Meeting Abstract
Ctenophores amazing capacity of regeneration has fascinated biologists for centuries. These comb jellies have the ability to repair a wound in their epithelium in a matter of hours. Mnemiopsis leidyi can also regenerate a complex integrative center called the aboral organ, or “elementary brain”, in a matter of days. Here we are using next generation sequencing technology to study the transcriptomic response during regeneration. We are using both Ion Torrent and Illumina technologies to perform deep RNA-sequencing of various time points during regeneration. We then analyzed this data using RPKM expression levels to look at various signaling pathway expression in these projects. Here we show molecular mechanisms that might give us hints as to why these animals have such an exceptional ability to regenerate.
