Lecture 34: Stem Cells Flashcards
Define stem cell
A primitive cell that can either self-renew or give rise to more specialized cell types
______________ refers to the ability of a cell to give rise to all cells of an organism, including embryonic and extraembryonic tissues (cells which support embryonic development)
Totipotency
______________ refers to the ability of a cell to give rise to all cells of the embryo and subsequently adult tissues
Pluripotency
What is the primary example of a pluripotent cell?
Embryonic stem cell
_________________ refers to the ability of a cell to give rise to different cell types of a given lineage
Multipotency
What is the primary example of a multipotent cell?
Adult stem cells
What is the overall hierarchy of stem cells?
Totipotent
Pluripotent
Multipotent
Endoderm, mesoderm, and ectoderm cell lines are considered to be _____________ embryonic stem cells
Pluripotent
The zygote is considered to be a _____________ embryonic stem cell
Totipotent
If the adult organ needs to be renewed, ____________ stem cells can divide as stem cells giving rise to one daughter cell that remains a stem cell and a set of cells that have a set number of transit amplifying divisions
Founder
True or false: each organ or tissue has a fixed number of founder cell populations programmed to have a fixed number of divisions
True
What defines the size of large final structures?
Founder stem cells because they have a fixed number of divisions
What controls the founder stem cell population?
Short range signals from things like growth factors
Are founder stem cells totipotent, multipotent, or pluripotent?
Multipotent, they are considered to be adult stem cells
True or false: transit amplifying cells can divide an unlimited number of times
False, they are programmed to divide a LIMITED number of times
How do stem cells become frequently dividing transit amplifying cells?
Founder stem cells become TACs when they leave the basal layer and are incorporated into the layers above
Characteristics of stem cells include:
Not terminally _____________
Can ____________ without limit
Undergo ___________ division
Differentiated
Divide
Slow
When stem cells divide, what are the two resulting cells?
One cell with stem cell characteristics, one with the ability to be differentiated
Are adult stem cells tissue specific?
Yes
Out of a steady pool of stem cell population, precisely 50% must remain as stem cells. What two processes accomplish this?
Divisional asymmetry
Environmental asymmetry
Which type of asymmetry in the maintenance of stem cells involves asymmetric division leading to 2 cells - one with stem cell characteristics and another with factors that give it the ability to differentiate?
Divisional asymmetry
Which type of asymmetrical division relating to the maintenance of stem cells produces 2 identical cells, but the environment influences/alters one of the cells to become terminally differentiated?
Environmental asymmetry
What two processes work closely in sync to maintain our stem cell pool?
Asymmetric division and independent choice
What hypothesis states that stem cells of some tissues selectively retain original DNA.
Immortal strand hypothesis
The immortal strand hypothesis postulates that the original strand of DNA is preserved across generations of stem cells that retain their stem cell characteristics. So what happens with the other stem cell, and why is this hypothesis important?
The other cell gets a newly synthesized strand
This is important because the stem cell will not obtain genetic errors due to getting a newly synthesized strand
What are the 5 types of stem cells?
- Embryonic
- Adult
- Fetal
- Cord blood
- Induced pluripotent
What type of stem cells can become any tissue?
Embryonic
What type of stem cells are tissue-specific?
Adult
What type of stem cells are multipotent adult stem cells that reside in the liver and have become progenitor cells for a subset of tissues?
Fetal stem cells
What type of stem cells come from a fully developed organ so they are not pluripotent?
Cord blood stem cells
What type of stem cells come from adult cells so they are not embryonic, but they are pluripotent. These are considered the best case scenario when legal/ethical considerations have to be made in terms of harvesting stem cells.
Induced pluripotent stem cells
All political and ethical issues aside, what type of stem cell is most ideal for a therapy for damaged brain tissue?
Embryonic stem cells - because they can become any tissue needed.
Embryonic stem cells are derived from what early embryonic structure?
Inner cell mass
The cells from the inner cell mass are:
A. Totipotent
B. Multipotent
C. Pluripotent
D. Determined
C. Pluripotent
What are the 3 different protocols used for ES cell differentiation?
Cells differentiated as embryoid bodies (key is that there are no signals to become an organism so they stop dividing)
Cells differentiated on stromal cells
Cells differentiated on extracellular matrix proteins