How Sea Anemone Cells Come Together to Form an Organism Again
New Insights into the Self-Organization and Regeneration of Tissues
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Researchers at the University of Vienna have discovered a key mechanism that enables sea anemones to rebuild a fully formed organism from disorganized clusters of cells. The study, published in *Nature Communications*, shows that the so-called Notch signaling pathway controls tissue organization and the formation of the body axis. The findings provide new insights into the fundamental rules of biological self-organization and could help us better understand how tissues form, organize themselves, and regenerate after disruptions.
Illustrative image
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Self-organizing cell cluster at an early stage (A) and after the oral axis and germ layers have formed.
Copyright: Sanjay Narayanaswamy, Ulrich Technau
Animal development follows genetic programs that control the formation of cells, tissues, and body structures. At the same time, these processes are remarkably robust: Many organisms can restore their ordered body organization even after significant disruptions. How this ability to self-organize is controlled at the molecular level is still only partially understood.
The research team led by Ulrich Technau at the Faculty of Life Sciences at the University of Vienna investigated how cell aggregates of the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis reform into a complete organism after being separated. Despite their simple body structure, sea anemones possess developmental genes and mechanisms that are also found in other animals. Among these evolutionarily conserved mechanisms is the Notch-Delta signaling pathway, a communication system between neighboring cells that was the focus of the study.
A single signaling pathway coordinates the formation of tissues and the body axis
When sea anemone cells are separated from one another and then brought back together, a fully formed organism re-emerges within a few days. In the process, the body axis and tissue layers are restored to their correct spatial arrangement—reproducibly and without the addition of any growth factors. First author Sanjay Narayanaswamy was able to demonstrate that the Notch signaling pathway is crucial for this process. It ensures that cells sort themselves correctly and that different tissue types are separated from one another. If the signaling pathway is experimentally blocked, this organization no longer occurs. At the same time, Notch also controls the formation of the body axis.
Interplay of Key Developmental Pathways
Further experiments showed that the Notch signaling pathway works closely with the Wnt signaling pathway, which also plays a central role in body axis formation and development. The interaction of such networks enables biological systems to reestablish ordered structures even after significant disruptions.
Relevance Beyond the Sea Anemone
The ability of cells to self-organize is fundamental to the formation and regeneration of tissues. Since Notch and Wnt signaling pathways are also present in many other animals and in humans, these findings extend beyond the biology of the sea anemone. “Our goal is to understand why cnidarians can use these molecular mechanisms to form complete organisms so efficiently through self-organization,” says Ulrich Technau. “We hope to derive general principles of tissue organization and regeneration from this.”
Note: This article has been translated using a computer system without human intervention. LUMITOS offers these automatic translations to present a wider range of current news. Since this article has been translated with automatic translation, it is possible that it contains errors in vocabulary, syntax or grammar. The original article in German can be found here.
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