NAME: Alex McGregor

CLASS: 3
DATE: April 7, 2014
PLANARIA LAB REPORT

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

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

THEORY:

Planaria are flatworms that reproduce sexually. They are hermaphrodites,
and therefore have gonads that produce both sperm and eggs. The parents meet up,
and exchange sperm, where it fertilizes the eggs internally. The eggs are then laid
externally, where they will eventually hatch. The benefit to sexual reproduction is
that exchange of genes causes genetic diversity and more chance of adaptation in
the environment.
When conditions are less than ideal, planaria can reproduce asexually. There
are two types of asexual reproduction, tail dropping and fragmentation. To tail drop,
a planaria attaches on to a rock, contracts its tail muscles, and pulls away from the
tail. The tail then will regenerate a new head, and the head will regenerate a new tail,
creating two clones of the original planaria. Fragmentation is the same process, but
the planaria splits into three or more parts.
Planaria reproduce asexually by regeneration. When planaria tail drop, the
tail will grow a new head, and the head will grow a new tail, creating two clones of
the original planaria. This process is called regeneration, and is carried out by
blastma (totipotent stem cells) forming around the wounded area and transforming
into whatever cells are needed to create a full planaria. When a planaria is cut into
three sections I predicted that the midsection would regenerate first because it is
the longest, and has the least to regenerate.















DATA:



ANALYSIS:

Although our hypothesis was correct, the results may not have been accurate.
The midsection regenerated first and produced a clone using tail dropping, but this
could be due to inaccurately cut pieces. If the pieces were cut unequally, this could
affect the results because it could make the midsection the longest. If the midsection
were longest, it would regenerate first. In the future, we will make sure to cut our
planaria into equal pieces so the finial data is accurate.
Human stem cells are different from planaria stem cells in many ways, but there
are also some similarities. For example, both human and planaria are stem cells in
the early stages of being a zygote. However, one the cells differentiate, there is a
greater percentage of stem cells in planaria than in humans. This is because planaria
are asexual, and the way that they reproduce is by regeneration. When a planaria
tail drops, sections of the planaria must regenerate, the head must create a tail, and
the tail must create a head. To regenerate, clusters of stem cells gather in the injured
area and create whole new parts of the planaria. Although human stem cells can be
used to heal tissue, they cannot be used to create new limbs and organs because our
bodies are way too complicated. Human and planaria stem cells are in some ways
different and in some ways similar to each other.
There is less controversy now over stem cell research because there are new
ways to get stem cells. Earlier, the only way to get stem cells was to extract them
from an embryo to get hES cells. People debated that destroying an embryo to get
stem cells was like destroying what could eventually become a human child. Now,
you can use IPS and STAP cells to heal wounds and cure diseases. IPS stands for
induced pluripotent cells. Induced pluripotent cells are regular cells that have had
their nucleus switched with one from a stem cell found in bone marrow and turned
into a stem cell. STAP stands for stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotentcy.
0
20
40
60
80
100
Anterior Midsection Posterior
37
49
14
23
54
23
7th grade
3rd period
STAP cells are regular cells that have been put under stress, such as an acid bath,
that forces them to devolve and become a stem cell again. Both of these ways are
better than hES because neither IPS nor STAP cells harm anything that could
potentially be a human being.


CONCLUSION:

In this lab we trisected planaria to find out which of the three pieces would
regenerate first. I hypothesized that the midsection would regenerate first because
it is the longest and has the least to regenerate. My data shows that by day 4, the
midsection of the planaria had the most ghost tissue, and by day 8, it had completely
regenerated. It had also tail dropped and regenerated again. In my class 23% of the
anterior sections had regenerated first, 23% of the posterior sections regenerated
first, and 54% of the midsection sections regenerated first. In conclusion, planaria
will regenerate when trisected and the midsection will regenerate first.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

"Marine Flatworms of the World! - Introduction." Marine Flatworms of the World! -
Introduction. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 May 2014.

"Planarians.org - Home to Flatworms!" Planarians.org - Home to Flatworms!N.p., n.d.
Web. 09 May 2014.

"PRINT-AND-GO INDEX." Print-and-Go Index. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 May 2014.

Nature.com. Nature Publishing Group, n.d. Web. 09 May 2014.

"The Stem Cell Debate: Is It Over?" The Stem Cell Debate: Is It Over? N.p., n.d. Web.
07 May 2014.