Regeneration and asexual reproduction in annelids: Cells, genes, and evolution

Abstract

A comparative study of regeneration and asexual reproduction across annelids is presented. The importance and universality of early stages of the restoration morphogeneses, which, however, vary in details, is shown. Here, we concern on the conserved elements of genetic regulatory programs involved in both processes, responsible for cell fate plasticity and rapid changes of following re-establishment of positional identity along the anterior-posterior axis.