Page 49 - through Clusters and Networks

Questions like ‘what determines size
Planaria in media
worms, have remarkable regenerative
and shape in the animals though they abilities. Amputation of a worm results
share a common body plan have been in a tail that regenerates a head and a
an enigma in biology. Our fascination head that regenerates a tail. In fact, in
with the size and shape of living 1898, TH Morgan had reported that
organisms, dates back to more than 1/279th piece of the animal was
two thousand years ago, when the sufficient to give rise to a whole
Roman architect Vitruvius discussed animal. They also possess a
the perfect proportion of the human tremendous capacity to shrink or
body in his work ‘De Architectura’. The expand their body size based on the
iconic ‘Vitruvian Man’ by Leonardo da availability of food. The presence of
Vinci is based on this work. such extraordinary abilities coupled to
the establishment of useful molecular
The underlying mechanisms that techniques has boosted the potential
govern the regulation of size and shape of this organism to be an excellent
should be similar across the diverse life model system to study size and shape.
forms. Despite a lot of effort to
understand these mechanisms in
well-established model systems with
determinate growth, like D. melanogster
and C. elegans, invertebrate models to Nivedita Hariharan &
study development. We still lack a Dr. Dasaradhi Palakodeti
complete understanding of the Palakodeti Lab
processes that control size and shape. Institute for Stem Cell Biology &
Regenerative Medicine (inStem)
Planarians which are flat, free living Bengalore
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