Regeneration (biology) - Tissues and Organs

Tissues and Organs

"Regenerative strategies include the rearrangement of pre-existing tissue, the use of adult somatic stem cells and the dedifferentiation and/or transdifferentiation of cells, and more than one mode can operate in different tissues of the same animal. All these strategies result in the re-establishment of appropriate tissue polarity, structure and form." During the developmental process genes are activated that serve to modify the properties of cell as they differentiate into different tissues. Development and regeneration involves the coordination and organization of populations cells into a blastema, which is "a mound of stem cells from which regeneration begins." Dedifferentiation of cells means that they lose their tissue-specific characteristics as tissues remodel during the regeneration process. Transdifferentiation of cells is when they lose their tissue-specific characteristics during the regeneration process, and then re-differentiate to a different kind of cell.