Role As A Model Organism
Long ignored as an exotic, marginal phenomenon, Trichoplax adhaerens is today viewed as a potential biological model organism. In particular, research is needed to determine how a group of cells that cannot be considered full-fledged epithelial tissue organizes itself, how locomotion and coordination occur in the absence of true muscle and nerve tissue, and how the absence of a concrete body axis affects the animal's biology. At the genetic level, the way in which Trichoplax adhaerens protects against damage to its genome needs to be studied, particularly with regard to the existence of special DNA-repair processes. Complete decoding of the genome should also clarify the placozoans' place in evolution, which continues to be controversial.
In addition to basic research, this animal could also be suitable for studying wound-healing and regeneration processes; as yet unidentified metabolic products should be researched. Finally, Trichoplax adhaerens is also being considered as an animal model for testing compounds.
Read more about this topic: Trichoplax Adhaerens
Famous quotes containing the words role as, role, model and/or organism:
“Totalitarianism is never content to rule by external means, namely, through the state and a machinery of violence; thanks to its peculiar ideology and the role assigned to it in this apparatus of coercion, totalitarianism has discovered a means of dominating and terrorizing human beings from within.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)
“But however the forms of family life have changed and the number expanded, the role of the family has remained constant and it continues to be the major institution through which children pass en route to adulthood.”
—Bernice Weissbourd (20th century)
“When Titian was mixing brown madder,
His model was posed up a ladder.
Said Titian, “That position
Calls for coition,”
So he lept up the ladder and had her.”
—Anonymous.
“All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)