Planarians Sense Simulated Microgravity and Hypergravity

Adell, Teresa; Saló, Emili; Loon, Jack J. W. A. van; Auletta, Gennaro

doi:10.1155/2014/679672

Cited by 15 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 25 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…It should be noted, however, that this is not simply a confounder: since any actual space travel will by necessity include all of these aspects, the effects must be studied as a real component of space travel which living systems will experience. Given the results reported from recent work (Adell et al., ) using much longer exposures to g forces of similar magnitude to that experienced by our samples during liftoff (∼3 g ) and landing (∼7 g ), we do not think it likely that our results are due to the brief periods of higher gravity that our planaria experienced. Future work will explicitly dissociate mechanistically the individual effects of the various stresses from the microgravity and micro‐geomagnetic force exposure per se.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 72%

“…Conversely, tail regeneration experiments did not find this same advancement in regenerative ability; however, changes in the pigmentation of tail blastemas in spaceflight animals were observed (Grinfeld, Foulquier, Mitashov, Bruchlinskaia, & Duprat, ). In Schmidtea mediterranea planaria, one study using simulated microgravity observed lethality while hypergravity led to decreased proliferation rates (Adell, Salo, van Loon, & Auletta, ). In contrast, another study found no distinguishing effects on Girardia tigrina (Gorgiladze, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Planarian regeneration in space: Persistent anatomical, behavioral, and bacteriological changes induced by space travel

et al. 2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Regeneration is regulated not only by chemical signals but also by physical processes, such as bioelectric gradients. How these may change in the absence of the normal gravitational and geomagnetic fields is largely unknown. Planarian flatworms were moved to the International Space Station for 5 weeks, immediately after removing their heads and tails. A control group in spring water remained on Earth. No manipulation of the planaria occurred while they were in orbit, and space‐exposed worms were returned to our laboratory for analysis. One animal out of 15 regenerated into a double‐headed phenotype—normally an extremely rare event. Remarkably, amputating this double‐headed worm again, in plain water, resulted again in the double‐headed phenotype. Moreover, even when tested 20 months after return to Earth, the space‐exposed worms displayed significant quantitative differences in behavior and microbiome composition. These observations may have implications for human and animal space travelers, but could also elucidate how microgravity and hypomagnetic environments could be used to trigger desired morphological, neurological, physiological, and bacteriomic changes for various regenerative and bioengineering applications.

show abstract

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 72%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Planarian regeneration in space: Persistent anatomical, behavioral, and bacteriological changes induced by space travel

et al. 2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In addition, it demonstrated that the microgravity simulated by the superconducting magnet was reliable. Another study also showed that the microgravity simulated by the RPM at a speed of 60 °/s, but not at a speed of 10 °/s, resulted in planarian death [Adell et al, ]. Our results showed that there was no lethal effect of microgravity.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 73%

Effects of large gradient high magnetic field (LG‐HMF) on the long‐term culture of aquatic organisms: Planarians example

Zhai

et al. 2018

Bioelectromagnetics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Large gradient high magnetic field (LG-HMF) is a powerful tool to study the effects of altered gravity on organisms. In our study, a platform for the long-term culture of aquatic organisms was designed based on a special superconducting magnet with an LG-HMF, which can provide three apparent gravity levels (µ g, 1 g, and 2 g), along with a control condition on the ground. Planarians, Dugesia japonica, were head-amputated and cultured for 5 days in a platform for head reconstruction. After planarian head regeneration, all samples were taken out from the superconducting magnet for a behavioral test under geomagnetic field and normal gravity conditions. To analyze differences among the four groups, four aspects of the planarians were considered, including head regeneration rate, phototaxis response, locomotor velocity, and righting behavior. Data showed that there was no significant difference in the planarian head regeneration rate under simulated altered gravity. According to statistical analysis of the behavioral test, all of the groups had normal functioning of the phototaxis response, while the planarians that underwent head reconstruction under the microgravity environment had significantly slower locomotor velocity and spent more time in righting behavior. Furthermore, histological staining and immunohistochemistry results helped us reveal that the locomotor system of planarians was affected by the simulated microgravity environment. We further demonstrated that the circular muscle of the planarians was weakened (hematoxylin and eosin staining), and the epithelial cilia of the planarians were reduced (anti-acetylated tubulin staining) under the simulated microgravity environment. Bioelectromagnetics. 2018;39:428-440. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

show abstract

“…Experiments performed on rats aboard the space shuttle Columbia have shown that the formation of mammalian motor system during postnatal development is affected by gravity levels (Walton et al 2005). A research project is being developed (Auletta et al 2012;Adell et al 2014) with the aim of ascertaining the effects of microgravity conditions on the establishment of the anterior-posterior axis in planarians (S. mediterranea), and its re-specification in relation to planarians' unique regenerative capabilities allowed by a widespread population of neoblasts, i.e. pluripotent stem cells (Saló et al 2009).…”

Section: Environmental Induction Of Phenotypic Changesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Extending epigenesis: from phenotypic plasticity to the bio-cultural feedback

D’Ambrosio

Colagé

2017

Biol Philos

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The paper aims at proposing an extended notion of epigenesis acknowledging an actual causal import to the phenotypic dimension for the evolutionary diversification of life forms. Section 1 offers introductory remarks on the issue of epigenesis contrasting it with ancient and modern preformationist views. In Section 2 we propose to intend epigenesis as a process of phenotypic formation and diversification a) dependent on environmental influences, b) independent of changes in the genomic nucleotide sequence, and c) occurring during the whole life span. Then, Section 3 focuses on phenotypic plasticity and offers an overview of basic properties (like robustness, modularity and degeneracy) that allows biological systems to be evolvable -i.e. to have the potentiality of producing phenotypic variation. Successively (Section 4), the emphasis is put on environmentally-induced modification in the regulation of gene expression giving rise to phenotypic variation and diversification. After some brief considerations on the debated issue of epigenetic inheritance (Section 5), the issue of culture (kept in the background of the preceding sections) is considered. The key point is that, in the case of humans and of the evolutionary history of the genus Homo at least, the environment is also, importantly, the cultural environment. Thus, Section 6 argues that a bio-cultural feedback should be acknowledged in the "epigenic" processes leading to phenotypic diversification and innovation in Homo evolution. Finally, Section 7 introduces the notion of "cultural neural reuse", which refers to phenotypic/neural modifications induced by specific features of the cultural environment that are effective in human cultural evolution without involving genetic changes. Therefore, cultural neural reuse may be regarded as a key instance of the bio-cultural feedback and ultimately of the extended notion of epigenesis proposed in this work.

show abstract

Planarians Sense Simulated Microgravity and Hypergravity

Cited by 15 publications

References 25 publications

Planarian regeneration in space: Persistent anatomical, behavioral, and bacteriological changes induced by space travel

Planarian regeneration in space: Persistent anatomical, behavioral, and bacteriological changes induced by space travel

Effects of large gradient high magnetic field (LG‐HMF) on the long‐term culture of aquatic organisms: Planarians example

Extending epigenesis: from phenotypic plasticity to the bio-cultural feedback

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About