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A comprehensive comparison of sex-inducing activity in asexual worms of the planarian Dugesia ryukyuensis: the crucial sex-inducing substance appears to be present in yolk glands in Tricladida

Overview of attention for article published in Zoological Letters, June 2018
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Title
A comprehensive comparison of sex-inducing activity in asexual worms of the planarian Dugesia ryukyuensis: the crucial sex-inducing substance appears to be present in yolk glands in Tricladida
Published in
Zoological Letters, June 2018
DOI 10.1186/s40851-018-0096-9
Pubmed ID
Authors

Haruka Nakagawa, Kiyono Sekii, Takanobu Maezawa, Makoto Kitamura, Soichiro Miyashita, Marina Abukawa, Midori Matsumoto, Kazuya Kobayashi

Abstract

Turbellarian species can post-embryonically produce germ line cells from pluripotent stem cells called neoblasts, which enables some of them to switch between an asexual and a sexual state in response to environmental changes. Certain low-molecular-weight compounds contained in sexually mature animals act as sex-inducing substances that trigger post-embryonic germ cell development in asexual worms of the freshwater planarian Dugesia ryukyuensis (Tricladida). These sex-inducing substances may provide clues to the molecular mechanism of this reproductive switch. However, limited information about these sex-inducing substances is available. Our assay system based on feeding sex-inducing substances to asexual worms of D. ryukyuensis is useful for evaluating sex-inducing activity. We used the freshwater planarians D. ryukyuensis and Bdellocephala brunnea (Tricladida), land planarian Bipalium nobile (Tricladida), and marine flatworm Thysanozoon brocchii (Polycladida) as sources of the sex-inducing substances. Using an assay system, we showed that the three Tricladida species had sufficient sex-inducing activity to fully induce hermaphroditic reproductive organs in asexual worms of D. ryukyuensis. However, the sex-inducing activity of T. brocchii was sufficient only to induce a pair of ovaries. We found that yolk glands, which are found in Tricladida but not Polycladida, may contain the sex-inducing substance that can fully sexualize asexual worms of D. ryukyuensis. Our results suggest that within Tricladida, there are one or more common compounds or functional analogs capable of fully sexualizing asexual worms of D. ryukyuensis; namely, the crucial sex-inducing substance (hydrophilic and heat-stable, but not a peptide) produced in yolk glands.

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Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 19 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 19 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Ph. D. Student 4 21%
Student > Doctoral Student 3 16%
Student > Bachelor 2 11%
Professor > Associate Professor 2 11%
Professor 1 5%
Other 3 16%
Unknown 4 21%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 5 26%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 5 26%
Medicine and Dentistry 2 11%
Nursing and Health Professions 1 5%
Environmental Science 1 5%
Other 0 0%
Unknown 5 26%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 2. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 15 June 2018.
All research outputs
#13,618,076
of 23,090,520 outputs
Outputs from Zoological Letters
#118
of 169 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#169,456
of 328,349 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Zoological Letters
#6
of 9 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 23,090,520 research outputs across all sources so far. This one is in the 39th percentile – i.e., 39% of other outputs scored the same or lower than it.
So far Altmetric has tracked 169 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 13.7. This one is in the 27th percentile – i.e., 27% of its peers scored the same or lower than it.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 328,349 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one is in the 46th percentile – i.e., 46% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.
We're also able to compare this research output to 9 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has scored higher than 3 of them.