Study
Skin shedding and tissue regeneration in African spiny mice (Acomys)
Seifert, Ashley W.; Kiama, Stephen G.; Seifert, Megan G.; Goheen, Jacob R.; Palmer, Todd M.; Maden, Malcolm
Nature, 2012
Skin strength and wound healing were compared between African spiny mice and ordinary laboratory mice, including full-thickness skin wounds and ear punches, with the regenerated tissue examined histologically for hair follicles, glands and cartilage.
- Studied in
- Acomys kempi, Acomys percivali, Mus musculus
- Sample size
- spiny mice and laboratory mice compared across wound types
Spiny mouse skin tears far more readily than ordinary mouse skin — an escape adaptation — and the animals heal large wounds by regenerating skin complete with hair follicles, glands and cartilage rather than by forming scar tissue. Ear punches closed with regenerated tissue including cartilage, where laboratory mice scar.
What it means
The authors' reading, and ours. Where they differ, that difference is the point.
How the authors put it
Scar-free regeneration of complex skin structures occurs in a mammal, indicating that the capacity is not absent from mammals but is unusual.
How NatureHQ reads it
The reason this matters for a regeneration page is that it removes the tidy line people draw. The story is usually mammals scar and lower vertebrates regenerate, and here is a rodent regenerating skin with follicles and cartilage. It is limited — skin and ear tissue, not limbs — and it comes packaged with a trait nobody would want, since the adaptation is skin designed to tear off when something grabs you. But it establishes that the machinery is not missing from mammals as a class, which is a far more hopeful and far more testable position than the alternative.
- Regeneration is demonstrated for skin and ear tissue, not for limbs or organs.
- Comparison is with laboratory mice, an inbred and unusual baseline.
- The mechanism underlying the difference was not identified in this study.
What this study is used for on NatureHQ
One study can inform several subjects. Here is everywhere this one is cited.
Published by: Nature PortfolioPublished in a Nature Portfolio journal.
This reference was resolved automatically against Crossref on 2026-08-11.
NatureHQ summarises research in its own words and does not reproduce published text. Reviewed 2026-08-11.