Scarlet Sea Cucumber Tube Feet Survived Over Three Years After Detachment While Body-Wall Tissue Died Within Weeks

After detachment, scarlet sea cucumber tube feet and tentacles survived more than three years in flowing seawater, while body-wall tissues cut off at the same time died within weeks. The finding came from work published May 29 in Science Advances. Marine ecologist Annie Mercier at Memorial University of Newfoundland in St.

John’s noticed the effect during a routine transfer of the animals between tanks. A colleague saw that one sea cucumber had left behind several podia, the small tubelike structures used for movement. Body wall tissues cut off with a scalpel died within weeks, but tube feet and tentacles remained intact.

Researchers watched the surviving tissues clean the cut wound, clear dead cells, divide living cells, and absorb labeled amino acids added to the seawater. The pieces also stayed intact after burial in a few centimeters of mud. ” “It’s a piece of tissue that isn’t decaying.

It’s still acquiring nutrients, reshaping itself, evolving and doing all sorts of living things, yet it’s not necessarily a living organism in the traditional sense,” she said. José García Arrarás, a regenerative biologist at the University of Puerto Rico in San Juan who was not involved in the study, said the tissues could help researchers examine aging.

“They have tissues that are a week old and others three years old, coming from the same original tissue,” he said.

He noted that identifying the cell types present would be a necessary next step.