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Science 13 May 2005:
Vol. 308. no. 5724, p. 948
DOI: 10.1126/science.308.5724.948a
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Random Samples
The zoology laboratory of Dungar College in the small town of Bikaner in the Indian state of Rajasthan has some strange inmates: more than 50 three- eyed frogs. The amphibians have confirmed a long-held suspicion of developmental biologists that pineal glands retain the ability to respond to light and even to form into eyes.
Zoologist Om Prakash Jangir and his colleagues earlier found that if they removed tadpoles' eyes and raised the animals in a medium enriched with vitamin A, a new eye developed within 10 days over the site of the pineal gland. The researchers then transplanted tadpole pineal glands between the eyes of month-old frogs. With the help of some vitamin A, most of the amphibians developed third eyes within 15 days, the scientists report in the May issue of the Indian Journal of Experimental Biology.
"In lower vertebrates, the pineal organ had a visual role which got lost during evolution. Our experiments show that this vestigial organ can be activated in vertebrates," says Jangir. Both the eyes and the pineal organ depend on similar developmental signals in the embryo and express the same homeobox gene, he says. Ramesh Ramachandra Bhonde of the National Center for Cell Science in Pune calls the achievement "an important milestone" that contributes to the value of the pineal gland as a model in studies of both evolution and development.
CREDIT: P. JANGIR |
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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)
