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Sydney Hilbush

Science 7
April 22, 2014
PLANARIA LAB REPORT

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

HYPOTHESIS: If trisected, then the mid-section will regenerate first.

THEORY:

Planaria are flatworms which reproduce both sexually and asexually. Unlike many
other organisms, planaria are hermaphrodites, which means planaria account for both
male and female gonads. During sexual reproduction, two planaria join together to
exchange sperm. Since the planaria are hermaphrodites, both planaria receive and give off
sperm, meaning that both of the planaria will be able to reproduce offspring. The
planaria fertilize their eggs, a process that can take place on the inside or the outside of
the planaria, and then release their eggs into a cocoon, usually on the underside of stones.
The planarians offspring are genetically diverse because of the different genes that the
parents exchange.
When conditions are less than ideal, planaria have the ability to reproduce
asexually. During asexual reproduction, the anterior, or the head, of a single planarian
migrates away from the posterior, cutting the planarian in half. The posterior and the
anterior then regenerate the missing parts of the planarians body, forming two new
planaria that are clones of their parent. This process is called tail dropping, which is a
form of fragmentation. During asexual reproduction, only one planarian is needed to
complete the reproduction cycle because planaria are hermaphrodites, and contain both
female and male gonads, unlike many other animals.
Planaria are able to regenerate asexually through the process of regeneration.
Planarians have totipotent stem cells, otherwise called neoblasts that account for 30% of
the planarians cells. When a planarian is wounded, or separated into two pieces during
asexual reproduction, the neoblasts migrate toward the wounded area. When a planarian
fragments, blastema form around the wound. The stem cells then produce new tissue to
make up for the lost neoblasts. The cells then divide and differentiate, making some of
the daughter cells specialized to code for different phenotypes. One example of
regeneration is in a starfish, where after one of their arms is cut off, that arm grows back
onto the starfish around one year later. In this lab, I hypothesized that the mid-section of
a planarian will regenerate first when trisected because it contains the planarians
digestive system, which is harder to regenerate than growing eyes or a tail. I also
hypothesized that the mid-section will regenerate first because the mid-section contains
the food passageway, called the pharynx, which contains digestive enzymes that help with
external digestion. Also, since the mid-section of a planarian is wounded in two areas,
more neoblasts are present, therefore making it easier to regenerate.

DATA:
Hilbush, Sydney Saturday, May 17, 2014 9:54:49 AM Pacic Daylight Time 70:56:81:a9:79:31


CONCLUSION:

In this lab, we trisected a planarian to see which part, the anterior, the mid-
section, or the posterior of a planarian will regenerate first. I hypothesized that the mid-
section of a planarian will regenerate first because the mid-section contains the digestive
system and the pharynx, which allow the planarian to receive nutrients. My data shows
that over a period of eight days, day six showed new light eyes on the mid-section, and
the mid-section showed more tissue growth than the other two parts of the planarian.
The mid-section of the planarian also showed clear pigmentation of a tail and a slight
response of a head by day nine. In 7
th
grade data, five out of seven classes, 49% or 38/78,
mid-section pieces regenerated first, which was a higher percentage than both the
anterior and the posterior. In my 7
th
period class, only 43% of the planarian, 6/14, had the
mid-section regenerate first, which was a lower percentage than the anterior piece, 50%.
In conclusion, all planaria will regenerate when trisected; in this lab, I hypothesized that
the mid-section will regenerate the missing pieces of the planarian first, and my
hypothesis was correct 71% of the time when accounting for the 7
th
grade data.

ANALYSIS:

