The ability of an organism to regrow tissues is regulated by various signaling pathways. One such pathway that has been studied widely both in the context of regeneration and development is the Notch signaling pathway. Notch is required for the development of the eye and regeneration of tissues in multiple organisms, but it is unknown if Notch plays a role in the regulation of Xenopus laevis embryonic eye regrowth. We found that Notch1 is required for eye regrowth and regulates retinal progenitor cell proliferation. Chemical and molecular inhibition of Notch1 significantly decreased eye regrowth by reducing retinal progenitor cell proliferation without affecting retinal differentiation. Temporal inhibition studies showed that Notch function is required during the first day of regrowth. Interestingly, Notch1 loss-of-function phenocopied the effects of the inhibition of the proton pump, vacuolar-type ATPase (V-ATPase), where retinal proliferation but not differentiation was blocked during eye regrowth. Overexpression of a form of activated Notch1, the Notch intracellular domain (NICD) rescued the loss of eye regrowth due to V-ATPase inhibition. These findings highlight the importance of the Notch signaling pathway in eye regeneration and its role in inducing retinal progenitor cell proliferation in response to injury.
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Characterization of intrauterine growth, proliferation and biomechanical properties of the murine larynx
Current research approaches employ traditional tissue engineering strategies to promote vocal fold (VF) tissue regeneration, whereas recent novel advances seek to use principles of developmental biology to guide tissue generation by mimicking native developmental cues, causing tissue or allogenic/autologous progenitor cells to undergo the regeneration process. To address the paucity of data to direct VF differentiation and subsequent new tissue formation, we characterize structure-proliferation relationships and tissue elastic moduli over embryonic development using a murine model. Growth, cell proliferation, and tissue biomechanics were taken at E13.5, E15.5, E16.5, E18.5, P0, and adult time points. Quadratic growth patterns were found in larynx length, maximum transverse diameter, outer dorsoventral diameter, and VF thickness; internal VF length was found to mature linearly. Cell proliferation measured with EdU in the coronal and transverse planes of the VFs was found to decrease with increasing age. Exploiting atomic force microscopy, we measured significant differences in tissue stiffness across all time points except between E13.5 and E15.5. Taken together, our results indicate that as the VF mature and develop quadratically, there is a concomitant tissue stiffness increase. Greater gains in biomechanical stiffness at later prenatal stages, correlated with reduced cell proliferation, suggest that extracellular matrix deposition may be responsible for VF thickening and increased biomechanical function, and that the onset of biomechanical loading (breathing) may also contribute to increased stiffness. These data provide a profile of VF biomechanical and growth properties that can guide the development of biomechanically-relevant scaffolds and progenitor cell differentiation for VF tissue regeneration.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1720415
- PAR ID:
- 10384246
- Editor(s):
- Jetté, Marie
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- PLOS ONE
- Volume:
- 16
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 1932-6203
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- e0245073
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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