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What are stem cells?

What do Umbilical Cord Stem Cells differentiate into?

  • can they only differentiate into blood cells only? Haematopoiesis stem cells? or can they differentiate into other things? ie. lung cells, nerve cells etc. ----- one other question: do red blood cells retaian their DNA in their Nuclei? what about Platelets which dont retain their nuclei? ------ thanks for all the help iv been getting on my other Q's about stem cells! 8-)

  • Answer:

    Gribbling is correct - you should take the other answers with a grain of salt. Umbilical cord stem cells are limited into what cells they could feasibly be stimulated to differentiate. They are essentially hematopoetic, again like Gribbling said, and so they mostly represent a blood cell lineage. During fetal life, blood cells are created in the liver, because the bone marrow has yet to fully develop the capacity to carry on hematogenesis. Shortly before birth, though, the hematopoetic stem cells of the liver pass through the blood stream and into the bone marrow. Cord blood cells are part of this migration. If you look at a list of diseases that they are purported to treat, you will notice that they are almost all diseases of the blood - so mostly anemic illnesses and leukemias. They are not - I repeat, NOT - a replacement for embryonic stem cells. Additionally, many private companies that offer umbilical blood harvesting and storage options over-sell how useful these cells may become. At this point I am unaware of any commonly used procedures that involve cord blood, and long term storage of these cells can run into the tens of thousands of dollars. But, while the technology doesn't exist today, who knows how quickly techniques will evolve to take advantage of cord blood cells' inherently less-differentiated state. I hope this helps. This was an interesting question for me as well, and I enjoyed researching the answers. Also, neither red blood cells nor platelets contain genomic DNA as they do not have nuclei (RBCs are de-nucleated during their maturation period in the marrow so they can contain more hemoglobin).

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Umbilical Cord Stem Cells can medically be used for most of the same things as Bone Marrow Stem Cells - so they *are* Haematopoetic Stem Cells. Of course, it is always possible that a technique will be found to "transdifferentiate" them into other cell types. Red Blood Cells and Platelets do not retain their nuclei. Clearance of nuclei, and other organelles, is part of the process of differentiation into these cell types.

gribbling

Umbilical Cord Stem Cells can differentiate into ANY cell that they want to; this is what makes them so valuable. Red Blood Cells are named: erythrocytes (from Greek erythrocytes for "red" and kytos for "hollow", with cyte nowadays translated as "cell"). They are hollow because they lack the nucleus so they don't have DNA, at least for mammals. Red Blood cells lack a nucleus so they can carry more cargo. "Erythrocytes in mammals are a nucleus when mature, meaning that they lack a cell nucleus and thus have no DNA. In comparison, the erythrocytes of nearly all other vertebrates have nuclei; the only known exception is salamanders of the Batrachoseps genus." "Platelets or thrombocytes are the cell fragments circulating in the blood that are involved in the cellular mechanisms of primary hemostasis leading to the formation of blood clots. Like red blood cells, platelets are anuclear (no cell nucleus) and discoid (disc shaped)." The entrie human body and all of its organs can be divided into endoderm, ectoderm and mesoderm. The mesoderm evolved to become our organs.

Dan S

Cord blood includes cells capable of turning into cell types representative of all three germinal layers (e.g., endoderm, ectoderm and mesoderm). These early stage cell layers give rise to the body's more complex tissues and organs. For example, the endoderm layer produces our gastrointestinal and respiratory tracts, as well as endocrine glands and organs, such as the thyroid and pancreas.

tonalc1

Ummm, Babies?...............I'll just go now................. .

Danny Dix

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