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	Podcast:		UC Science Today
	Episode:		You can thank bats for new insight into limb development
	Category:		Science & Medicine
	Duration:		00:01:02
	Publish Date:		2016-06-28 19:00:00
	Description:		A recent collaboration between the University of California, San Francisco and international researchers has revealed some surprising genes linked to limb development in bats. Associate professor Nadav Ahituv studies human limb malformations and says these are novel genes that were not previously associated with limb development at all. "For example, one gene that we see is expressed specifically in elongating digits three to five in the developing bat, but in mice, they’re not expressed in that location. And so it looks like bats adopted that gene to work in that location, and making it an important gene for wing development. We found genes that are involved in apoptosis and cell death. So when our limbs grow, we basically have webbing between them, and then that webbing sort of dies, but in the bat forelimbs, that webbing remains and makes part of the wing." Ahituv says their work offers insight into the unique growth of arms and legs in other mammals such as ourselves.
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