Poss, Kenneth DDi Talia, StefanoCox, Ben2020-01-272021-09-122019https://hdl.handle.net/10161/19819<p>Regeneration occurs throughout the animal kingdom and is a well-studied </p><p>feature of many model organisms, yet the field lacks a fundamental understanding of </p><p>the real-time dynamics of cell behavior during regeneration. I discuss how existing </p><p>knowledge of regeneration may be used to inform efforts to translate these remarkable </p><p>feats of animals to human regeneration and present research that uses live imaging to </p><p>improve understanding of cell origins and diversification during regeneration in the </p><p>scale, focusing specifically on osteoblasts the matrix-depositing cells that divide and heal </p><p>bone injuries. I developed an imaging platform to monitor and quantify individual and </p><p>collective behaviors of osteoblasts in adult zebrafish scales. I show that a founder pool </p><p>of osteoblasts emerges through de novo differentiation within one day of scale plucking, </p><p>then diversifies across the primordium by two days after injury, with region-specific </p><p>changes in proliferation, cell shape, and cell death rates coincident with acquisition of </p><p>mature scale morphology. I also demonstrate a role for Fgf signaling in scale </p><p>regeneration and present tools for high resolution imaging studies of basal epidermal </p><p>cells during skin and scale injury. These findings demonstrate the value of live imaging </p><p>in revealing novel biology and gaining a more complete picture of the many complex </p><p>processes that must be elegantly choreographed to achieve tissue regeneration.</p>Developmental biologyBoneEpidermisLive imagingRegenerationscaleZebrafishDissertation