Why Hydra?

  1. •Primitive animal(Cnidaria, Hydrozoa)


  1. •Transparent


  1. •Absence of organs


  1. •Small


  1. •Genome sequenced



  1. • massive culturing

  1. •Functional conservation of  cell processes and molecular pathways


  1. •Transgenic technology


  1. •RNAi technology

Hydra to understand axial patterning, cell stemness, regeneration

Beta catenin -GFP transgenic Hydra during regeneration-

Images were acquired by Light sheet confocal microscopy (Prof A.Bassi, University of Milano) (Iachetta et al Int J Dev Biol , 2018)

Time-lapse acquisition by light sheet fluorescence microscopy of b-cat eGFP ECTO transgenic Hydra during the budding process (Iachetta et al Int J Dev Biol , 2018)

  1. •Asexual reproduction by budding

  1. •Head regeneration