Abstract

HERNANDEZ RAMIREZ, Porfirio. Biological regeneration: Secrets of nature. Rev Cubana Hematol Inmunol Hemoter [online]. 2006, vol.22, n.3. ISSN 0864-0289.

In a greater or lesser extent, nature has provided different organisms with the regenerative capacity, both in the field of botany and of zoology. Among the new methods to improve the characteristics and dissemination of plants we find the regeneration techniques of plants in vitro, including the organogenesis and the somatic embriogenesis that give the possibility to form the so-called “artificial seeds”. In zoology, it has been observed the regenerative capacity of some animals, such as planarians, hydras, starfish and crustacean. Many vertebrates have lost, at least in a significant way, the regenerative potentiality of most of their organs and tissues. However, some have retained a marked regenerative ability, among them, the  Teleostei,  the Urodela (salamanders and tritons) and other types of amphibia.  The Chelonia, crocodriles and snakes have lost in general the capacity to regenerate lost parts. Alligators have the possibility to regenerate their tails. Mammals have also limitations, since they cannot regenerate extremities, organs and tissues as some inferior animals do.  There are exceptions, as those found in stags, dolphins and  some type of mice as the MRL mice. The human being expresses only some physiological regenerative processes, or before some injuries that are mainly manifested in the epidermal cells of the oral mucosa and of the respiratory tract, the  blood cells, the hair, the nails, the muscular tissue, the skin and the bone tissue. The new knowledge on the stem cell opens a new era that offers man the possibility to influence therapeutically on the regeneration of organs and tissues

Keywords : Biological regeneration; stem cells; plants; animals; regenerative medicine.