Researchers studied the Golden apple snail which has eyes similar to cameras. It has structures like lens, retina and cornea similar to human eyes. These snails are resilient and very invasive in lots of parts of the world. Its regeneration ability is important to research because their eyes are so similar to human eyes. They found that when the snails' eye is removed it takes about a month to fully regenerate. This includes reconnecting to the brain and restoring vision, that part takes a little longer than a few months.
The regeneration process happens in phases. Wound healing, which is the first 24 hours, then unspecialized cells migrate, proliferate, and specialize into eye tissues. Over a few weeks the new eyes mature and then become useable.
In relation to humans the PAX6 gene, which is crucial for eye development is also essential in these snails, Using CRISPR-Cas9 the PAX6 gene was disabled in snail embryos. When both copies were inactive snails developed without eyes to show how important this gene is.
These snails are important to study and do research on because they share key genes with humans. They could be used as a model organism to study eye regeneration. The next steps in research they're taking are to test whether PAX6 also plays a role in regenerating the eye not just in the eye's initial development. The goal is to map out the snail's regeneration program then relates it to human eyes to see if regeneration is at all possible.
This was a really interesting post! I had no idea the Golden apple snail had such complex, camera like eyes or that it could regenerate them so completely. The connection to the PAX6 gene and how similar it is between snails and humans makes the research even more exciting. It’s wild to think that studying a small invasive snail could help us understand possibilities for human eye regeneration in the future.
ReplyDeleteI was so close to writing about this too. It's just neat.
ReplyDeleteif this invasive species has the ability to be so beneficial and useful, what other species could also be useful and helpful to us. or could it eventually backfire and cause more harm than good...