PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Prasad Abnave
AU  - Ellen Aboukhatwa
AU  - Nobuyoshi Kosaka
AU  - James Thompson
AU  - Mark A. Hill
AU  - A. Aziz Aboobaker
TI  - Conservation of EMT transcription factor function in controlling pluripotent adult stem cell migration <em>in vivo</em> in planarians
AID  - 10.1101/080853
DP  - 2017 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 080853
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/04/24/080853.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/04/24/080853.full
AB  - Migration of stem cells underpins the physiology of metazoan animals. For tissues to be maintained, stem cells and their progeny must migrate and differentiate in the correct positions. This need is even more acute after tissue damage by wounding or pathogenic infections. Inappropriate migration also underpins the formation of metastasis. Despite this, few mechanistic studies address stem cell migration during repair or homeostasis in adult tissues. Here, we present a shielded X-ray irradiation assay that allows us to follow stem cell migration in the planarians. We demonstrate that we can use this system to study the molecular control of stem cell migration and show that snail and zeb-1 EMT transcription factors homologs are necessary for cell migration to wound sites and for the establishment of migratory cell morphology. Our work establishes planarians as a suitable model for further in depth study of the processes controlling stem cell migration in vivo.