Planarian Biodiversity

Planarians are a diverse taxonomic group within the phylum Platyhelminthes (flatworms). Several hundred species exist worldwide that collectively represent a wide range of regenerative abilities, life expectancies, reproductive strategies or body sizes, all within a single taxon. Together with the established laboratory model species S. mediterranea and D. japonica, planarian biodiversity provides a rich resource for the comparative analysis of fundamental biological processes. Our lab is in the process of establishing a large live collection of planarian species. Part of this effort is the sequencing and assembly of transcriptomes of various planarian species. This bioproject archives the raw sequencing reads, the assembled transcriptomes are available and can be browsed in PlanMine, http://planmine.mpi-cbg.de/.