| |
| Planarians are well known for their powerful regenerative capabilities that enable them to form complete organisms from tiny body fragments. Such extraordinary regeneration and renewal of central nervous system (CNS) are depended on a population of totipotent stem cells called “Neoblasts”. Neoblasts are the only mitotically active cells in adult planarians and can differentiate into all cell types, including neurons. Therefore, planarians are ideal model systems for studying the regulation of stem cells and neurogenesis. In the last ten years, due to molecular approaches widely used in the study of planarian regeneration, the biological knowledge of this fascinating animal has been growing rapidly. In this review, we discussed the possible factors that control stem cells self-renewal and differentiation, summarized the genes specifically expressed in stem cells and the CNS, introduced the possible signaling systems in the CNS regeneration, and proposed some aspects of stem cells and neural regeneration that will need to be addressed in order to understand the fundamental principles of biology. |
|
| Keywords:Planarians;Stem cells;Neoblasts;Regeneration;CNS |
|
