Comprehensive single-cell transcriptional profiling of the regenerative planarian Schmidtea mediterranea

Animals can contain hundreds of cell types, each of which has a distinct morphology and function. The transcriptome of a cell dictates this unique cell biology. Recent approaches for high throughput single-cell RNA sequencing have made it possible to generate transcriptomes easily and affordably for tens of thousands of single cells, raising the possibility that transcriptomes could be generated for all cell types and cell states in a complete animal. Planarians are freshwater flatworms renowned for their capacity for whole-body regeneration. They possess a complex body plan with multiple distinct tissues. They also possess a population of dividing cells, called neoblasts, which contain pluripotent stem cells and are the source of all new tissue, with all cell types being turned over throughout the life of the animal. Planarians also constitutively express an arrangement of regionally expressed genes in their muscle that serve as patterning information for the animal.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctoral

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Biology

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2020

Author dc:creator

• Fincher, Christopher T.(Christopher Terry)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Peter W. Reddien.

• Biology.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses may be protected by copyright. Please reuse MIT thesis content according to the MIT Libraries Permissions Policy, which is available through the URL provided.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/129053

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/129053