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Historical News & Views: Stem cells

The rules of the totipotency treasure hunt

Totipotency is the absence of any developmental restriction, a feature naturally found in the early embryo right after fertilization. Generating an in vitro totipotent stem cell model is not a trivial task. For this reason, a set of stringent criteria for the identification of bona fide totipotent stem cells have been proposed.

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Fig. 1: Early embryonic development and corresponding in vitro models.

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Correspondence to Graziano Martello.

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Martello, G. The rules of the totipotency treasure hunt. Nat Cell Biol 26, 19–21 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41556-023-01282-x

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