The road to investigating an ancestral mammal, Tenrec ecaudatus, as a model for mammalian heart regeneration
I am currently a 2nd year integrative physiology PhD student in Dr. Frank van Breukelen’s laboratory at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. The core focus of my dissertation is to investigate the physiology of Tenrec ecaudatus through functional imaging.
Tenrecs are bizarre basoendothermic Afrotherian mammals. They are endemic to Madagascar and its surrounding islands where ambient temperatures often fluctuate >30°C and <20°C. Interestingly, they possess numerous ancestral features, such as a tiny smooth brain (encephalization quotient <0.1), internal testes caudal to the kidneys, the presence of a cloaca, the capacity for indeterminate growth, as well as weird embryology that resembles monotremes, and more! Even more so, they are capable of extreme thermal and metabolic plasticity, such that an active tenrec at an ambient temperature of 12 °C may still possess a body temperature between 12-34°C and experience a 25-fold range in oxygen consumption. Arguably, they are truly remarkable plastic animals.
Dr. Guo Huang’s lab explores the potential for cardiac regeneration from an evolutionary perspective. Their recent publication suggests that adult heterothermic and heterometabolic mammals may experience significant levels of cardiac regeneration following insult. This RCN-sponsored lab exchange allowed us to bridge the gap and bring our animals to Dr. Guo Huang’s lab at UCSF in order to begin exploring the links between heterometabolism and heart regeneration.
Undoubtedly, this exchange has given me the opportunity to value the rigor of a collaborative project. We are currently in the process of implementing a cryoinjury cardiac model in the tenrecs here at UNLV and anticipate future collaboration with the Huang lab! I am very grateful for the opportunity to meet members of the Huang lab and the robust UCSF LARC team for making me feel welcomed during my visit.
“A thinker sees his own actions as experiments and questions– as attempts to find out something. Success and failure are for him answers above all.” –Friedrich Nietzsche
Figure 3. The San Fran views!
