Embryonic Stem Cell Differentiation

Others develop into muscle cells that can contract and also into nerve cells. Because they have the potential to become such a wide variety of specialized cells, embryonic stem cells are described as pluripotent. Plurip.0otency is one of two key features of embryonic stem cells. The second key feature of embryonic stem cells is their ability to divide or self renew for an indefinite period while retaining their undifferentiated, pluripotent state. As the cell mass grows, the population can be further expanded by growing in larger tissue culture flasks. An unlimited number of undifferentiated, pluripotent stem cells can be produced (Sumanas Inc. 2007).

Human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) are pluripotent and are obtained from the inner mass of a 4-5 day old human blastocyst that consists of approximately 100 cells (“Stem cell research,” 2009).

Contained in the human body there are more than 220 different cell types being derived from a group of cells called embryonic stem cells. Being located in what is known as the inner cell mass of a blastocyst which is a young embryo about four to five days old. The uniqueness of these cells and what defines them is that they are pluripotent, meaning they are able to differentiate into any 3 germ layers. These layers include the endoderm, mesoderm, and ectoderm. Being able to

The liver is known in the medical community as a miracle organ because is it the only known organ in the human body that can regenerate itself if half of it is cut out. Tissue regeneration has always been a desirable fantasy, but now it is almost a possibility. Human embryonic stem cells are pluripotent cells that, although unspecialized, can differentiate into various specialized cells, such as nerves, muscle, skin, or even blood. Sadly, controversy surrounds this relatively new scientific concept and it threatens to destroy the potential of this discovery before scientists even have a chance to study it thoroughly. Human embryonic stem cell research should be permitted to advance due to the potential of being able to treat or cure diseases, and the additional knowledge that the scientific community can gain about human development.

In 1981, Martin Evans of the University of Cambridge revolutionized the field of medicine when he became the first person to identify embryonic stem cells. In a study that involved observing cultures of mouse embryos, Evans and his team discovered cells that behaved much differently than adult somatic cells. These cells, derived from the inner cell mass of mammalian blastocysts, had the incredible property of pluripotency. They were undifferentiated and able to grow indefinitely into cells of all three germ layers (Evans 1981), a completely unique ability that had been previously unheard

The human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) have defined by Bryant and Schwartz (2008) is in the mammalian embryo, there are several cell divisions that take place after the fertilization of the sperm and the egg in the uterus. There is no growth in the total volume of the cell, so the cells that are known as blastomeres get progressively smaller. Then, they are rearranging into a hollow ball known as blastocyst and surround the blastocoel which is a fluid-filled cavity. The blastocyts and then segregate into an outer layer called tropoblast and an inner cell mass (ICM). The tropoblast will form the placenta to the fetus while the inner cell mass that contains human embryonic stem cell will form the tissues of the fetus. According to Sandel and Phil (2004), the hESCs can cure and provide treatment for many kinds of disease such as Parkinson, Alzheimer, diabetes and spinal cord injury. But, ethical issues of hESCs research, therefore, overlap with those of the embryo research. On top of that, De Wert and Mummery (2003) commented that the research of hESCs has high political and ethical agenda in many countries. Their use in the treatment of disease remains controversial regardless of their potential benefit. This is because their derivation from the early embryo. As Fischbach, Fischbach and others (2004) observe:

Embryonic stem cell research has led to medical benefits to aid in curing diseases and many cancer cases that have grown in today’s society. Tissues throughout the body have a specific single layer of cells that can regenerate daughter cells. These daughter cells, or embryonic cells, have the capabilities to regenerate and build tissues or organs. These cells can aid in a lifelong regeneration process for tissues throughout the body. In vitro studies have shown that these cells can be placed in a specific area where there is large amounts of tissue damage due to injury or disease and completely rebuild this tissue into a completely new, fully functioning tissue. (Weissman, 2005, p. 1). However, people will argue the fact that embryonic stem cells have not been cleared to work in the human body. This is true that Weisman has only found it to work in mice and in genetically made organs, tissues, and muscle. Facts have shown that

Embryonic stem cells are a type of stem cell derived from embryos that are pluripotent, which can able differentiate into any kind of specialized cells that form tissue cells. Embryonic stem cells have been held as the gold standard in regenerative because of their versatility to become virtually any tissue. Induced-pluripotent stem cells have been discovered more recently. They are somatic stem cells (used to replace old and dead cells with newly synthesized ones e.g. skin cells) that are reprogrammed backwards

Human embryonic stem cells (ESCs) are pluripotent cells isolated from blastocysts, and are highly useful in studying human development (Itzkovitz-Eldor et al., 2000 p. 88). Although the National Institute of Health states that “it is not known if iPSCs and embryonic stem cells differ in clinically significant ways”, iPSCs are already being used to achieve the same results as ESCs in some applications without the use of embryos, removing the ethical concern associated with ESCs (National Institutes of Health, 2009). ESCs are capable of differentiating into all cell types, and can be used as a source of differentiated cells. In the report by Itskovitz-Eldor et al., they discuss the induced differentiation of ESCs in suspension into embryoid bodies, including the three embryonic germ layers. The authors state that “the ability to induce formation of human embryoid bodies that contain cells of neuronal, hematopoietic and cardiac origins will be useful in studying early human embryonic development” (Itzkovitz-Eldor et al., 2000 p. 88).

