title: A proteomics approach to decipher the molecular nature of planarian stem cells.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  In recent years, planaria have emerged as an important model system for research into stem cells and regeneration. Attention is focused on their unique stem cells, the neoblasts, which can differentiate into any cell type present in the adult organism. Sequencing of the Schmidtea mediterranea genome and some expressed sequence tag projects have generated extensive data on the genetic profile of these cells. However, little information is available on their protein dynamics.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We developed a proteomic strategy to identify neoblast-specific proteins. Here we describe the method and discuss the results in comparison to the genomic high-throughput analyses carried out in planaria and to proteomic studies using other stem cell systems. We also show functional data for some of the candidate genes selected in our proteomic approach.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We have developed an accurate and reliable mass-spectra-based proteomics approach to complement previous genomic studies and to further achieve a more accurate understanding and description of the molecular and cellular processes related to the neoblasts.
authors.affiliation: Departament de Genètica and Institute of Biomedicine, Universitat de Barcelona, Avenida Diagonal 645, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.
authors.forename: Enrique
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Fernández-Taboada
authors.forename: Gustavo
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Rodríguez-Esteban
authors.forename: Emili
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Saló
authors.forename: Josep F
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Abril
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003001:Cloning, Molecular; D019295:Computational Biology; D015180:Electrophoresis, Gel, Two-Dimensional; D049751:Genome, Helminth; D017403:In Situ Hybridization; D010932:Planarians / Q000166:cytology* / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D040901:Proteomics / Q000379:methods*; D034622:RNA Interference; D013234:Stem Cells / Q000166:cytology / Q000378:metabolism*