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#planaria

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Scientific Frontline

#Planaria are freshwater #flatworms that have become a key model for studying #regeneration and #stem #cells, as they can regenerate any part of the body, even the head. But how does the animal know what part of its body is missing and what kind of tissue it needs to #regenerate?
#Biology #sflorg
sflorg.com/2023/02/bio02142301

www.sflorg.comResearchers identify new molecular mechanism key to planarian regenerationThese flatworms are capable of regenerating any part of their bodies.
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Thiago Carvalho

'Why some animals can regenerate while many others cannot remains a fascinating question. Even amongst planarian flatworms, well-known for their ability to regenerate complete animals from small body fragments, species exist that have restricted regeneration abilities or are entirely regeneration incompetent. Towards the goal of probing the evolutionary dynamics of regeneration, we have assembled a diverse live collection of planarian species from around the world.'

#Regeneration #preprint #Planaria

biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/20

bioRxivProbing the evolutionary dynamics of whole-body regeneration within planarian flatwormsWhy some animals can regenerate while many others cannot remains a fascinating question. Even amongst planarian flatworms, well-known for their ability to regenerate complete animals from small body fragments, species exist that have restricted regeneration abilities or are entirely regeneration incompetent. Towards the goal of probing the evolutionary dynamics of regeneration, we have assembled a diverse live collection of planarian species from around the world. The combined quantification of species-specific head regeneration abilities and comprehensive transcriptome-based phylogeny reconstructions reveals multiple independent transitions between robust whole-body regeneration and restricted regeneration in the freshwater species. Our demonstration that the RNAi-mediated inhibition of canonical Wnt signalling can nevertheless bypass all experimentally tractable head regeneration defects in the current collection indicates that the pathway may represent a hot spot in the evolution of planarian regeneration defects. Combined with our finding that Wnt signalling has multiple roles in the reproductive system of the model species S. mediterranea, this raises the possibility of a trade-off between egg-laying and asexual reproduction by fission/regeneration as a driver of regenerative trait evolution. Although initial quantitative comparisons of Wnt signalling levels, reproductive investment, and regenerative abilities across the collection confirm some of the model's predictions, they also highlight the diversification of molecular mechanisms amongst the divergent planarian lineages. Overall, our study establishes a framework for the mechanistic evolution of regenerative abilities and planarians as model taxon for comparative regeneration research. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest.
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