A zebrafish can repair its heart if it gets damaged.
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| photo credit Thierry Marysael |
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Zebrafish are useful experimental animals: their genome has been fully sequenced, their bodies are transparent, and their developing embryos are fairly robust. Even more impressively, their hearts have the ability to regenerate after damage. Zebrafish can lose up to 20 per cent of their heart muscle without long-term consequences, as they can repair the damage completely within eight weeks.
Adult mammals lack this superpower. Although some newborn mammals (such as mice) can regenerate damaged heart tissue, this ability vanishes as they mature. During a heart attack, heart muscle cells are deprived of oxygen and they die, leaving scar tissue.
[source: NewScientist]
[source: NewScientist]
