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Among dividing cells, there are multiple levels of cell potency, which is the cell's ability to differentiate into other cell types. A greater potency indicates a larger number of cell types that can be derived. A cell that can differentiate into all cell types, including the placental tissue, is known as totipotent.
If a cell is in a determined state, the cell's fate cannot be reversed or transformed. In general, this means that a cell determined to differentiate into a brain cell cannot be transformed into a skin cell. Determination is followed by differentiation, the actual changes in biochemistry, structure, and function that result in specific cell types.
Embryonic stem cells exhibit dramatic and complex alterations to both global and site-specific chromatin structures. Lee et al. performed an experiment to determine the importance of deacetylation and acetylation for stem cell differentiation by looking at global acetylation and methylation levels at certain site-specific modification in histone sites H3K9 and H3K4.
A cell type is a classification used to identify cells that share morphological or phenotypical features. [1] A multicellular organism may contain cells of a number of widely differing and specialized cell types, such as muscle cells and skin cells, that differ both in appearance and function yet have identical genomic sequences.
Directed differentiation is a bioengineering methodology at the interface of stem cell biology, developmental biology and tissue engineering. [1] It is essentially harnessing the potential of stem cells by constraining their differentiation in vitro toward a specific cell type or tissue of interest. [2]
Anaplasia is defined as cells being in an undifferentiated state and it is often associated with cancer. Often this loss of mature cell markers or morphology can be due to dedifferentiation, [11] but it is sometimes used to refer to cells with incomplete differentiation presenting large variety in size and shape. [18]
Asymmetric divisions of these embryonic cells gives rise to one cell of the same potency (self-renewal), and another that maybe of the same potency or stimulated to further differentiate into specialized cell types such as neurons. This stimulated differentiation arises from many factors which can be divided into two broad categories: intrinsic ...
In terms of developmental commitment, a cell can either be specified or it can be determined. Specification is the first stage in differentiation. [2] A cell that is specified can have its commitment reversed while the determined state is irreversible. [3]