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SUMMARY:Studying stem cells and differentiation in regenerating animals us
 ing single cell transcriptomics - Dr Jordi Solana
DTSTART:20220504T120000Z
DTEND:20220504T130000Z
UID:TALK172256@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Giacomo Gattoni
DESCRIPTION:Humans and mammals in general have extremely limited regenerat
 ion capacities\, and so do most well-established lab models. However\, ani
 mals such as planarians\, annelids and amphibians have amazing regenerativ
 e powers. These differences can be explained by the stem cells that exist 
 in the adult bodies\, but these are largely uncharacterised across the tre
 e of life. Among regenerative animals\, the planarian Schmidtea mediterran
 ea is a convenient lab model that regenerates any body part in a matter of
  days. A pluripotent stem cell population – the so-called neoblasts – 
 underlies the process. To study regeneration in planarians and other anima
 ls we are using novel methods of single cell analysis. We have developed A
 CME (ACetic-MEthanol) dissociation. ACME fixes the cells while they are be
 ing dissociated\, preventing the stress that a trypsin live dissociation i
 mposes on the cells and freezes the biology of the cell in the moment of c
 apture. ACME is based on affordable reagents\, can be done in most laborat
 ories and even in the field\, and thus will accelerate our knowledge of ce
 ll types across the tree of life. Using ACME\, we have also optimised SPLi
 T-seq\, one of the latest scRNA-seq approaches. SPLiT-seq is cost efficien
 t\, highly scalable and allows multiplexing several samples on one experim
 ent\, avoiding batch effects. With this approach we can obtain cell type a
 tlases\, but also investigate differences in cell type composition as well
  as finer differences in gene expression patterns. This has allowed us to 
 characterise cell types\, including stem cells\, of planarians\, cnidarian
 s\, annelids and ascidians. We now aim at investigating stem cells and reg
 eneration across animal evolution.
LOCATION:Part II Lecture Theatre\, Department of Zoology
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