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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences
Adult And Regenerating Planarians Respond Differentially To Chronic Drug Exposure, Kevin Bayingana , '23, Danielle Ireland, Elizabeth Rosenthal , '23, Christina Rabeler, Eva-Maria S. Collins
Adult And Regenerating Planarians Respond Differentially To Chronic Drug Exposure, Kevin Bayingana , '23, Danielle Ireland, Elizabeth Rosenthal , '23, Christina Rabeler, Eva-Maria S. Collins
Biology Faculty Works
There is a lack of data on the effects of chronic exposure to common drugs and stimulants on the developing nervous system. Freshwater planarians have emerged as a useful invertebrate model amenable to high-throughput behavioral phenotyping to assay chemical safety in adult and developing brains. Here, we leverage the unique strength of the system to test in parallel for effects on the adult and developing nervous system, by screening ten common drugs and stimulants (forskolin, clenbuterol, LRE-1, MDL-12,330A, adenosine, caffeine, histamine, mianserin, fluoxetine and sertraline) using the asexual freshwater planarian Dugesia japonica. The compounds were tested up to 100 …
Planarian Fragments Behave As Whole Animals, D. Le, Ziad Sabry , '21, A. Chandra, W. B. Kristan Iii, Eva-Maria S. Collins, W. B. Kristan Jr.
Planarian Fragments Behave As Whole Animals, D. Le, Ziad Sabry , '21, A. Chandra, W. B. Kristan Iii, Eva-Maria S. Collins, W. B. Kristan Jr.
Biology Faculty Works
Behavioral responses of freshwater planarians have been studied for over a century. In recent decades, behavior has been used as a readout to study planarian development and regeneration, wound healing, molecular evolution, neurotoxicology, and learning and memory. The planarian nervous system is among the simplest of the bilaterally symmetric animals, with an anterior brain attached to two ventral nerve cords interconnected by multiple commissures. We found that, in response to mechanical and near-UV stimulation, head stimulation produces turning, tail stimulation produces contraction, and trunk stimulation produces midbody elongation in the planarian Dugesia japonica. When cut into two or three pieces, …
Differences In Neurotoxic Outcomes Of Organophosphorus Pesticides Revealed Via Multi-Dimensional Screening In Adult And Regenerating Planarians, Danielle Ireland, S. Zhang, Veronica Bochenek , ' 22, J.-H. Hsieh, Christina Rabeler, Zane Meyer , '21, Eva-Maria S. Collins
Differences In Neurotoxic Outcomes Of Organophosphorus Pesticides Revealed Via Multi-Dimensional Screening In Adult And Regenerating Planarians, Danielle Ireland, S. Zhang, Veronica Bochenek , ' 22, J.-H. Hsieh, Christina Rabeler, Zane Meyer , '21, Eva-Maria S. Collins
Biology Faculty Works
Organophosphorus pesticides (OPs) are a chemically diverse class of commonly used insecticides. Epidemiological studies suggest that low dose chronic prenatal and infant exposures can lead to life-long neurological damage and behavioral disorders. While inhibition of acetylcholinesterase (AChE) is the shared mechanism of acute OP neurotoxicity, OP-induced developmental neurotoxicity (DNT) can occur independently and/or in the absence of significant AChE inhibition, implying that OPs affect alternative targets. Moreover, different OPs can cause different adverse outcomes, suggesting that different OPs act through different mechanisms. These findings emphasize the importance of comparative studies of OP toxicity. Freshwater planarians are an invertebrate system that …
Head Removal Enhances Planarian Electrotaxis, Ziad Sabry , '21, Rui Wang, A. Jahromi, Christina Rabeler, W. B. Kristan Iii, Eva-Maria S. Collins
Head Removal Enhances Planarian Electrotaxis, Ziad Sabry , '21, Rui Wang, A. Jahromi, Christina Rabeler, W. B. Kristan Iii, Eva-Maria S. Collins
Biology Faculty Works
