• Question: How can you tell the difference between the two types of stem cells?

    Asked by NoahM on 7 Nov 2024.
    • Photo: Rachael Eggleston

      Rachael Eggleston answered on 7 Nov 2024:

      I’m not at all an expert, but if I remember correctly there’s a lot more than two types of stem cells! Some are pluripotent- so they can turn into more or less any other type of cell. Others are multipotent- so they can still turn into several cell types, but not *anything* anymore. For example, a multipotent stem cell may only be able to turn into different blood cells, but not a brain cell.

    • Photo: Zoe Vance

      Zoe Vance answered on 12 Nov 2024:

      Not an expert either but I would agree with Rachael that generally there are many more than two types of stem cell! I’m not sure what exactly the question is referring to, but in general we have a few ways to try and tell different types of cells apart. People who know what they’re looking for can look at the morphology of a cell, like its shape, size and other features, under a microscope. If we know what kind of proteins are on the surface of a type of cell then we could also do a much more automated process called cell sorting. Here we use antibodies that attach themselves to the proteins of interest to mark which cells are which – we use antibodies that glow specific colours under a laser and that’s how the cells are sorted which I think is really cool! Another more recent method that can tell us what types of cells are in a tissue sample is single cell RNA sequencing (scRNAseq) which lets us see exactly how much a single cell in a tissue is using different genes, we can then cluster them into different groups based on which ones they’re using/not using.

    • Photo: Mimi Asogwa

      Mimi Asogwa answered on 19 Nov 2024:

      I am not an expert but I believe they are more than 2 types of STEM cells
      – adult stem cells (ASCs) are undifferentiated cells found living within specific differentiated tissues in our bodies that can renew themselves or generate new cells that can replenish dead or damaged tissue. e.g. Skin Stem Cells
      – Embryonic stem cells (ESCs) are derived from the inner cell mass of an embryo that has been fertilized in vitro and donated for research purposes following informed consent.
      – Induced pluripotent stem cells are stem cells that are created in the laboratory, a happy medium between adult stem cells and embryonic stem cells. These cells are new and needs many more years of research before use in clinical therapies.

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