Slicing across kingdoms: regeneration in plants and animals

Kenneth D Birnbaum1, Alejandro Sánchez Alvarado

  • 1Department of Biology, Center for Genomics and Systems Biology, New York University, New York, NY 10003, USA. ken.birnbaum@nyu.edu

Cell
|February 26, 2008
PubMed

Related Concept Videos

Meristems and Plant Growth02:36

Meristems and Plant Growth

Plants grow throughout their lives; this is called indeterminate growth, and it distinguishes plants from most animals. Although certain parts of plants stop growing (e.g., leaves and flowers), others grow continuously—like roots and stems.
36.3K
Primary and Secondary Growth in Roots and Shoots03:02

Primary and Secondary Growth in Roots and Shoots

Vascular plants, which account for over 90% of the Earth’s vegetation, all undergo primary growth—which lengthens roots and shoots. Many land plants, notably woody plants, also undergo secondary growth—which thickens roots and shoots.
46.7K
Asexual Reproduction02:38

Asexual Reproduction

Asexual reproduction allows plants to reproduce without growing flowers, attracting pollinators, or dispersing seeds. Offspring are genetically identical to the parent and produced without the fusion of male and female gametes.
28.7K
Animal and Plant Cell Structure01:30

Animal and Plant Cell Structure

Animal and plant cells not only differ in their structure, function, and mode of nutrition but also in how they reproduce, specialize, and organize into complex structures.
Cell Division
Though both plant and animal cells divide by mitosis (for non-gametic cells) and meiosis (for gametic cells), they differ in the specifics of this process. Unlike animal cells, plant cells lack centrosomes — an organelle responsible for organizing the spindle fibers and segregating the chromosomes during...
31.4K
Overview of Regeneration and Repair01:19

Overview of Regeneration and Repair

Regeneration and repair processes are critical in healing damages caused by injury, disease, and aging. In regeneration, the damaged tissue is entirely replaced with new growth that restores the original architecture and function. In contrast, tissue repair usually results in a fixed tissue architecture involving scar formation. Scars generally do not reestablish tissue function and may also exhibit structural abnormalities at the injury site.
Regeneration
All animals have varying degrees of...
4.8K
Whole Body Regeneration01:33

Whole Body Regeneration

Regeneration is the process of restoring injured or lost tissues, organs, or body parts. While simpler organisms generally show greater ability to regenerate their whole body, few complex animals show similarly exceptional regeneration. For example, planarian flatworms have a unique regenerative potential making them a popular study organism among biologists to understand the mechanisms of whole body regeneration. Other organisms, such as hydra, also show extreme regeneration potential;...
3.6K