Meeting Abstract

99.6  Sunday, Jan. 6  Restoration of anterior regeneration in a planarian species with limited regenerative potential SIKES, J.M.*; NEWMARK, P.A.; University of San Francisco; Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of Illinois jsikes@usfca.edu

Why can some animals, but not others, regenerate missing tissues? Based on their amazing regenerative abilities, planarians have become important models for understanding the molecular basis of regeneration. However, some planarian species exhibit limited regenerative abilities. To understand this loss of regenerative potential, we examine Procotyla fluviatilis, a planarian with restricted ability to replace missing tissues. Although these animals heal wounds and initiate a proliferative response to wounding, they fail to re-establish axial polarity in regeneration- deficient regions. Using next-generation sequencing we defined the gene expression programs active in regeneration-permissive and regeneration-deficient tissues. We found that Wnt signaling is aberrantly activated in regeneration-deficient tissues. Remarkably, down-regulation of canonical Wnt signaling in regeneration-deficient regions restores regenerative abilities: blastemas form and new heads regenerate in tissues that normally never regenerate. This work reveals that manipulating a single signaling pathway can reverse the evolutionary loss of regenerative potential.