Figure 2. Smed-pou4-2 is positively regulated by soxB1-2.

(A) UMAP of soxB1-2⁺ neuronal subclusters from scRNA-seq data. (B) pou4-2, synapsin, and synaptogamin are enriched in cluster 8. (C) Heatmap of genes examined in this study demonstrates their differential expression in the pou4-2⁺ cell cluster. (D) soxB1-2 RNAi reduces pou4-2 expression in the mechanosensory dorsal and peripheral ciliated stripes (dcs and pcs) but not in the ventral nerve cords (vnc) or cephalic ganglia (cg). Scale bars = 200 μm; n ≥3 worms tested, with all samples displaying similar expression patterns.

Figure 2—figure supplement 1. Schematic of RNAi treatment and reciprocal expression analysis.

(A) Timeline of RNAi feeding and fixation for WISH in uninjured and regenerating animals. Planarians were fed twice per week for 4 weeks, amputated pre-pharyngeally 1 day after the final feeding, and fixed 10 days post-amputation for WISH analyses. (B) pou4-2 RNAi leads to reduced soxB1-2 expression in the dorsal ciliated stripe (dcs). Anterior is to the top. Scale bars = 200 μm; n ≥3 worms tested, with all samples displaying similar expression patterns.

Figure 2—figure supplement 2. Knockdown of atonal genes does not alter pou4-2 expression in regenerating animals.

Scale bars = 200 μm; n ≥3 worms per group (see Supplementary file 6).