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What is the difference between stem cell types?

 

There are a number of different stem cell types.

 

  • Embryonic stem cells come from 4- or 5-day embryos, but are not embryos themselves. Embryonic stem cells can self-replicate indefinitely under laboratory conditions and are capable of becoming any type of cell in the body.

 

  • Adult stem cells are found among the specialized cells of adult organisms. Adult stem cells are unspecialized and can also self-replicate for the entire life of an organism. Unlike embryonic stem cells, adult stem cells can only specialize to become a select number of cell types and do not self-replicate indefinitely under laboratory conditions.

 

  • Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) have recently been introduced as alternative to embryonic stem cells for developmental biology research. iPSCs are derived from normal adult cells that have been stimulated to transform  into a embryonic stem cell-like state. iPSCs can self-replicate indefinitely and have the capacity to become almost all of the cell types in the body. 

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Sources: NIH Stem Cell Report (2001); NIH Stem Cell Basics 

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