• Question: What are Totipotent stem cells?

    Asked by penguin27 to Sharon, Kara, Jayne, James on 18 Mar 2011 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Sharon Sneddon

      Sharon Sneddon answered on 14 Mar 2011:

      These are the most versatile of the stem cell types. When a sperm and an egg are fused together at fertilisation, they form a one-celled fertilised egg called a zygote. This cell is totipotent, meaning it has the potential to give rise to any and all human cells, such as brain, liver, blood or heart cells. It can even give rise to an entire functional organism. The first few cell divisions in embryonic development produce more totipotent cells. After four or five days of embryonic cell division, the cells begin to specialise into pluripotent stem cells (see the answer to your question on pluripotent cells!) which are the cells that embryonic stem cells are made from

    • Photo: Jayne Charnock

      Jayne Charnock answered on 15 Mar 2011:

      Hey Penguin,

      You’ve certainly been busy with your questions! Keep them coming!

      Totipotent stem cells are stem cells that have the potential to become ANY type of cell. Basically they have the ability to produce ALL the differentiated cells in an organism, including gametes (sex cells). We all begin life as a single totipotent stem cell, which divides to form other identical totipotent cells, that will go on to form the 3 different types of tissue that make up a human- endoderm, ectoderm and mesoderm as well as the all important placental cells. So we say that they can form all the cells needed to make a person AND the extraembryonic tissue (the placental cells that support the fetus’ development)

      hope that answers your question 🙂

    • Photo: James Chan

      James Chan answered on 18 Mar 2011:

      Hi Penguin! you are the curious type, that’s great!
      There are different terms to describe a cell’s ability to turn into different types of cells.
      Totipotent cells are those that can literally become any other cell type. If you’ve seen Xmen, they are like that Mystique character who can turn into any other character!
      Pluripotent stem cells are slightly less flexible – they can turn into lots of different types of cells, but not all.
      Multipotent stem cells are again less flexible.

      so embryonic stem cells are usually pluripotent where as adult stem cells, like the ones I use, are multipotent, but that’s ok because I am trying to make broken bones heal quicker and my adult stem cells can turn into bone, so it doesn’t matter for me. =)
      Hope that helps

Comments