Stem cells Flashcards
L20
What is the difference between totipotent, pluripotent and multipotent stem cells?
Totipotent: Stem cells that can differentiate to form every type of cell
Pluripotent: Stem cells that can differentiate to form every type of cell except placental and umbilical cells
Multipotent: Stem cells that can differentiate to form a set number of types of specialised cells
Where at the stem cells in a blastocyst?
The inner cell mass of the blastocyst are the pluripotent stem cells. The trophoblast cells of the blastocyst are destined to become part of the placenta.
What is karyotyping?
When the chromosomes are examined.
What are pluripotency markers?
They are transcription factors. They control the expression of genes that enable the cell to continuously divide.
What can haemopoetic stem cells differentiate into?
Erythrocytes
Platelets
All white blood cells
What can mesenchymal stem cells differentiate into?
Osteocytses (bone cells) Chondrocytes (cells located in cartilage) Muscle cells Tendoncytes (Tendon cells) Stromal cells Adipocytes (Fat cells)
What can neural stem cells differentiate into?
Neurons
Oligodendrocytes
Astrocytes
To differentiate, what do stem cells do?
The stem cell duplicates to form two stem cells, one of which becomes a committed progenitor and goes down a pathway to differentiate to its destined specialised cell while the other stem cell remains.
How are somatic cells converted into stem cells?
A somatic cell is a specialised cell. If you take a speciaised cell. extract the nucleus and inject it into a enucleated (haploid nucleus is destroyed via radiation) egg cell, the result should be a stem cell.
Pluripotency resides in the enucleated egg cell. The Yamanaka factors within the egg cell can induce pluripotency.
What are the Yamanaka factors?
OCT4
SOX2
KLF4
C-MYC
