Damien Moreno

7 Science
April 22, 2014
PLANARIA LAB REPORT

PROBLEM: If trisected, which piece of a planarian will regenerate first?

HYPOTHESIS: If trisected, then the anterior will regenerate first.

THEORY:

Planaria are flatworms that reproduce sexually. These planaria are
hermaphrodites. Meaning that they have the reproductive systems of both male
and female gonads. Since planaria are hermaphrodites they reproduce offspring
differently than most organisms. In sexual reproduction the planaria transports
excretion into the next planaria. During this process, each one of the planaria gives
and receives sperm externally. After the planaria have exchanged sperm, the
planaria eggs start to fertilize in the area of the ovaries. After the span of about
fifteen days these planaria can now hatch there eggs internally in order to
reproduce new planaria.

When conditions are less than ideal, planaria have the ability to reproduce
asexually. This means that planaria can reproduce by using there own body. Such as
a piece of the planaria can leave in order for a new healthy planaria to reproduce.
Before a planaria can asexually reproduce, it needs a piece of its body to leave. The
planaria are able to produce offsprings by going through the process of tail
dropping, tail dropping is when the anterior section still attached to the mid section
leave the posterior area. Once the anterior and mid section have left the posterior,
specialized cells called neoblasts (30% of all cells) double there appearance around
the area where a wound was made. New tissue would start to form on both the
anterior and posterior so they can create new planaria.

Planaria are able to reproduce asexually through the process of regeneration.
During the process of regeneration, the planaria must have already started to
reproduce asexually. Planaria are made up of 30% neoblast cells, which are
totipotent (stem cells), meaning they have the ability to become any type of cell.
When the planaria is wounded, the neoblast cells start to occur where the wound
has been produced. After time, the neoblast start to differentiate and divide every
other neoblast so those cells can become specialized. This process is repeated until
the area where there was a wound now is either a new anterior, mid, or posterior
section. Before experimenting, I hypothesized that if the planaria were trisected, the
anterior would regenerate the fast. I believed that the anterior section would
regenerate the fastest because since the anterior is the head, I thought that it would
take the longest to regenerate, rather than the mid section along with the posterior.



Conclusion:

In this lab we trisected an organism called planaria (flatworms). In this lab, I
hypothesized that if the planarian were trisected, then the anterior would
regenerate the fastest. My data shows by day 6 the anterior had come close to being
regenerated along with the mid section. The mid section was fully pigmented, and
the posterior still had a lot of ghost cells that needed to be differentiated into one of
the forms of a regular body cell. During the span of both days 8 and 9 the anterior
and posterior were very closely behind the mid section. The anterior was harshly
short but it still had the potential to be the first regenerated even if the size wasnt
the longest. The posterior mean while was still creeping from behind and had all of
the tissue but how ever it did not have nearly as much pigmentation as the other
two sections. This data was also the case for periods 2, 3, and 6. Even though our
groups data wasnt accurate compared to our classes, but it was accurate if it is
compared to the whole seventh grades data. My class had the anterior section
regenerating 50% of the time while the whole seventh grade had only 37% of the
anterior section regenerating the fastest. While 49% of the grade had the mid
section regenerating first only 43% of our class had the midsection regenerating
first, making only a 6% difference between the two data sets. Meanwhile when both
the midsection and anterior were growing rapidly and developing pigmentation
only 14% of the 7
th
grade had the posterior regenerating our class had half of that
percent at 7% making the two sets of data compared only 21% of the planarians
posterior section regenerated first. In conclusion, planaria will regenerate when
trisected and the three sections regenerate in different terms of time because of the
tissues and body parts they need to develop.



50
43
7
37
49
14
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30
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50
60
Anterior Mid Section Posterior
%

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2014 Regeneration Data
7th period
7th grade

Analysis:

At the end of this experiment, I believe that our results were mostly valid.
During the span of this experiment I had done a fine job of keeping notes, but on day
4 I was unable to get under the microscope in order to look at the planarian.
Through out the span of this lab, my partner and I were able to spot each planarian
and give a description for all of the pieces for each planarian. Towards the end it
was very hard to tell which pieces were either the posterior or anterior, knowing
that both of the pieces were very close in terms of growth behind the mid section. I
think that in the end I wish I could have gone back into time in order to figure
something out with the other group next to us so we could balance out the
microscope time in order to see more of the planarian regeneration and take more
descriptive notes. I know that mistakes are made and that we cant go back in time
but our groups lab results came out just fine and there is nothing we can do about
the tiny mistakes that were made.

There are many different types of organisms in the world, and in them are
many stem cells. However there are different types of stem cells with different
features and functions. Neoblasts are totipotent making them to be able to have the
ability to become any specialized cell in a planarian. But human stem cells are not
totally the same because when an embryo is formed there are three layers and
within those layers those stem cells are pluripotent making them to have the ability
to be most specialized cells but not all. However both neoblasts and human stem
cells have some similarities. Since neoblasts are stem cells they perform the same
actions that human stem cells do. These neoblasts and human stem cells help the
bods illness from with inside. They help heal the wound by attacking with
appearance. For instance if a planaria was to asexually reproduce the planaria
would start to rapidly increase its occurrence this wound in a cycle so the planaria
can regenerate and have new tissue that starts to become pigmented. During this
sequence of events if you look under a microscope you could see new tissue that has
not been pigmented in the planaria, this area is called ghost cells. Just like human
stem cells, when a person has a wound, these stem cells just like the neoblasts raise
their occurrence where the wound was made and try to heal the pain that was made.
The more stem cells produced the more health power is provided causing a wound
to heal faster.

Now in present day the controversy over stem cell research is less than what
it used to be. This scenario is due to two new ways of scientist obtaining stem cells,
both IPS and STAP. So now hES is no longer the only way to obtain stem cells. IPS, or
Induced Pluripotent stem cells, is a way of creating artificial pluripotent stem cells
by adding genes to a differentiated cell to undifferentiated it. STAP, or stimulus-
triggered acquisition of pluripotency, is another way of creating artificial stem cells
through stressing a differentiated cell until it reforms back into its original un-
differentiated form. Although these two methods have proved that they work,
scientists are still not sure of the effects that the STAP therapy can provide. hES is
another method of obtaining pluripotent embryonic stem cells. The reason there
was and still is a little controversy over hES is because in order to obtain embryonic
stem cells, an embryo must be destroyed. Even though the embryo is usually five or
six weeks old, the thought is still upsetting to some because they believe that life
begins at conception.