Study of planarians offers insight into germ cell development
by MikeGeneFrom here:
In a new study published this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Newmark and his colleagues at the U. of I. report that planarians share some important characteristics with mammals that may help scientists tease out the mechanisms by which germ cells are formed and maintained. Newmark's team made a few discoveries related to a gene, called nanos, which was previously known to play a critical role in germ cell development in several other model organisms.
Unlike fruit flies and nematodes, which show signs of germ cell initiation in the earliest stages of their embryonic development, planarians do not generally express nanos or produce germ cells until several days after hatching. This delayed initiation of germ cell growth is called inductive specification, and is common to mammals and a number of other animals.
