Roadmap Hints at How Stem Cells Reprogram to Earlier Embryonic State

Researchers in Germany and France have studied cells in vitro to identify how changes in gene expression and regulation allow pluripotent embryonic stem (ES) cells to reprogram back to a totipotent-like state found in the earliest two-cell embryos. The scientists, headed by a team at the Helmholtz Zentrum München and Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU), hope that their findings may ultimately allow researchers to manipulate ES cells and generate totipotent cells in the la