Biology Biology Monday Seminar: "It Cuts Both Ways: An Annelid Model for the Study of Regeneration"

Veronica G. Martinez Acosta, Ph.D.
Professor of Biology and Director of the Honors Program at University of the Incarnate Word

My laboratory utilizes a unique invertebrate model, Lumbriculus variegatus, to study wound healing and regeneration within the central nervous system (CNS). Lumbriculus is capable of regenerating an entirely new worm from a fragment that is 1/50th the size of the original animal. Perhaps what sets Lumbriculus apart from other regenerating model systems is the ability to recover neural anatomy, physiology and behavior following injury along any portion of the anterior-posterior body axis. Our overarching laboratory goal is to identify the cellular and molecular events triggered as a result of injury within the CNS which promote regeneration and recovery of function versus deterioration. We have investigated the neuroanatomical and proteomic changes associated with regeneration in Lumbriculus. Current work in the lab focuses on the investigation of regeneration and wound healing using traditional microscopy techniques, including transmission electron microscopy and fluorescence microscopy methods; proteomic approaches; and genetic approaches, like hybridization chain reaction. We currently have four major projects underway: the characterization of changes within the nervous system during morphallaxis; stem cell populations utilized during regeneration of epimorphic tissues; changes in myelination associated with the giant fiber axons during regeneration; and photoreception in the posterior most segments of the worm. Overall, we are most interested in determining more precisely the cellular and molecular changes triggered following wound formation in a system that is committed to successful regeneration and recovery of function.