Human Embryonic stem cells have the capacity to be come any cell in the body. This means that they have a multiple of potential, which makes them pluripotent. There are four types of pluripotent stems cells. Three of which require eggs to create. The most commonly understood is the embryonic stem cell. It comes from an egg which was fertilized by a sperm. In 2007 scientists developed a new way of developing pluripotent stem cells without the need or use for a human egg. Research has revealed that only a few of the more than 20,000 protein that are encoded in the genes of the ESC were responsible or the stem cell characteristics of pluripotency and self-renewal. In the paper, the journal, Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells: Generation Strategy and

Scientists for medical research have used embryonic stem cells in the past. Scientists have had amazing success while using these stem cells in their research. However, embryonic stem cell research has become a very controversial topic. With this controversy, it has become very hard to receive permission to do research on embryonic stem cells. Although scientists are in the early stages of research, the outcomes look very promising, making me very hopeful that this controversy will end soon, and scientist will continue to improve their medical research using stem cells. Although I had little prior knowledge of this topic, I have become very interested in embryonic stem cells. I have begun to understand how beneficial these

Research in the development of stem cells has become increasingly popular over the past decade. The fascination in the study of stem cells by scientists comes from the mystery of what the essential properties are and how cells differ. With the discovery of determining how stem cells are self renewing and identifying what causes stem cells to become specialized leads to the ability to create more cell-based remedies as well as preventing birth defects, more precise screening for new drugs and cloning of organs and tissues. Stem cells are unspecialized cells that renew themselves for long periods through cell division. They can also become specialized functional cells such as beating cells for heart

In the results, the control group showed Oct4-GFP positive in five days while experimental group, 1TF iPSC, showed Oct4-GFP positive in 18 days. 1TF iPSC with only OCT4 as the transcription factor had reprogramming efficiency of 0.088%, which is higher than the control group that used all four transcription factors. 1TF iPS cell is morphology similar to ES cells 1TF iPSC colonies were stained positive for nanog, Oct4, Sox2, and SSEA-1. In addition, genes in expressed in the control group were all expressed in the experimental group. Like all pluripotent stem cells, 1TF iPSCs differentiated into the three germ layers, endoderm, mesoderm, and ectoderm. For in vivo, Oct4 were expressed in gonads of 1TF chimeric mice. 17 out of 43 mice grew into adult mice with the same agouti coat color as their parent. And in the third generation, the pup has no tumor formation, Oct4 -GFP was expressed as well as Lef1-RFP, which was the gene of the first generation Lef1-RFP/Oct4-GFP/Rosa26-lacZ transgenic

Stem cells are unspecialized cell that can both reproduce itself indefinitely and, under proper conditions, differentiate into specialized cells of one or more types. (Reece, Jane B., and Lisa A. Urry, 2011.) The term “stem cells” were first seen in scientific literature in 1868, a German biologist Ernst Haeckel used this term to describe the fertilized egg that becomes an organism. On February 2, 1963 the firs piece of evidence of blood stem cells seem, Ernest McCulloch and James Till conducted experiments on the bone marrow of mine and observed that different blood cells come from a special class of cells. In 1981, pluripotent stem cells are obtained from embryos of mice and are the first embryonic stem cells ever to be isolated. In 1989, Mario Capecchi, Martin Evans, and Oliver Smithies created mice which are missing specific genes. They created the mice using embryonic stem cells and homologous recombination. In 2007, they were recognized by the Nobel Assembly because their experiment proved to be an irreplaceable piece of evidence to understand how various human disease such as diabetes and cancer develop. On November 6, 1998 the first batch of embryonic stem cells that originated from early embryos. Then eleven years later, President Obama signed an executive order to repeal some restrictions on human embryonic stem cells research funds. On July 4, 2009, the National Institutes of Health had to create new guidelines on federal funding for stem research. (“History of

To achieve these objectives, we will use three different mouse embryonic stem (ES) cell lines (R1, D3, E14), already present in the lab. In ongoing studies, it was noted that these cells presented all five of the ING genes with altered expression when they were induced to differentiate. We will first study if altering ING5 and ING4 expression using siING5 and siING4 to decrease it and pCI-ING5, pCI-ING4 to increase levels, will affect differentiation and the self-renewal rate of these lines. We will use sphere formation assays to assess self-renewal. We will also induce differentiation with these different expression constructs, thus measuring the influence of these proteins in the process. To determine the degree of differentiation with varying expression of the ING genes, we will use flow cytometry to follow changes in stem cells markers, such as OCT4, OLIG2 and Nestin16.