Earthworm Regeneration

The ability to regenerate lost limbs and body parts has appeared and disappeared many times over evolution. Nerves are particularly difficult to regenerate. Certain species of earthworms regenerate lost segments after injury, forming nerve, muscle and vasculature in a relatively short time. We have sequenced the genome, and mapped the changes in the transcriptome at various times during regeneration. Recently we also carried out spatial transcritomics of the regenerating tissue.