Alyssa M. Molinaro

TL;DR: The identification of the νNeoblast lineage demonstrates the usefulness of the planarian system for computationally predicting cellular lineages in an adult context coupled with in vivo verification.

TL;DR: It is shown that inhibiting soxB1-2 or its candidate target genes leads to abnormal sensory neuron regeneration that causes planarians to display seizure-like movements or phenotypes associated with the loss of sensory modalities, indicating that planarians can serve as a complementary model to investigate genetic causes of epilepsy.

TL;DR: Two planarian homeobox transcription factors are identified, Smed-nkx2.1 and SMed-arx, which are required for the maintenance of cholinergic, GABAergic, and octopaminergic neurons in the planarian CNS, revealing an important mitogenic role for the planarians hh signaling molecule in the adult CNS.

TL;DR: This study compares several transcriptomes and defines a robust set of 35,232 transcripts to find that the TRAF gene family has been greatly expanded in planarians, rendering it a viable model to study the roles of these pathways in stem cell biology and regeneration.

TL;DR: Identification of the dendritic and punctate classes of marker and of foxF-1, ets-1 and fgfrL-1 as novel specification and maintenance regulators provides insight into mechanisms of pigment cell development and regeneration in adult Schmidtea mediterranea.