The Notophthalmus Viridescens Newt Essay Example

The Notophthalmus viridescens newt, also referred to as the Eastern red-spotted newt, is a semi-aquatic amphibian classified under the family Salamandridae. This creature is one of Earth’s several species that are capable of regenerating their body cells and tissues after experiencing trauma, damage, or injury to various appendages, neural/brain tissues, the heart, eyes, and the spinal cord. Specifically, analyzing the newts' limbs, injury to an appendage can initiate regeneration pathways which results in the restoration of the limb to its optimal functioning condition. Regeneration is defined as a multi-step cellular process that allows the body to recreate damaged, broken, or nonfunctional cells and tissues resulting from a wound or injury. Oftentimes, these injured limbs are recreated without showing any signs of the previous damage and exhibit minimal scarring (Iten and Bryant, 1973). Regeneration is a physiological process that demonstrates the process of the continuous cell and tissue replacement, thus functioning as a critical survival tactic to the Notophthalmus viridescens newt.

Regenerative qualities have claimed the Eastern red-spotted newt as a notable model organism in the scientific community. This species is known for its contributing advancements towards research pertaining to regenerative mechanisms about transcriptomes, or the collection of transcribed genes at any time. To conduct these types of studies, laboratory experiments are restricted to transcriptome focuses because of the Notophthalmus viridescens’ developmental habitat needs and long generation time. Requiring a semi-aquatic environment and having a generation of two years puts various restrictions upon the conduction of close observational laboratory studies (Abdullayev et al., 2013). Furthermore, it is important to note that the newt.