Pattern Regulation in the Regenerating Limbs of Urodele Amphibians

Pattern formation is the process by which cells in regenerating and developing systesm are spatially organized to form the complex structures of the adult organism. This aspect of morphogenesis has intrigued developmental biologists for over a century. The urodele limb has been used extensively in the study of morphogenesis during regeneration and several models have been proposed to account for a variety of experimental results. The purpose of this paper is to review the experiments that have been published since the turn of the century that deal with patter formation in the regenerating limbs of urodele amphibians and to discuss these results in the context of recent theoretical models.