Evidences of cell’s pluripotency of hemichordata

Abstract

Hemichordata is one special kind of invertebrate animal that has many similarities with early vertebrate animals, especially the part of their dorsal column. Otherwise, hemichordata have a strong ability of regeneration. Regeneration is a sign which means the possibility of having totipotent adult stem cells. It is widely known that totipotent adult stem cells exist in many kinds of invertebrate animals, but they have not been found in the body of vertebrate animals in natural nowadays. Hemichordata may have possibility to be helpful due to its similarity of its dorsal column with early vertebrate animals. Dorsal column of vertebrate animals is one of the most complex structures in vertebrate animals’ body, and hemichordata showed the possibility to regenerate in nature. Because of this, many attentions are caught by it. However, one important precondition of researches about totipotent adult stem cells of hemichordata has not been solved: the strong regeneration ability of hemichordata has not been proved completely, and controversy is still subsistent. This article will try to find some ways to prove the existence of hemichordata’s totipotent adult stem cells in natural during its regenerative process.