Anita Hall - Stem cells Flashcards
Link between cell signalling and stem cells?
What are the different stages in a cell’s life cycle?
What are the defining features of a stem cell?
What are the different types of stem cells?
Where are embryonic stem cells found? What potency do they have?
What are the three germ layers that a ES cell can differentiate into?
How can ES cells be stably maintained and expanded in vitro?
Ethical issues associated with working on ES cells?
What did John Gurdon discover about stem cells in (1962)?
What did Takahashi & Yamanaka (2006) discover?
When creating IPSCs, how long does reprogramming take and do different combinations of TFs introduced influence the stem cells produced?
Before you can use IPSC in academic research, what do you have to do?
IPSC test - Outline what the teratoma test is?
IPSC test - What is the embryoid body test?
IPSC test - On a genomic level how can we check whether our IPSCs resemble ES cells?
Correct genes are active - Promoters and histones of pluripotency genes expressed (demethylated -active) and pro-differentiation genes are repressed (e.g. methylated) – epigenomic modifications
IPSC test - Growth of an entire organism
What is the main safety concern when working with IPSCs?
What did Hou P. et al show with regards to pluripotent stem cell induction?
Show that pluripotent stem cells can be generated from mouse somatic cells at a frequency up to 0.2% (low) using a combination of seven small-molecule compounds that don’t integrate into the genome – one of these molecule acts via Wnt signalling
The chemically induced pluripotent stem cells resemble embryonic stem cells in terms of their…
a) Gene expression profiles
b) Epigenetic status
c) Potential for differentiation
d) Germline transmission
By using small molecules, exogenous “master genes” are dispensable for cell fate reprogramming (no need to introduce genes) –> This chemical reprogramming strategy has potential use in generating functional desirable cell types for clinical applications.
What are some examples of in-vitro assays performed on stem cells?
What are some examples of in-vivo assays performed on stem cells?
What two techniques are used for stem cell harvesting?
Stem cells harvesting
Selective adhesion - some stem cells have different adhesion molecule which can be taken advantage of
FACS sorting - method for sorting a heterogeneous mixture of biological cells into two or more containers, one cell at a time, based upon the specific light scattering and fluorescent characteristics of each cell.
What is Lineage tracing?
Lineage tracing: a powerful technique and useful to understand
Lineage tracing experiments aim to highlight the full progeny of a given cell/cell population through genetic tagging - tagging stem cells/daughter cell/trans-amplifying cell and its progeny in order to trace them
How is Lineage tracing performed using Cre-Lox as an example
Using the example 82 yr. old ALS patient - explain how Skin cells were converted to iPS cells? What did they check for - think about the intentions?
82 yr. old ALS patient - What did they do to their IPSCs in order to drive differentiation into Motor nuerons?
How did Yang et al. 2013 go about investigating motor nuerons from ALS patients?
What did Marchetto et al., 2010 find out about Rett syndrome using patient derived IPSCs?
In another more recent Rett iPSC study, what did Chin EWM et al., 2016 show?
What did Williams Syndrome patient derived IPSCs show in-vitro?
Summary - Outline how patient derived IPSCs are generated and used in modelling disease phenotypes?
In order to create a desired differentiated cell, do we always have to go back to pluripotency?
What does this figure show?
What are Tissue-specific stem cells?
How to find/identify tissue stem cells?
What are the different ‘controllable parameters’ (things that can change depending on the circumstance) from a stem cell to the fully differentiated cell?
What is the stem cell niche?
Common features of a stem cell niche?
What are transit amplifying (TA) cells?