Analysis of the developmental bioelectricity involved in regeneration
Analysis of the developmental bioelectricity involved in regeneration lead image
Planaria, a type of flatworm, are champions of regeneration. Their bioelectric network allows growth and remodeling to produce a specific invariant anatomy from a relatively small segment of an adult worm.
Levin and Grodstein computationally analyzed the minimal models of bioelectric circuits in regenerating planaria to determine the stability and robustness of these transformative design properties.
Bioelectric signaling is implemented by changing the resting membrane potentials that exist across the surface membranes of a living organism’s cells. The channels and gap junctions between these cells are voltage-sensitive, complex transitions. Feedback loops, memory, pattern recognition, and computation can exist within these networks.
Although the molecular details of single cell voltage signaling and gene expression are understood, the general principles of bioelectric networks are mostly unknown. This analysis yields insight into how bioelectric networks set the shape and size of new structures during embryogenesis and regeneration.
“The more we understand these kinds of circuits, the better we can design interventions – manipulations of natural bioelectric events to cause better outcomes, such as repair of birth defects or improved regeneration of missing/damaged tissue,” said co-author Michael Levin.
Common electrical principles, such as Ohm’s Law, system-level loop gain, and dominant-time-constant analysis, are also related to this work.
“This paper has applied a system-level robustness analysis to one particular hypothesis of how flatworms regenerate head-to-tail chemical gradients,” said co-author Joel Grodstein.
Information from the study may be used in future morphogenetic control applications, such as bioengineering synthetic living machines or growing organs ex vivo for transplantation.
Source: “Stability and robustness properties of bioelectric networks: A computational approach,” by Michael Levin and Joel Grodstein, Biophysics Reviews (2021). This article may be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0062442 .
