Christine Schnitzler, Assistant Professor of Biology, has published an important new study in Science on regeneration in Hydra, a tiny freshwater cnidarian (related to jellyfish) known for its ability to regenerate its entire body after injury. Together with colleagues from the University of California-Davis and Harvard University, Schnitzler mapped individual cells and the changes in gene expression of those cells during the regeneration process, i.e. from stem cells to differentiated tissues. Using single-cell, RNA-sequencing techniques, they mapped the developmental trajectories of nearly 25,000 individual cells, including nerve cells. Understanding how Hydra regenerates its entire nervous system could help us understand nerve tissue repair in other organisms including humans.
To learn more see: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/365/6451/eaav9314
S. Siebert, J.A. Farrell, J.F. Cazet, Y. Abeykoon, A.S. Primack, C. E. Schnitzler, C.E. Juliano. 2019. Stem cell differentiation trajectories in Hydra resolved at single-cell resolution. Science, 26 July 2019; Vol. 365, Issue 6451, DOI: 10.1126/science.aav9314