The ability of animals to regenerate missing parts is a dramatic and poorly understood
aspect of biology. The sources of new cells for these regenerative phenomena have been …

What determines large-scale anatomy? DNA does not directly specify geometrical
arrangements of tissues and organs, and a process of encoding and decoding for …

The textbooks and literature of plant biology indicate that plant cells are totipotent, and that
regeneration occurs via dedifferentiation, by which the cell and its descendents recapitulate …

Planarians are members of the Platyhelminthes (flatworms). These animals have evolved a
remarkable stem cell system. A single pluripotent adult stem cell type (“neoblast”) gives rise …

Background The ability to assess gene function is essential for understanding biological
processes. Currently, RNA interference (RNAi) is the only technique available to assess …

The planarian Dugesia japonica can regenerate a complete individual from a head, trunk or
tail fragment via activation of somatic pluripotent stem cells,. About a century ago, Thomas …

Pluripotency is a central, well-studied feature of embryonic development, but the role of
pluripotent cell regulation in somatic tissue regeneration remains poorly understood. In …

Planarian flatworms are an exception among bilaterians in that they possess a large pool of
adult stem cells that enables them to promptly regenerate any part of their body, including …

Here we review the examples of great longevity and potential immortality in the earliest
animal types and contrast and compare these to humans and other higher animals. We start …

Axial patterning during planarian regeneration relies on a transcriptional circuit that confers
distinct positional information on the two ends of an amputated fragment. The earliest known …