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New criteria bring stem cell research one step closer to long-sought goal
Creating stem cells that can give rise to any cell type in the early embryo and its supporting structures, including the placenta: some call it ‘the holy grail’ of stem cell research. An international team of researchers offer new criteria to determine whether a mouse stem cell line has this much-wanted ability, known as totipotency.
Fluorescent image showing labelled cells in mouse embryos and gene expression, where white is each cell of the embryo, blue cells are descendants of a single totipotent cell that was combined with an unlabelled embryo, and magenta is the SOX2 and SOX17 genes showing cells that will give rise to the embryo proper or foetus. The blue cells can be seen in both the embryonic inner part of the embryo as well as the outer extra-embryonic placental progenitor part of the embryo. Credit: Eszter Posfai and Janet Rossant.
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Advances in research on most general type of stem cells
Mouse embryo following injection of truly totipotent morula cells labeled in magenta. Morula cells are found shortly after an egg is fertilized. Credit: Eszter Posfai.
Stem cell research is the prerequisite for regenerative medicine, which with the help of the body’s cells recreates and heals important organs. Now, researchers at Karolinska Institutet, SickKids in Canada and KU Leuven in Belgium have found a method for defining the most general type of stem cells, that can develop into all cell types in the body. The study of totipotent stem cells in mice has been published in Nature Cell Biology.