Spectacular examples of transdifferentiation--such as brain cells turning to blood and blood to brain--have given way to sneaking suspicions about artifacts in culture, fusion, and clonality. Could cell fates be relatively fixed after all?

Pancreatic multipotent progenitor cells (MPCs) produce acinar, endocrine and duct cells during organogenesis, but their existence and location in the mature organ remain contentious. We used inducible lineage-tracing from the MPC-instructive gene Ptf1a to define systematically in mice the switch of Ptf1a(+) MPCs to unipotent proacinar competence during the secondary transition, their rapid decl...

There has been recently been increased interest in the plasticity of human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells (UMSCs) and their potential in the treatment of neurological disorders. In this study, UMSCs were transdifferentiated into neural stem-like cells (uNSCL), these cells grow in neurosphere-like structures and express high levels of NSCs markers. Epigenetics-related gene screening was h...

BACKGROUND Barrett's esophagus is a premalignant condition whereby the normal stratified squamous esophageal epithelium undergoes a transdifferentiation program resulting in a simple columnar epithelium reminiscent of the small intestine. These changes are typically associated with the stratified squamous epithelium chronically exposed to acid and bile salts as a result of gastroesophageal refl...

Emerging evidence suggests that glioma stem-like cells (GSCs) transdifferentiating into vascular endothelial cells (ECs) possibly contributes to tumor resistance to antiangiogenic therapy. Endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs), showing active migration and incorporation into neovasculature of glioma, may be a good vehicle for delivering genes to target GSCs transdifferentiation. Here, we found a ...

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are a group of stem cells derived from the mesodermal mesenchyme. MSCs can be obtained from a variety of tissues, including bone marrow, umbilical cord tissue, umbilical cord blood, peripheral blood and adipose tissue. Under certain conditions, MSCs can differentiate into many cell types both in vitro and in vivo, including hepatocytes. To date, four main strategie...

Although adrenal medullary chromaffin cells have been used extensively for intracerebral grafting, their survival has generally been poor. Improved survival of the implanted cells has been achieved by exposing the chromaffin cells to NGF in vivo. Culture studies have shown, however, that chromaffin cells are converted into sympathetic neurons when NGF is included in the medium. The degree to wh...

PURPOSE The role of mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathways in TGF-beta-induced myofibroblast transdifferentiation of human tenon fibroblasts (HTFs) was investigated to identify potential pharmacologic targets for the inhibition of scarring after glaucoma surgery. METHODS TGF-beta-dependent activation of Smad2, p38, and Erk-1/2 was examined by Western blot analysis. TGF-beta-induced ...