Fibroblast Dedifferentiation as a Determinant of Successful Regeneration

Limb regeneration, while observed lifelong in salamanders, is restricted to pre-metamorphic stages in Xenopus laevis frogs. After amputation, post-metamorphic frogs form a blastema that grows only an unsegmented cartilage rod. Whether this loss is due to systemic factors such as the immune system or due to an intrinsic incapability of cells to form competent stem cells has been unclear. Here, we use genetic fate mapping to establish that, as in axolotl, connective tissue (CT) cells form the post-metamorphic frog blastema. Using heterochronic transplantation into the limb bud and single-cell transcriptomic profiling, we show that axolotl CT cells fully dedifferentiate and integrate to form lineages including cartilage in the developing limb. In contrast, frog blastema CT cells do not fully re-express the limb bud progenitor program, even when transplanted into the limb bud. Correspondingly, transplanted cells contribute to extraskeletal CT but not to developing cartilage. Further, using single-cell RNA-seq analysis we find that the embryonic and the adult frog cartilage differentiation programs are molecularly distinct. This work defines intrinsic restrictions in CT dedifferentiation as a limitation in adult regeneration.