Worm Regenerates a Whole New Body From a Single Cell

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Worm Regenerates a Whole New Body From a Single Cell

May 17 2011 11:37:05 am EST

Topics: Morphology, Science,

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All it takes is one cell to rebuild all the cells of a dying flatworm. Popular Science recently featured an excellent article on the results of a study published in the journal Science

In a recent study, a single pluripotent stem cell from one planarian flatworm was inserted into another dying planarian flatworm. The single cell multiplied, differentiated, and ultimately replaced all the dying host’s tissues.

In the study, researchers led by Peter Reddien, Daniel Wagner and Irving Wang at MIT exposed flatworms to ionizing radiation, robbing their cells of their ability to divide and regenerate. Without the ability to grow new cells, the animal would slowly die. They spared cNeoblast cells, which are undifferentiated cells capable of dividing into specialized cells, and watched as those remaining cells divided to form large colonies of replacement cells.

Wang and Reddien then harvested a single cNeoblast from one type of planarian. They exposed another type of planarian to lethal radiation. This planarian did not posses its own cNeoblasts, and could not regenerate. As the planarian’s cells died from head to tail, they implanted the first worm’s neoblast into the tail of the second, dying worm.

They watched as the transplanted cNeoblast multiplied, differentiated and “ultimately replaced all the host’s tissues,” according to a news release from the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research. Descendants of the single neoblast cell differentiated into neuronal, intestinal and other adult cell types, taking over the jobs of the host’s dying cells. The newly restored worm was an exact genetic copy of the cNeoblast donor. All this from one single cell.

The results of the study were published in the journal Science

View the Popular Science article

Dates:

2011

2010