Question

Easy definition and explanation for Totipotency and Pluripotency?

Answer 1

totipotency
The ability of a cell to give rise to unlike cells and so to develop a new organism or part; "animal cells lose their totipotency at an early stage in embryonic development"
pluripotency
The pluripotency of biological compounds describes the ability of certain substances to produce several distinct biological responses.
What can you condense these down to?

Answer 2

@SyedMohammed98

Answer 3

any ideas?

Answer 4

umh nah..i m still confused about "pluripotency" ...

Answer 5

it's actually quite simple. :-)

pluripotency and totipotency are qualities of stem cells. stem cells in general are not fully differentiated yet, and are thus able to build more stem cells, as well as differentiated 'daughter' cells (see wikipedia for asymmetric cell division).

first, totipotency. a totipotent cell (like a zygote) is able to build a complete organism out of itself. I think that the human embryo consists of totipotent cells up until the 8-cell stage (correct me if I'm wrong). If you were to isolate one of these cells and implant it into a different womb (whyever you would want that...), a fully functional organism would grow.

now, a pluripotent stem cell is able to build any tissue cell there is in your body. however, pluripotent cells do not contain the information to build a complete organism. extract pulripotent stem cells from an embryo - no functional organism will be built. the pulripotent cell is thus a 'more differentiated daughter cell' after asymmetric cell division of a totipotent cell.

that's it in a nutshell.

Answer 6

thnxx :)