Emili Elena, Pérez-Posada Alberto, Vanni Virginia, Salamanca-Díaz David, Ródriguez-Fernández Dianalí, Christodoulou Maria D, Solana Jordi
Department of Biological and Medical Sciences, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK.
Living Systems Institute, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK.
Sci Adv. 2025 May 9;11(19):eadm7042. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.adm7042. Epub 2025 May 7.
Allometry explores the relationship between an organism's body size and its various components, offering insights into ecology, physiology, metabolism, and disease. The cell is the basic unit of biological systems, and yet the study of cell-type allometry remains relatively unexplored. Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) provides a promising tool for investigating cell-type allometry. Planarians, capable of growing and degrowing following allometric scaling rules, serve as an excellent model for these studies. We used scRNA-seq to examine cell-type allometry in asexual planarians of different sizes, revealing that they consist of the same basic cell types but in varying proportions. Notably, the gut basal cells are the most responsive to changes in size, suggesting a role in energy storage. We capture the regulated gene modules of distinct cell types in response to body size. This research sheds light on the molecular and cellular aspects of cell-type allometry in planarians and underscores the utility of scRNA-seq in these investigations.
异速生长研究生物体的体型与其各个组成部分之间的关系，为生态学、生理学、新陈代谢和疾病提供了见解。细胞是生物系统的基本单位，但细胞类型异速生长的研究仍相对未被探索。单细胞RNA测序（scRNA-seq）为研究细胞类型异速生长提供了一个有前景的工具。涡虫能够按照异速生长比例规则生长和再生，是这些研究的优秀模型。我们使用scRNA-seq来研究不同大小的无性涡虫中的细胞类型异速生长，发现它们由相同的基本细胞类型组成，但比例不同。值得注意的是，肠道基底细胞对大小变化最敏感，表明其在能量储存中起作用。我们捕获了不同细胞类型响应体型变化的调控基因模块。这项研究揭示了涡虫中细胞类型异速生长的分子和细胞层面，并强调了scRNA-seq在这些研究中的实用性。
