Check your subscription status, update your details and more. Breathing out after birth switches off the ability of tissues to regenerate, a study in mice suggests. But the pathway seems to be reversible Newborn mice may retain the ability to regenerate neurons if they breathe CO2-rich air Taking our first breaths marks the beginning of a new life, yet this may be the very act that limits our ability to grow and heal as adults.
Studies in mice have pinned down a newborn’s exhalation of carbon dioxide, immediately after birth, as the starting gun that switches off their cells’ intrinsic ability to regenerate. But when grown mice inhaled the gas, the regenerative pathways turned back on, a discovery He hopes could lead to targeted medical treatments. The results are“very tantalising”, says Nahum Sonenberg at McGill University in Canada.
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