NAME: Belle Johnston

CLASS: 3
rd
period
DATE: 5/6/14
PLANARIA LAB REPORT

PROBLEM: If trisected, which piece of a planarian will regenerate first?

HYPOTHESIS: If trisected, then the _____________________ will regenerate first.

THEORY:

Planeria are flat worms that reproduce sexually. Planeria are
hermaphrodytes, that means the Planeria contain male and female gonads.
Both planeria come together and exchange their sperm when conditions are
ideal. When the planeria has done this, the planeria go off and lay their own
eggs. This process creates more genetic diversity, leading to more population
in planeria. This is how Planeria flat worms reproduce sexually.

Even though Planeria can reproduce sexually, Planeria can also
produce asexually. Two ways that a Planeria can reproduce asexually is
fragmentation and dropping tails. Fragmentation asexual reproduction
begins when a transverse constriction, behind the pharynx, and increases
until both of the parts separate, the head grows a new tail, and the tail grows a
new head. When reproducing asexually tail dropping happens when the
Planeria drops their tails, which will regenerate and create new bodies for the
Planeria. The process of dropping tails is when the planeria is able to cling
onto rocks with their ceilia at the bottom of the planeria. This happens
because planeria are neoblasts, and the planeria are able to make clones of
each other. Planeria flatworms can also produce asexually.

Planeria reproduce asexually by regeneration. 30% of Planeria is
neoblasts. During regeneration a lot of totipotent stem cells or neoblasts
called the blastema will rush to where there is an injury in the body and will
wait until to get a signal to become new parts in the worm. Sense the cell is
totipotent the cell can become any type of cell in order to reproduce an
anterior, posterior, and midsection. When the planeria reproduces asexually,
the worm regenerates the new parts the worm looses. I predicated that the
mid section regenerated first sense there are more neoblasts when the
planeria looses a piece in the body.


Conclusion:

In this lab we trisected a planeria to see which section will regenerate
first. I hypothesized that the mid section will regenerate first. During the
nine-day period, the mid section had the least amount of ghost cells, and from
the look of the injury, the mid section had the most pigmentation. The
planeria shows that it has regenerated its anterior and posterior. The data
shows that 54% of the mid section will regenerate first in the third period, and
49% of the midsection regenerated first in the seventh grade. In conclusion,
planeria will regenerate when trisected and the mid section will regenerate
first.

Analysis:

After looking at all the data, my hypothesis was valid. When looking at
out planeria, our mid section regenerated first. My partner and I cut fairly
equal pieces of our planeria, but other groups might have not. This may have
been a factor of why groups got data, and could of caused the bigger pieces of
planeria to regenerate faster. In future planeria labs, the same person should
cut the planeria, for the pieces to be more accurate in size. Also another
problem with this experiment was sketching the planeria. When sketching, it
was very difficult sketching because the planeria was always moving out of the
light. The data could have been wrong sense the body parts were cut
unequally, or if the planeria was moving too much. Another inference was if
the groups sketched the wrong body parts in the wrong sections. Our group
noticed that the midsection was regenerating the fastest over the nine-day
period. I believe that our group had accurate data, with out sketches, and
observations.

There are many differences in the functions of comparing neoblasts and
human stem cell. Stem cells are undifferentiated cells that are able to
differentiated into specialized cell types throughout the body. They are
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Anterior Mid
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Posterior
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2014 Regenoration Lab
3rd period
7th grade
undifferentiated because the niche cells send signals for the stem cells to not
differentiate. If the niche cell were removed from the other stem cells, the
niche cell would either die or differentiate. Each niche would be specialized
for the tissue it is in. Stem cells are located in many other tissue from bone
marrow including, brain, blood, blood vessels, muscle, skin, teeth, heart, gut,
and liver. Stem cells are also multicellular organism that can replace dead or
damaged cells in the body. When the stem cells get a signal in the body, the
stem cells divide and one cell stays in the niche and the other cell copys and
becomes a neuron. Planeria neoblats cells are clusters of pluripotent cells
that can regenerate the missing parts in the planeria, which is also known as
fragmentation. Stem cells can be multipotent, pluripotent, and totipotent, but
neoblast stem cells only have the ability to be pluripotent stem cells. The
neoblast stem cells can regenerate the digestive system, reproductive system,
and the excitatory system. Human stem cells can also function the same, by
regenerating damaged or dead cells in the body. These are the similarities
and differences in neoblats and human stem cells.

By gathering research about stem cells, scientist use hES to do
experiments. hES are embryonic stem cells, and hES is a topic that is
constantly being talked about the value of human life. This topic is constantly
being talked about because scientists are destroying embryos. People are
very against scientist destroying embryos; they think its just like murder.
People are now protesting against scientist destroying embryos, and the
government has now limited scientist to only 70 experiments on embryos a
year. Sense there is not much controversy on stem cell research, scientists
have recently discovered how to make normal body cells act just like
embryonic stem cells. More elements that scientists are using are iPS and
STAP cells, but those dont work. Scientists dont like using iPS and STAP cells,
scientist prefer using hES stem cells.