Axolotl muscle stem cells cater to different regeneration strategies

Axolotls can regrow both limbs and tails, and scientists assumed that this was done through the same cells and strategies. By showing that muscle stem cells in the tail act differently from muscle stem cells in the limbs, scientists around Ji-Feng Fei (Southern Medical University) including Elly Tanaka of the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology (IMBA) now uncovered a deep divide between regeneration modes. The findings were published in the journal Science Advances.

When an axolotl loses a body part, it can grow it back almost perfectly. A new study on the role of muscle stem cells in regeneration from the labs of Elly Tanaka (IMBA), Ji-Feng Fei (Southern Medical University), Hanbo Li (BGI Research), and Yanmei Liu (South China Normal University), published in the journal Science Advances, now shows that axolotls do in fact not rely on a single, universal “regeneration program”. Instead, they found muscle stem cell strategies that differed fundamentally between the main body axis and appendages.

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Original paper

Liqun Wang, Li Song, Chao Yi, Jing Zhou, Zhouying Yong, Yan Hu, Xiangyu Pan, Na Qiao, Hao Cai, Wandong Zhao, Rui Zhang, Lieke Yang, Lei Liu, Guangdun Peng, Elly M. Tanaka, Hanbo Li, Yanmei Liu, Ji-Feng Fei. "Divergent stem cell mechanisms govern the primary body axis and appendage regeneration in the axolotl." Science Advances, 2026. DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adx5697

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