Plasticity and reprogramming of differentiated ocular tissue of tadpoles of the frog, Euphlyctis cyanophlyctis under the influence of vitamin A.

ABSTRACT

Present study has shown that differentiated cell types may loose their definitive characteristics and acquire features of another specialized cell type. Young (3 toe stage) and mature (5 toe stage) tadpoles of the frog, Euphylictis cyanophlyctis were employed as experimental animals. Experiments were completed in two phases in the first part of experiment, lenses were extracted from right eye balls of tadpoles and treated with vitamin A; in the second part of the experiment, meshed lentectomized eye ball tissues were implanted into the pit made on mid lateral position of the tail of young and mature tadpoles and were treated with vitamin A. The results obtained gave clear evidence of plasticity and reprogramming of terminally differentiated ocular tissue into lens, retina and even complete eye. Vitamin A was found to be good model for accelerating the reprogramming of differentiated ocular tissue in anuran frog tadpoles.