Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine

Question 1

How does developmental genetics provide insight into disease?

Answer 1

Developmental genetics examines how genes control the process from a single cell to an adult organism. This pathway is frequently targeted in disease, particularly cancer

Question 2

What are stem cells and what are their two groups?

Answer 2

Stem cells are self renewing progenitor cells that can generate one or more specialised cell types
They can be either embryonic stem cells or adult stem cells

Question 3

Why are embryonic stem cells referred to as pluripotent?

Answer 3

As they come from a blastocyst, they can become all the differentiated cells in the body

Question 4

What is the utility of embryonic stem cells?

Answer 4

Investigation of biological processes specific to human development
Generation of a variety of somatic cell types with potential for use in cell replacement (human therapeutic cloning)

Question 5

How do adult stem cells differ to embryonic stem cells?

Answer 5

There are 20 types of adult stem cells, originally thought to be set in a lineage of a particular organ system. Recently it appears that they have more plasticity than originally thought and may be able to differentiate beyond their assigned organ system

Question 6

Which four proteins can be over expressed to produce pluripotent stem cells?

Answer 6

OCT4 SOX2 Myc KLf4

Question 7

What are induced pluripotent stem cells?

Answer 7

Adult fibroblasts with overexpression of OCT4 SOX2 Myc KLF4, which act identically to embryonic stem cells in that they can morph into all three embryonic germ layers