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Exploring the secret of brain regeneration of "hexagonal dinosaurs", BGI reconstructed its spatial-temporal map of brain regeneration on the cover of Science

author:Readtron.com

Yuan Siru, chief reporter of Shenzhen Business Daily

Can I recover on my own if my brain is injured? On September 2, the first spatio-temporal atlas of salamander brain regeneration was published in the form of back-to-back cover articles in science, a top international academic journal, which is also the world's first spatio-temporal atlas of brain regeneration.

Exploring the secret of brain regeneration of "hexagonal dinosaurs", BGI reconstructed its spatial-temporal map of brain regeneration on the cover of Science

△ There are four international studies related to salamanders on the cover of Science, so it is a back-to-back cover

It is reported that in the past six months, the achievements related to spatiotem-time omics and single-cell technology of BGI have been published in the three top journals of "Cell", "Nature" and "Science" for four consecutive times.

Exploring the secret of brain regeneration of "hexagonal dinosaurs", BGI reconstructed its spatial-temporal map of brain regeneration on the cover of Science

The secret of the regeneration of the "hexagonal dinosaur"

Geckos' tails can regenerate, and the "hexagonal dinosaurs" from Mexico can regenerate not only limbs, tails, eyes, skin and livers, but also regenerate brains.

Exploring the secret of brain regeneration of "hexagonal dinosaurs", BGI reconstructed its spatial-temporal map of brain regeneration on the cover of Science

△ Mexican blunt-mouthed salamander

It is reported that the "protagonist" of this study is called the Mexican blunt-mouthed salamander, which is a kind of salamander, which has a unique shape and has six horns on the head, also known as hexagonal dinosaurs. Because of its strong regenerative ability, it is also used by scientists as an important model organism to study regeneration-related problems.

"In addition to their powerful regenerative abilities, salamanders are more evolutionarily superior to other telesophageal fish and have a higher degree of similarity to mammalian brain structures." At the same time, its gene coding sequence is extremely similar to that of humans, studying the initiation mechanism of salamander brain regeneration, and discovering the key genes in it, or will provide important guidance for the repair of human nervous system damage or degenerative diseases. Dr. Gu Ying, co-corresponding author of the paper and Hangzhou Huada Life Science Research Institute, said.

In this study, the research team composed of BGI and other units first constructed a spatio-temporal map of salamander brain development covering 6 developmental important periods, showing the molecular characteristics of various types of neurons and the dynamic changes of spatial distribution, and found that the salamander brain began to specialize in neural stem cell subtypes with spatial regional characteristics from adolescence.

Exploring the secret of brain regeneration of "hexagonal dinosaurs", BGI reconstructed its spatial-temporal map of brain regeneration on the cover of Science

To study the regeneration process after salamander brain injury, the research team performed mechanical damage surgery on the cortical area of the salamander brain and analyzed brain samples at 7 time points of regeneration, that is, the 2nd, 5th, 10th, 15th, 20th, 30th and 60th days after injury.

The spatiotemporal data showed that new subsets of neural stem cells appeared in the wound area early in the injury. This group of important cells is transformed from other subsets of neural stem cells near the injury area, stimulated by the injury, and regenerated neurons in the subsequent regeneration process to fill the neuronal deletions at the site of injury.

In addition, although the wound begins to be gradually filled with nascent tissue at an early stage, it is not until day 60 after injury that the cell type and spatial distribution of the injured area are observed on the space-time map to return to the state of the uninjured side.

By comparing the neuronal formation process of the salamander brain development and regeneration process, the researchers found that this process is highly similar to the regeneration and development process, suggesting that brain damage may induce the reverse transformation of salamander neural stem cells back to the youthful state of the developmental period to initiate the regeneration process.

"This study is mainly based on the spatiotemporal omics technology Stereo-seq independently developed by BGI, which achieves Nanoscale cell resolution, combined with the advantages of large salamander cells, so that researchers can analyze the important cell types of the salamander brain regeneration process in spatiotemporal single-cell resolution, and track the spatial trajectory of their cell lineage changes." The first author of the paper, Dr. Wei Xiaoyu of Hangzhou Huada Institute of Life Sciences, introduced it.

Take pictures of creatures with an "ultra-wide-angle 10-pixel camera"

If the human body is regarded as a small planet, how big a pixel "camera" is needed to take a panoramic picture of the 37 trillion cells on it?

"If the human body is compared to the earth, the previous technology may be able to understand which organisms are on it, and the space-time omics technology allows us to see which country, region and city each organism is distributed in, and we can also see what they are doing, how to communicate with other species, and even see their past and future, which can be described as an 'ultra-wide-angle ten-billion pixel life camera'." Xu Xun, co-corresponding author of the paper and president of the BGI Research Institute, previously said.

Exploring the secret of brain regeneration of "hexagonal dinosaurs", BGI reconstructed its spatial-temporal map of brain regeneration on the cover of Science

△ Spatial-temporal map of salamander brain regeneration (picture from Science)

It is reported that BGI's spatiotem omics technology was published on the cover of Cell magazine in the form of a cover article in May this year.

"The construction of spatio-temporal cell atlas of salamander brain development and regeneration is of great significance for us to understand the important life process of brain regeneration, the evolution of amphibian brain structure and brain structure, providing us with a new direction for finding effective clinical treatment methods, promoting self-repair and regeneration of human tissues and organs, and providing valuable data resources for species evolution research." Xu Xun said.

It is reported that in the future, BGI will also explore the development and regeneration process of more organs and more species through spatio-temporal multiomics technology, find the key regulatory mechanism in the regeneration process, and help the development of human regenerative medicine.

(Courtesy of BGI)

Review: Sun Shijian

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