DSSS - The evolutionary dynamics of regeneration in planarian flatworms

Some animals have the ability to regenerate body parts lost to injury, while closely related species often regenerate poorly or not at all. Planarian flatworms display an especially striking spectrum of regenerative abilities that ranges from whole-body regeneration in some species to no regeneration at all in others. In the face of “survival of the fittest”, this poses the fascinating question of why regeneration often seems the exception rather than the rule in animal taxa. My lab studies and further develops the well-regenerating model species S. mediterranea, but we are also pioneering the laboratory culture of regeneration-deficient planarians and have established a large live collection with currently > 60 species from around the world. Our comparative approach includes the mechanistic analysis of regeneration in the well-regenerating model species, the changes in the underlying regulatory networks that cause regeneration defects in other species and as a far goal, the evolutionary mechanisms that might explain their natural selection. My talk will illustrate our model taxon approach by example of planarian Wnt signaling and recent insights into the rapid genome evolution of planarians on basis of our recent genome assemblies.