How necrotic cells contribute to the body's regeneration process

Originally published by by Emily Packer, George Litchfield, eLife, on March 25, 2025

 A necrotic Drosophila wing imaginal disc undergoing regeneration, showing NiA/NiCP (white) cells at a distance from the injury (green: GFP-labeled wing pouch cells, red: necrotic wound, white: caspase activity). Credit: Robin Harris (CC BY 4.0)

Researchers have shed new light on how tissues in the body are repaired following the damage and premature death of tissue cells.

Their study in fruit flies, which first appeared in eLife as a Reviewed Preprint and is now published as the final version, describes what the editors call fundamental discoveries with solid evidence for how dying (or necrotic) cells contribute to tissue regeneration through a previously uncharacterized mechanism. It suggests that these cells play a role in signaling for the body to produce other types of cells that are involved in controlling natural cell death and inflammation, with findings that may have implications for wound repair and tissue regeneration.

As our bodies grow and develop, cells naturally die off where they are no longer needed, in a process called apoptosis. On the other hand, cells can be damaged and die prematurely due to injury, infectious diseases or other factors, in a process known as necrosis.

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