Camille Curantz

The Hydractinia cell atlas reveals cellular and molecular principles of cnidarian coloniality - Nature Communications Here they generate a cell type atlas of the colonial cnidarian Hydractinia symbiolongicarpus, which reveals that distinct colony parts are mostly made from unique combinations of shared cell types, an...

It’s finally outtttt!!!
Great to see this huge collab out, wouldn’t have been possible without any of the authors but especially my co-first @drsalamander.bsky.social and our mentors

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A positive feedback loop between germ cells and gonads induces and maintains sexual reproduction in a cnidarian Cnidarian germ cells secrete TGF-β to induce gonad development, and gonads induce germ cells by activating Tfap2 in stem cells.

New insight on gonad morphogenesis ! Our new paper reveals how germ & somatic cells interact through TGF-Beta feedback loop to drive gonad morphogenesis in Hydractinia.
Check out the full paper in Science Advances !

tinyurl.com/245rw699

Gonads and germ cells have an interdependent relationship in the cnidarian #Hydractinia. Germ cells secrete a TGF-beta ligand (called Gonadless) to induce and maintain the somatic gonad; gonads activate Tfap2 in pluripotent stem cells (i-cells) to commit them to germ fate
tinyurl.com/245rw699

#Hydractinia takes regeneration to the extreme¬in a new preprint, Curantz et al. show that dissociated, reaggregated cells can form a new individual. We also show how they do it and which cells types actually contribute to the new individual (tip: not many of them).
tinyurl.com/mr2s9zyf