ArticlePloS one2009
To be or not to be a flatworm: the acoel controversy.
Article in PloS one, 2009. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 46 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
46 citing papers in PubMed, 106 citations in OpenAlex.
- Totipotency and high plasticity in an embryo with an invariant, fate-specifying cleavage program.Current biology : CB · 2026Article
- Absence of conserved immune signalling pathways and increased pathogen susceptibility associated to photosymbiosis in acoels.BMC biology · 2026Article
- Stem cell proliferation and differentiation during larval metamorphosis of the model tapewormFrontiers in cellular and infection microbiology · 2023Article
- Evolutionary Adaptations of Parasitic Flatworms to Different Oxygen Tensions.Antioxidants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Review
- A pan-metazoan concept for adult stem cells: the wobbling Penrose landscape.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2022Article
- Studying Xenacoelomorpha WBR Using Isodiametra pulchra.Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.) · 2022Article
- Regeneration of the flatworm Prosthiostomum siphunculus (Polycladida, Platyhelminthes).Cell and tissue research · 2021Article
- Neural architecture and regeneration in the acoelProceedings. Biological sciences · 2020Article
- Does regeneration recapitulate phylogeny? Planaria as a model of body-axis specification in ancestral eumetazoa.Communicative & integrative biology · 2020Article
- ChIP-ping the branches of the tree: functional genomics and the evolution of eukaryotic gene regulation.Briefings in functional genomics · 2018Review
- Role of neoblasts in the patterned postembryonic growth of the platyhelminthNeurogenesis (Austin, Tex.) · 2018Article
- Draft genome ofZoological letters · 2018Article
- The mitochondrial genomes of the acoelomorph worms Paratomella rubra, Isodiametra pulchra and Archaphanostoma ylvae.Scientific reports · 2017Article
- Adhesive organ regeneration in Macrostomum lignano.BMC developmental biology · 2016Article
- Molecular evolution of troponin I and a role of its N-terminal extension in nematode locomotion.Cytoskeleton (Hoboken, N.J.) · 2016Article
- Dual functions of Macpiwi1 in transposon silencing and stem cell maintenance in the flatworm Macrostomum lignano.RNA (New York, N.Y.) · 2015Article
- Genome and transcriptome of the regeneration-competent flatworm, Macrostomum lignano.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2015Article
- A transcriptomic-phylogenomic analysis of the evolutionary relationships of flatworms.Current biology : CB · 2015Article
- A higher level classification of all living organisms.PloS one · 2015Article
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Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
25 authors at 12 institutions in 7 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Since first described, acoels were considered members of the flatworms (Platyhelminthes). However, no clear synapomorphies among the three large flatworm taxa -- the Catenulida, the Acoelomorpha and the Rhabditophora -- have been characterized to date. Molecular phylogenies, on the other hand, commonly positioned acoels separate from other flatworms. Accordingly, our own multi-locus phylogenetic analysis using 43 genes and 23 animal species places the acoel flatworm Isodiametra pulchra at the base of all Bilateria, distant from other flatworms. By contrast, novel data on the distribution and proliferation of stem cells and the specific mode of epidermal replacement constitute a strong synapomorphy for the Acoela plus the major group of flatworms, the Rhabditophora. The expression of a piwi-like gene not only in gonadal, but also in adult somatic stem cells is another unique feature among bilaterians. These two independent stem-cell-related characters put the Acoela into the Platyhelminthes-Lophotrochozoa clade and account for the most parsimonious evolutionary explanation of epidermal cell renewal in the Bilateria. Most available multigene analyses produce conflicting results regarding the position of the acoels in the tree of life. Given these phylogenomic conflicts and the contradiction of developmental and morphological data with phylogenomic results, the monophyly of the phylum Platyhelminthes and the position of the Acoela remain unresolved. By these data, both the inclusion of Acoela within Platyhelminthes, and their separation from flatworms as basal bilaterians are well-supported alternatives.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.