Biologists at Tufts University claim that they have attained success in inducing one species of flatworm to get an entirely new flatworm species without even altering their genomic sequence.

As per study researchers, their work has revealed that physiological circuits are a new kind of epigenetics, which is information that exists outside of genomic sequence that helps in determining large-scale anatomy.

The research published this week in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences clearly shows that the large-scale anatomy is not hard-wired in the genome, but it can also be affected by physiological circuits outside the genes.

According to researchers, study’s findings can help them better understand the birth defects and regeneration by revealing a new pathway for controlling complex pattern formation.

The paper's senior and corresponding author, Michael Levin, Ph.D, said, “It is commonly thought that the sequence and structure of chromatin - material that makes up chromosomes - determine the shape of an organism, but these results show that the function of physiological networks can override the species-specific default anatomy”.

The researchers said that by making certain changes in the connectivity of cells via electrical synapses, they were able to get head morphology and brain pattern that belonged to an entirely new species.

These findings raise some significant questions about how genes and bioelectric networks interact to build complex body structures, said Levin.

The authors also presented a computational model that explains how changes in cell-to-cell communication can give rise to the diverse shape types. But the study authors agree that some additional research is needed to determine how this occurs.