Explore the vast range of titles available.

Microtubule-associated 1B (MAP1B) proteins are expressed at the nervous system level where they control cytoskeleton activity and regulate neurotransmitter release. Here, we report about the identification of a planarian MAP1B factor ( DjMap1B ) that is enriched in cephalic ganglia and longitudinal nerve cords but not in neoblasts, the plentiful population of adult stem cells present in planarians, thanks to which these animals can continuously cell turnover and regenerate any lost body parts. DjMap1B knockdown induces morphological anomalies in the nervous system and affects neoblast commitment. Our data put forward a correlation between a MAP1B factor and stem cells and suggest a function of the nervous system in non-cell autonomous control of planarian stem cells.

Despite increasing evidence indicates polyamines as a convergence point for signaling pathways, including cell growth and differentiation, a unifying concept to interpret their role is still missing. The activity of ornithine decarboxylase (ODC), the rate-limiting enzyme in polyamine biosynthesis, is tightly regulated by a complex molecular machinery, and the demonstration of the existence of multiple ODC paralogs, lacking decarboxylation activity, suggests additional layers of complexity to the intricate ODC regulatory pathway. Because of their extraordinary regenerative abilities and abundance of stem cells, planarians have potential to contribute to our understanding of polyamine function in an in vivo context. We undertook a study on ODC function in planarians and we found six planarian ODCs ( ODC1-6 ). Five out of six ODC homologs carry substitutions of key aminoacids for enzymatic activity, which makes them theoretically unable to decarboxylate ornithine. Silencing of ODC5 and 6 produced a complex phenotype, by prompting animals to an aberrant response, following chronic injury without tissue removal. Phenotype is neither rescued by putrescine, nor mimicked by difluoromethylornithine treatment. Moreover, the co-silencing of other genes of the ODC regulatory pathway did not modulate phenotype outcome or severity, thus suggesting that the function/s of these ODC-like proteins might be unrelated to decarboxylase activity and putrescine production.

Prohibitins are pleiotropic proteins, whose multiple roles are emerging as key elements in the regulation of cell survival and proliferation. Indeed, prohibitins interact with several intracellular proteins strategically involved in the regulation of cell cycle progression in response to extracellular growth signals. Prohibitins also have regulatory functions in mitochondrial fusion and cristae morphogenesis, phenomena related to the ability of self-renewing embryonic stem cells to undergo differentiation, during which mitochondria develop numerous cristae, increase in number, and generate an extensive reticular network. We recently identified a Prohibitin 2 homolog (DjPhb2) that is expressed in adult stem cells (neoblasts) of planarians, a well-known model system for in vivo studies on stem cells and tissue regeneration. Here, we show that in DjPhb2 silenced planarians, most proliferating cells disappear, with the exception of a subpopulation of neoblasts localized along the dorsal body midline. Neoblast depletion impairs regeneration and, finally, leads animals to death. Our in vivo findings demonstrate that prohibitin 2 plays an important role in regulating stem cell biology, being involved in both the control of cell cycle progression and mitochondrial cristae morphogenesis.