RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Conserved processes of metazoan whole-body regeneration identified in sea star larvae JF bioRxiv FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory SP 118232 DO 10.1101/118232 A1 Gregory Cary A1 Veronica Hinman YR 2017 UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/03/18/118232.abstract AB Regeneration is pervasive among the metazoa, but to vastly varying degrees. Platyhelminthes, Cnidaria, and Echinodermata are phyla whose members are capable of whole-body regeneration (WBR). While planaria and hydra have been exemplary models of this phenomenon, the details of echinoderm WBR are less established. We characterize regeneration in the larval sea star (Patiria miniata). Normal cell proliferation is reduced following bisection and prior to the onset of wound-proximal proliferation. This blastema-like proliferation is preceded by the restoration of axial patterning. Transcriptome responses highlight functions common to regeneration, such as wound healing and proliferation. Finally, we find evidence for conserved temporal expression of orthologs from published Platyhelminth and Cnidarian regeneration datasets. These analyses show that sea star larvae undergo regeneration through a trajectory including wound response, axis respecification, and blastemal proliferation. Commonalities between this Deuterostome model and other WBR models suggest a deep conservation of whole-body regeneration among the metazoa.