Real-time RT-PCR analysis of mortalin transcript abundance in the anterior rudiment reveals two peaks of roughly 3-fold up-regulation, one on day 7 (p = 0.036) and another one on day 21 (p = 0.019) (Figure 9C ), while, in the posterior rudiment, the overall mortalin expression level shows a highly significant increase as early as on day 3 after evisceration (p = 0.003) and then returns to the approximately normal level on days 7 to 21 (Figure 9D ).
In the mesothelium of the posterior rudiment, the increase in percentage of TUNEL-positive cells remains almost significant until day 7 (p = 0.056), before declining later on (Figure 10 ).
No significant difference in the overall survivin expression was found between the posterior regenerate at any stage of re-growth and the intact digestive tube (p ≥ 0.2269) (Figure 9B ), whereas the anterior regenerate shows a marginally insignificant increase in survivin mRNA level on days 7 (p = 0.067) and 14 (p = 0.073), which becomes a significant (p = 0.037) three-fold increase by day 21 after evisceration (Figure 9A ).