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Updated: May 2, 2026

Pharmacological and Functional Genetic Assays to Manipulate Regeneration of the Planarian Dugesia japonica
Published on: August 31, 2011
Slicing across kingdoms: regeneration in plants and animals
Kenneth D Birnbaum1, Alejandro Sánchez Alvarado
1Department of Biology, Center for Genomics and Systems Biology, New York University, New York, NY 10003, USA. ken.birnbaum@nyu.edu
Abstract:
Multicellular organisms possessing relatively long life spans are subjected to diverse, constant, and often intense intrinsic and extrinsic challenges to their survival. Animal and plant tissues wear out as part of normal physiological functions and can be lost to predators, disease, and injury. Both kingdoms survive this wide variety of insults by strategies that include the maintenance of adult stem cells or the induction of stem cell potential in differentiated cells. Repatterning mechanisms often deploy embryonic genes, but the question remains in both plants and animals whether regeneration invokes embryogenesis, generic patterning mechanisms, or unique circuitry comprised of well-established patterning genes.
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