Planaria WM © Karl Dolenc - iStockphoto

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Secrets of Regeneration
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University of Nottingham

Aboobaker Lab

The University of Nottingham

Centre for Genetics and Genomics

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Secrets of Regeneration

Potential immortality
Regeneration is a living cell’s response to the effects of damage or ageing. Without the ability to maintain or repair cells, death is inevitable. In the invertebrate animal kingdom, the planarium species (flatworms) are remarkable in their capacity to regenerate. Dr Aziz Aboobaker and his team at Nottingham University are determined to understand at a molecular level what makes these animals potentially immortal.

Cost-effective rapid system
Aboobaker’s fascination with the planarium began with a stint in a planarium lab in Barcelona. Seeing the opportunity to study their amazing abilities he didn’t hesitate when he got the opportunity to establish his own lab in the UK. ‘We know so much but can’t explain how something as fundamental as regeneration works. The planarium system is simple to use, you can start with one cell and build something from there.’

His team wants to do two things. One is to study the planarium’s telomere biology in more detail. As cell DNA is replicated, the telomeres protect the ends of the DNA strands from damage. In humans, for example, ageing is associated with the shortening of these protective telomeres as cells reproduce. Stem cells, present in all animal tissue, are key to regeneration as they can become any other cell type, they have to be able to replace what’s been damaged or missing. To do that they need cues and signals to understand where the damage is, which cells are affected. In the case of the planarium, those signals are thought to come from the tissue left behind. Flatworms when cut in two can re-grow the missing parts.

Scientific research © Nicolas Loran - iStockphoto

Evolutionary drivers
The second part of their work is an evolutionary question. Aboobaker is very excited by this. He explains, ‘there are a whole host of other planarium species which regenerate just as well and what we see is that they also have sexual and asexual lineages. Once you become really good at regeneration, reproduction by just splitting in half becomes a real option.’ In asexual reproduction, telomere length is maintained and studying different planarium species may give us more insight into how molecular changes drive evolutionary novelty.

Aboobaker believes that studying worms’ biology, not just their telomeres, has real potential to inform us about human biology. It won’t help humans become immortal but as humans do share similar genetic information, the advantage of working with worms is that you can make rapid cost-effective progress in understanding how molecular processes in regeneration work.

LearnEnglish Science activities
Why not do a language activity based on this cubed story, Secrets of Regeneration? You can double-click on any word on this page for a dictionary definition.

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