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Beta‐catenin and axis formation in planarians
Author(s) -
Meinhardt Hans
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
bioessays
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.175
H-Index - 184
eISSN - 1521-1878
pISSN - 0265-9247
DOI - 10.1002/bies.080193
Subject(s) - blastema , biology , regeneration (biology) , rna interference , microbiology and biotechnology , neuroscience , transcription (linguistics) , polarity (international relations) , gene , anatomy , rna , genetics , cell , linguistics , philosophy
In three recent articles it was shown that β‐catenin is crucial for the establishment and the maintenance of the overall polarity and especially for the character ‘posterior’ in planarians. If the transcription of the β‐catenin gene was silenced by RNA interference, the overall polarity is lost, and in regenerating fragments a posterior blastema displays anterior characters by forming eyes and anterior ganglia. An attempt is made to integrate these new data, well‐known older observations, and observations from other regenerating systems into an outline of a model that will clarify our current understanding as well as highlight areas still to be developed.