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Peer-reviewedCC BY 4.0Development (Cambridge, England)

Planarian progenitor responses to injury are not specific to missing tissue identity

  • Cecilia E. Pellegrini1,2,3
  • Peter W. Reddien1,2,4
4 affiliations
  1. 1Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
  2. 2Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
  3. 3Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
  4. 4Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
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Abstract

Regeneration is the process by which organisms replace lost body parts. How cell-type production is tailored to match missing-tissue identity is a central problem of regeneration. Here, we have investigated the specificity of planarian stem-cell responses to the identity of missing tissues following injury. Proximal injury not affecting the mature tissue nonetheless drives increased cell incorporation into brain neurons, ventral nerve cords, and pharynx muscle and neurons. Following direct injury, there is spatially imprecise amplification of cell incorporation into peripheral neurons relative to the wound, and decreased cell incorporation into body-wall muscle distally in favor of increased incorporation at the wound. By contrast, essentially no stem-cell division contributes to initial epidermal regeneration, instead post-mitotic progenitors supply the wound. Amplification of epidermal incorporation following injury does occur weeks after injury, including to uninjured regions. These results indicate that missing-tissue identity is not a requisite component for there to be a stem-cell response to injury that amplifies production. We suggest that planarian regeneration specificity involves, in large part, a combination of ongoing cell turnover, wound-associated increased stem cell division and spatially broad neoblast specification zones.

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Cite

BibTeXRIS
BibTeX
@article{pellegrini2026planarian,
  title = {{Planarian progenitor responses to injury are not specific to missing tissue identity}},
  author = {Cecilia E. Pellegrini and Peter W. Reddien},
  journal = {Development (Cambridge, England)},
  year = {2026},
  month = oct,
  doi = {10.1242/dev.205573},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1242/dev.205573},
  note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY  - JOUR
TI  - Planarian progenitor responses to injury are not specific to missing tissue identity
AU  - Cecilia E. Pellegrini
AU  - Peter W. Reddien
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/10/15
JO  - Development (Cambridge, England)
DO  - 10.1242/dev.205573
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1242/dev.205573
AB  - Regeneration is the process by which organisms replace lost body parts. How cell-type production is tailored to match missing-tissue identity is a central problem of regeneration. Here, we have investigated the specificity of planarian stem-cell responses to the identity of missing tissues following injury. Proximal injury not affecting the mature tissue nonetheless drives increased cell incorporation into brain neurons, ventral nerve cords, and pharynx muscle and neurons. Following direct injury, there is spatially imprecise amplification of cell incorporation into peripheral neurons relative to the wound, and decreased cell incorporation into body-wall muscle distally in favor of increased incorporation at the wound. By contrast, essentially no stem-cell division contributes to initial epidermal regeneration, instead post-mitotic progenitors supply the wound. Amplification of epidermal incorporation following injury does occur weeks after injury, including to uninjured regions. These results indicate that missing-tissue identity is not a requisite component for there to be a stem-cell response to injury that amplifies production. We suggest that planarian regeneration specificity involves, in large part, a combination of ongoing cell turnover, wound-associated increased stem cell division and spatially broad neoblast specification zones.
SN  - 0950-1991
SN  - 1477-9129
ER  -