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Planarian Stem Cells: Pluripotency Maintenance and Fate Determination

Abstract
Basic molecular mechanisms that orchestrate stem cell maintenance and fate are widely conserved across kingdoms, allowing for cross-species studies from simple model systems to mammals. In this context, planarians offer extraordinary possibilities containing a reservoir of experimentally accessible adult pluripotent stem cells, “the neoblasts”. Indeed, in vivo reverse genetic manipulation of crucial neoblast regulators allows a fine study of adult stem cell fate in their natural environment. Recent extensive transcriptomics analysis revealed that planarian neoblasts are a widely heterogeneous population including clonogenic and lineage-committed stem cells, constituting a dynamic compartment that talks with differentiated tissue for proper physiological homeostasis and tissue regeneration. In this chapter, we review, in a chronological perspective, the most recent findings in the comprehension of neoblast biology, including their embryonic origin, and compare the most accredited models of pluripotency maintenance and fate determination.

Table of Contents: Advances in Aquatic Invertebrate Stem Cell Research