Planarian Immobilization, Partial Irradiation, and Tissue Transplantation

The overall goal of the following experiment is to position a population of healthy stem cells adjacent to stem cell ablated tissue within a parian in order to analyze stem cell and progeny behaviors in vivo during regeneration. This is achieved by anesthetizing and immobilizing either an un irradiated or a Leafly irradiated parian for further manipulation. Next, the immobilized un irradiated parian is partially shielded with lead and then x-ray irradiated, which produces an uninjured parian with stem cell ablated tissue juxtaposed to the shielded tissue that remains stem cell laden.

Alternatively, a tissue graft taken from a non irradiated donor may be transplanted into a previously irradiated host in order to produce a parian with an isolated population of stem cells. Fally present within an otherwise stem cell. Ablated host results are obtained that show isolated stem cell populations adjacent to the stem cell ablated tissues by whole mount RNA in situ two hybridization for stem cell marker genes.