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TISSUE REGENERATION in the Classroom!Author(s): Lama Hassoun, Whitney Hable, Tracie Payne-FerreiraSource: The American Biology Teacher, 70(9):e43-e43. 2008.Published By: National Association of Biology TeachersDOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1662/0002-7685-70.9.e43URL: http://www.bioone.org/doi/full/10.1662/0002-7685-70.9.e43

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R E C O M M E N D AT I O N

L A M A H A S S O U N W H I T N E Y H A B L E T R A C I E P AY N E - F E R R E I R A

TISSUE REGENERATION in the Classroom!

TISSUE REGENERATION

The zebrafish are easy to handle and recover well from anesthetic.

• Instructor “practice” is encouraged to determine how “strong” your anesthetic is acting.

• Believe it or not, smaller fish tend to fall asleep more slowly. A good dose of Tricaine will cause the fish to fall asleep within 30 seconds usually. If it is taking three to five minutes, try more.

• Fish CPR: When you return the fish into regular fish water, you should see its gills inflating even if it is not “swimming.” If there is no gill activity, you can flush water in through the gills with a small plastic transfer pipet. Once the gills are active, the fish will soon begin swimming.

Rate of regenerationThe tissue regeneration can be accelerated by temperature.

Heaters can be purchased at the pet store.

Suggestions

• The fish can tolerate temperatures up to 31 °C or 88 °F. For more dramatic results in one week or even a few days, increase the temperature.

• You can also add a “variable” to the experiment and form a hypothesis by doing regeneration rates at two different temperatures as opposed to the inhibitor.

• The length of the experiment can be extended to deter-mine how long it takes to fully regenerate the lost fin.

Perhaps use two different temperatures. If you measure many time points, you may be able to incorporate graphs showing the rate of regeneration.

Additional area formulasCalculate area:

(if triangle) = 1/2 B X H

(if trapezoid) = H X1/2(B1+B2)

Helpful Hints for Adapting This Exercise for Pre-College Students