The African clawed frog could provide researchers with a “blueprint for eye tissue regeneration”.1
Researchers at the University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV) in the United States, recently observed that certain frog larvae can regrow their eyeballs.
According to UNLV, Professor Kelly Tseng, life sciences professor and recipient of a 2023 Rosalind Franklin Society Award in Science for outstanding research, “having knowledge about how other vertebrates regrow their eyes is going to help us improve human eye therapeutics”.
The ongoing study intends to identify the mechanisms that stimulate the frog’s regenerative qualities, and discover the genes specifically required for regeneration to take place.
“We’re connecting what we learned from the frogs to what we know about human eye health, and making links between them,” said Prof Tseng. “We have a new model that has not been studied or identified previously, so any new result is extremely exciting and can contribute to the field. This research is a bit of a blank canvas.”
The African clawed frog (Xenopus laevis) is an established biomedical model for research with high regenerability. From larval stages to adulthood, it can regenerate limbs, retinas, and even optic nerves.
“Frogs are a very classic model for understanding developmental biology, and our hope is that they’ll see us through to the finish line with answers,” she said.
Reference
- University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Finding the future of eye care with frogs, news centre, available at: unlv.edu/news/article/finding-future-eye-care-frogs [access May 2025].