Certain animal species utilize electric fields for communication, hunting and spatial orientation. Freshwater planarians move toward the cathode in a static electric field (cathodic electrotaxis). This planarian behavior was first described by Raymond Pearl more than a century ago. However, planarian electrotaxis has received little attention since, and the underlying mechanisms and evolutionary significance remain unknown. To close this knowledge gap, we developed an apparatus and scoring metrics for automated quantitative and mechanistic studies of planarian behavior upon exposure to a static electric field. Using this automated setup, we characterized electrotaxis in the planarian Dugesia japonica and found that this …
Nature, Data, And Power: How Hegemonies Shaped This Special Section, A. Kamath, B. Velocci, A. Wesner, N. Chen, Vincent A. Formica, B. Subramaniam, M. Rebolleda-Gómez
Nature, Data, And Power: How Hegemonies Shaped This Special Section, A. Kamath, B. Velocci, A. Wesner, N. Chen, Vincent A. Formica, B. Subramaniam, M. Rebolleda-Gómez
Biology Faculty Works
Systems of oppression—racism, colonialism, misogyny, cissexism, ableism, heteronormativity, and more—have long shaped the content and practice of science. But opportunities to reckon with these influences are rarely found within academic science, even though such critiques are well developed in the social sciences and humanities. In this special section, we attempt to bring cross-disciplinary conversations among ecology, evolution, behavior, and genetics on the one hand and critical perspectives from the social sciences and humanities on the other into the pages—and in front of the readers—of a scientific journal. In this introduction to the special section, we recount and reflect on the …
Multi-Behavioral Endpoint Testing Of An 87-Chemical Compound Library In Freshwater Planarians, S. Zhang, D. Hagstrom, P. Hayes, A. Graham, Eva-Maria S. Collins
Multi-Behavioral Endpoint Testing Of An 87-Chemical Compound Library In Freshwater Planarians, S. Zhang, D. Hagstrom, P. Hayes, A. Graham, Eva-Maria S. Collins
Biology Faculty Works
There is an increased recognition in the field of toxicology of the value of medium-to-high-throughput screening methods using in vitro and alternative animal models. We have previously introduced the asexual freshwater planarian Dugesia japonica as a new alternative animal model and proposed that it is particularly well-suited for the study of developmental neurotoxicology. In this paper, we discuss how we have expanded and automated our screening methodology to allow for fast screening of multiple behavioral endpoints, developmental toxicity, and mortality. Using an 87-compound library provided by the National Toxicology Program (NTP), consisting of known and suspected neurotoxicants, including drugs, flame …
Planarian Cholinesterase: Molecular And Functional Characterization Of An Evolutionarily Ancient Enzyme To Study Organophosphorus Pesticide Toxicity, D. Hagstrom, S. Zhang, A. Ho, E. S. Tsai, Z. Radić, A. Jahromi, K. J. Kaj, Y. He, P. Taylor, Eva-Maria S. Collins
Planarian Cholinesterase: Molecular And Functional Characterization Of An Evolutionarily Ancient Enzyme To Study Organophosphorus Pesticide Toxicity, D. Hagstrom, S. Zhang, A. Ho, E. S. Tsai, Z. Radić, A. Jahromi, K. J. Kaj, Y. He, P. Taylor, Eva-Maria S. Collins
Biology Faculty Works
The asexual freshwater planarian Dugesia japonica has emerged as a medium-throughput alternative animal model for neurotoxicology. We have previously shown that D. japonica are sensitive to organophosphorus pesticides (OPs) and characterized the in vitro inhibition profile of planarian cholinesterase (DjChE) activity using irreversible and reversible inhibitors. We found that DjChE has intermediate features of acetylcholinesterase (AChE) and butyrylcholinesterase (BChE). Here, we identify two candidate genes (Djche1 and Djche2) responsible for DjChE activity. Sequence alignment and structural homology modeling with representative vertebrate AChE and BChE sequences confirmed our structural predictions, and show that both DjChE enzymes have intermediate sized catalytic gorges …