Stem Cell Applications Flashcards
What is the difference between Totipotency, Pluripotency, and Multipotency?
Totipotency: Ability to give rise to all cells of an organism, in addition to embryonic and extraembryonic tissues (placenta).
Pluripotency: Ability to give rise to all cells of the embryo and subsequent adult cells.
Multipotency: Ability to give rise to different cells types of a given lineage.
What are transit amplifying cells?
Cells that divide frequently until they are differentiated and reached their programmed number of divisions.
What are founder stem cells?
Cells that used short range signals to determine the proportions of body parts early on.
Explain the immortal strand hypothesis.
It proposes that adult stem cells divide their DNA asymmetrically, so the same set of template DNA strands is retained. This would allow stem cells to reduce their instance of mutation.
What stage are embryonic stem cells derived from?
The blastocyst stage of the embryo
Why should embryonic stem cells not be injected directly into adults?
Because they fail to receive the appropriate sequence of cues for proper differentiation and can become a tumor.
What are the transcription factors that are essential for the establishment and maintenance of pluripotent stem cells in the embryo?
Nanog, Oct4, Sox2 and FoxD3
What are the growth factors found in pluripotent cells?
Cripto and GDF-3
What is the general difference between the products of Haemopoietic stem cells and Mesenchymal stem cells?
HSCs differentiate into blood components. MSCs differentiate into connective tissues and other tissues. Both come from bone marrow.
What is cord blood?
Blood extracted from the umbilical cord containing undifferentiated adult stem cells.
What is somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT)?
When the nucleus taken from a somatic cell of patient is injected into oocyte of a donor, replacing the oocyte nucleus. Leads to the creation of clones for reproductive and therapeutic purposes.
How are induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells) made?
By taking differentiated adult cells and introducing transcription factor (Oct4, Sox2, Nanog, and Lin28) that induce the cells to exhibit properties of ES cells. These cells are not fully pluripotent.
