Pluripotency Expanded / Cell, April 6, 2017 (Vol. 169, Issue 2)

Human and mouse pluripotent stem cells can differentiate into all cell types within adult bodies, but they have limited potential to differentiate into extraembryonic tissues such as placenta and yolk sac. Dr. Hongkui Deng's group at Peking University screened hundreds of small molecules and identified a defined culture condition to overcome this limitation. As reported in this issue of Cell, the new cells under this culture condition can develop into both embryonic and extraembryonic tissues, providing a key step for us to understand totipotency. Check out the paper at: http://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S00....
 
Yang, Y., Liu, B., Xu, J., Wang, J., Wu, J., Shi, C., Xu, Y., Dong, J., Wang, C., Lai, W., et al. (2014). Derivation of pluripotent stem cells with in vivo embryonic and extraembryonic potency. Cell 169.

And read more great research at http://www.cell.com/cell/home.