In my class period, period 7, my group had the posterior regenerate first, the only
group in our class to have that result. After completing the lab, I thought that our results
were reasonable, but not 100% valid. Since I was absent for day 6 and 8 of lab, I was not
able to look at the planarians tissue growth, which threw off my individual data. One
part of the lab that was difficult to control was the cutting of the planarian in the
beginning of the lab. When our group cut the mid-section and the posterior in half, the
mid-section of the planarian was cut unevenly, leaving the posterior with most of the
mid-section after we cut it. This could have influenced the outcome of the test results
because since the posterior already had a large amount of extra tissue from the mid-
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Hilbush, Sydney Saturday, May 17, 2014 9:54:49 AM Pacic Daylight Time 70:56:81:a9:79:31
section, it was easier to regenerate the missing parts, and had only a small amount to
grow back. The mid-section also has many eternal organs like the digestive system and
the pharynx that are very hard to reproduce, and since the posterior of the planarian
already retained most of those parts, it was easy to regenerate the other parts, therefore
making our posterior the first to regenerate. One thing that could account for increasing
the reliability of this lab would be to trisect the planarian as evenly as possible, so none of
the pieces have an advantage of extra tissue to regenerate first. One way to make this
possible is to record how long each individual planarian is, and divide that number by
three to cut the planarian evenly; for example, if a planarian was six inches long, I would
cut it at two inches per planarian piece, to further cut the planarian evenly. This would
increase the reliability of the lab because each planarian piece would have an even amount
of tissue to regrow, and no piece would have more tissue, or more of an advantage, than
the other pieces.
When comparing neoblasts and human stem cells, there are many differences in
their individual functions. One difference from neoblasts and human stem cells is that
neoblasts in planaria actually regenerate the missing parts of their body, but human stem
cells are just replaced. The main function of embryonic stem cells is to replace cells in
dead or damaged areas. When a cell is wounded, new stem cells replace the old and dead
cells by removing the inner cell mass of a blastocyst. The cells divide and move into
colonies, then getting a signal to differentiate. Embryonic stem cells are self-renewal, so
they can replace most cells in the body because they are pluripotent. This is different
from neoblasts in planaria because they are totipotent, meaning they have the ability to
become any cell type in the body. When neoblasts divide, they migrate toward the
wounded area of the planarian. Then the planarian regenerates the missing parts, dividing
and differentiating the cells into specialized and unspecialized. This is different from
human stem cell functions because the neoblasts actually reproduce the missing parts of
the body like the liver and the intestinal organs, while human stem cells just replace dead
cells. Aside from the differences, human stem cells and neoblasts also have similar
functions as well; one major similarity between neoblasts and stem cells is that they have
a very important role in growth and health. Both the neoblasts and the stem cells are
undifferentiated cells, and they both go through the process of cell division and
differentiation. One major goal of stem cells is personalized medicine, to help individuals
if they have a certain type of cancer of other medical illness. Scientists also use stem cells
for drug therapy, where the help the patient by using cells to encourage drug resistance.
This is similar to neoblasts functions because when a planarian fragments, and the parts
of the planarian split, the neoblasts inside of the planarians have the ability to grow back
the missing parts of the planarian, which is a major part of growth and regeneration.
With further advances in technology and new ways to protect developing embryos,
there is now less controversy over stem cell research than there was in the past years. One
major reason why there is less controversy now over stem cell research is because new
alternates to hES, human embryonic stem cells, have recently become available in
research. When scientists used to concoct tests on hES, the majority of the time they
would destroy the developing embryo, which brought up many ethical concerns with the
testing. iPS cells, induced pluripotent stem cells, have the capability to develop into a
human embryo, in effect producing a clone of its donor. Even though ethical concerns
Hilbush, Sydney Saturday, May 17, 2014 9:54:49 AM Pacic Daylight Time 70:56:81:a9:79:31
have rose into thought, scientists still continue to use this process because since iPS cells
are pluripotent, they can become many cell types in the body, and scientists need their
important controls to continue with crucial research. Over the years, less controversy has
arouse of this topic because in 2007, scientists discovered that iPS cells have the ability to
turn from a skin cell to a stem cell with only 6 extra genes added into the skin cell. This is
similar to STAP cells, because when STAP cells get a stress signal, like an acid bath or a
physical squeeze, they also have the potential to turn into human stem cells. This is very
important for research because it can produce regenerative and personalized medicine
that can replace and repair damaged cells and tissue. With new research found by
scientists, a patients STAP cells can be stimulated to behave like embryonic stem cells.
This process can reduce the need for human stem cells, opening up new possibilities for
stem cell therapy, and lowers the controversy between the use of stem cell research.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

1. Planaria. Planaria. N.p, n.d. Web. 08 May 2014.

2. Features. Microscope Imaging Station. Planaria: A Window on Regeneration. N.p.,
n.d. Web 07 May 2014.

3. Using Planarian Flatworms to Understand Organ Regeneration. The School of
Molecular and Cellular Biology. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 May 2014.

4. Bromodeoxyuridine Specifically Labels the Regenerative Stem Cells of Planarians.
Bromodeoxyuridine Specifically Labels the Regenerative Stem Cells of Planarians. Np.,
n.d. Web. 08 May 2014.















Hilbush, Sydney Saturday, May 17, 2014 9:54:49 AM Pacic Daylight Time 70:56:81:a9:79:31

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