TOKYO (Reuters) – Japanese researchers have shown that a type of sea snail is capable of decapitating and regrowing their bodies, a discovery that could have implications for regenerative medicine.
The mechanism is thought to be an extreme method for the organism to release parasites, researchers Sayaka Mitoh and Yoichi Yusa wrote in a study published in Current Biology this week. The green snails have algae in their skin, so they can feed light like a plant until they develop a new body, which lasts about 20 days.
Mitoh, a doctoral researcher at Nara Women’s University, once noticed that a sea snail, known as a sacoglossan, spontaneously detached its head from its body.
“I was surprised and thought it was going to die, but it kept moving and eating energetically,” Mitoh said. “I watched it for a while and it regenerated his heart and body.”
This led to a study that showed that five of the 15 snails in the laboratory and one from nature split his body from a certain point on the neck during their lives. One has done this twice. The animal’s heart remained in the body each time, which remained alive for some time but did not grow a head again.
“One of the wonderful things about stem cells is that they can be used to regenerate a heart and body from the edge of the animal,” Mitoh said. “With further study, we may be able to apply these findings to regenerative medicine, but it is still a distant hope.”
Other animals are known to intentionally detach and regrow body parts, a mechanism known as autotomy, but this extreme form was previously unknown, the researchers said.
They initially thought it might be a method of escaping predators, but they now think it was done to get rid of parasites that inhibit reproduction.
Reporting by Rikako Murayama and Rocky Swift in Tokyo; Edited by Karishma Singh