Widespread maintenance of genome heterozygosity in Schmidtea mediterranea

Loss of heterozygosity through inbreeding or mitotic errors leads to reductions in progeny survival and fertility. Loss of heterozygosity is particularly exacerbated in geographically isolated populations, which are prone to inbreeding depression and faster rates of extinction. The regenerative capacities of the hermaphroditic biotype of the planarian Schmidtea mediterranea allowed us to perform a systematic genetic test of Mendelian segregation and study the loss of heterozygosity in the Spiralian superclade in general and planarians in particular. We discovered that ~300 Mb (~37.5%) of the genome retains heterozygosity even after ten generations of inbreeding, and show that these chromosomal regions have low diversity and recombination rates in wild populations. Our genetic and genomic analyses establish S. mediterranea as a genetically tractable system. The research also opens the door to study the evolutionary basis of non-Mendelian mechanisms, the adaptive advantages of chromosome structural heterozygotes and their potential relationship to the robust regenerative capacities of planarians.