods, it was completely unknown that they could regenerate body parts other than feet."

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In the study, 23 sea spiders were tested, and most of the 19 juvenile sea spiders regenerated new body parts: 16 regenerated at least one lost body part, 14 regenerated the rear half of the body; the other 4 Only the older sea spiders did not regenerate any body parts, Brenes said, perhaps because the adult sea spiders no longer molt, suggesting that regeneration and molt may be somehow related.

There are also two young sea spiders that did not regenerate any parts and survived with only 4 legs and no anus. They regurgitated their excrement and expelled it from their mouths.

90% of the sea spiders whose limbs were severed survived for a long time, and 16 juvenile sea spiders molted at least once.

However, the newly grown organs will always have some "flaws", such as the regenerated genitals will be slightly offset from the original genitals.

The study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) on the 23rd.

Shorts said arthropods had previously been thought to have hard shells that prevented them from regenerating body parts, so regeneration was limited to their feet, but his study found that the animals began to regenerate "within weeks or months." Re-grow new body parts.

The findings should inspire further research in different species of arthropods to see if other arthropods can regenerate parts other than their feet, Schotz said, and such research could eventually help regenerative medicine in humans.

"There's always hope," Shorts said.