How to turn a tentacle into a foot

By identifying a key regulator of cell identity, a team from the University of Geneva and the FMI has succeeded in modifying the structure and function of tentacle cells in hydra. Hydra with reduced Zic4. The red arrowheads indicate the tentacles that have been transformed into feet, the asterisk indicates the animal's mouth. CC-BY-NC - Humans, animals, plants: all multicellular organisms are made up of specialized cells called differentiated cells. Thus, the cells that make up the epidermis do not have the same identity - nor the same function - as those that line the digestive system, for example. However, the mechanisms by which these cells maintain their identity are still poorly understood. Working on the freshwater polyp named Hydra, a team from the University of Geneva , in collaboration with the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research (FMI) in Basel, discovered one of the key regulators: the transcription factor Zic4.