PLURIPOTENT STEM CELLS

The very concept of stem cells is to give rise to different cells found in tissues. It sounds simple until you came across 'pluripotent stem cells'.
So what are pluripotent stem cells? Often termed as 'true' stem cell because of its ability to differentiate into almost any cell in the body, under the right circumstances, this stem cell can be isolated from an embryo. But once done from the embryonic development stage, it's potential becomes limited.

For a cell to become pluripotent stem cell, one must understand and consider the human body in its early stage of development. It starts with the concept of fertilization, wherein after an egg is fertilized by sperm, it results to a single cell.
Stem cell research pros and cons
This fertilized egg, which is totipotent has the potential to create an entire organism. This single totipotent cell will divide into more copies of itself during the days following fertilization. Four days after fertilization, these totipotent cells will start to specialize and form into cluster cells known as blastocyst.

These blastocysts will divide or create more cells and tissues in the human body. But instead of giving rise to the placenta or other tissues vital to fetal development, this pluripotent stem cell will still develop into other specialized cell such as nerve or heart cells.

Types of Pluripotent Stem Cells

- embryonic stem cells – isolated from the inner cell mass of the blastocysts
- embryonic germ cells – taken from aborted fetus. These pluripotent cells are derived from early cells that can become sperm and egg
- embronic carcinoma – also known as cancer cells, they are isolated from a certain type of tumor that sometimes occur in a fetus.

The Future of Pluripotent Stem Cells

These pluripotent stem cells provides a chance to obtain new source of healthy cells and tissues in treating a wide array of diseases such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Burn victims can also benefit from the use of pluripotent stem cells, along with those who suffer from autoimmune diseases such as Parrkinson's.

Another potential for pluripotent stem cells involves cell generation and tissues for transplantation. For drug research, instead of testing drugs directly to animals, cells grown from pluripotent stem cells can be used to evaluate the drug. If proven safe, those drugs can then proceed to testing on animals, then to humans.

One challenge that pluripotent stem cell faces is an ethical and controversial one because of its involvement in embryo extraction. Another would be rejection of the patient's immune system.