A single adult cell from one of the most impressive masters of regeneration in the animal kingdom – the planarian – is all it takes to build a completely functional new worm, researchers have learned. The study provides the first hard evidence that adult planarians harbor pluripotent stem cells – cells capable of producing the diverse range of tissue types necessary to build a complete animal.
Distributed throughout the worm body, the newfound cells appear to have the same all-purpose qualities as embryonic stem cells. Such cells are essential for supplying the rapidly diversifying cells in a developing embryo, but usually disappear after the earliest stages of development. This is the first time pluripotent stem cells have been identified in an adult animal, according to Peter Reddien, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute early career scientist who led the study.
