Different Types Organized by Potency (Most to Least)

The potency of a stem cell is the stem cell’s ability to produce different kinds of new cells. There are three categories of stem cells: totipotent, pluripotent, and multipotent from most to least able to create new cells. Totipotent stem cells can create an entire organism. Pluripotent stem cells can produce any kind of cell, but not a new organism. Multipotent stem cells can only reproduce one specific type of cell.

Totipotent stem cells are able to produce an entire new organism. The word comes from the words total and potent, because they have full potency. Fertilized eggs, or zygotes, are examples of totipotent stem cells because they form into a new organism.  Totipotent stem cells have recently been studied and we know that they can change into any cell in the body. They are different from pluripotent stem cells because they not only create any type of cell, but they can make an entire organism from those cells. A fertilized egg has totipotency for 4 days and then it becomes more specialized. The fertilized egg becomes pluripotent. They may someday be used for replacing damaged tissue. The main downfall is that to harness them, fertilized eggs need to be killed.

Embryonic Stem Cells are pluripotent which are still under research. It involves using mouse adult cells that have been genetically reprogrammed to an embryonic stem cell–like state by being forced to express genes and factors important for maintaining the defining properties of embryonic stem cells. Although additional research is needed, iPSCs are already useful tools for vaccines, drugs, and also might later be for human organ replication.

Adult muscle stem cells are multipotent, also called satellite cells, and are only stimulated to work by certain signals. These signals make the cells regenerate and alter the chromatin structure inside the muscle tissue. The signaling controls the hormones that regulate growth to repair injured muscle tissues.