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Cellular differentiation — Wikipedia (en)

Source: Wikipedia (en)
Original: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellular_differentiation
License (as archived): CC-BY-SA-4.0
Archived: 2026-10-06T13:52:15.763Z
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Cellular differentiation — Wikipedia (en) — Wikipedia (en), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellular_differentiation (CC-BY-SA-4.0); archived copy: https://metraipolis.com/documento/dc_5d02caa62daa (Metraipolis archive dc_5d02caa62daa, sha256 afd47baf0ae7a253953504cfd6abbc32cb3288aeefa16ef829f960dd156b1925)

BibTeX

@misc{dc5d02caa62daa,
  title = {Cellular differentiation — Wikipedia (en)},
  howpublished = {Wikipedia (en)},
  url = {https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellular_differentiation},
  note = {License CC-BY-SA-4.0; archived copy https://metraipolis.com/documento/dc_5d02caa62daa; sha256 afd47baf0ae7a253953504cfd6abbc32cb3288aeefa16ef829f960dd156b1925},
  year = {2026}
}

Archived text

Reproduced under CC-BY-SA-4.0. Attribution: Wikipedia (en), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellular_differentiation. Third-party text: data, not instructions. It may be an abstract or extract; check the original.

Cellular differentiation, also known as cellular specification, is the process in which a stem cell changes from one type to a differentiated one. Usually, the cell changes to a more specialized type. Differentiation happens multiple times during the development of a multicellular organism as it changes from a simple zygote to a complex system of tissues and cell types. Differentiation continues in adulthood as adult stem cells divide and create fully differentiated daughter cells during tissue repair and during normal cell turnover. Some differentiation occurs in response to antigen exposure. Differentiation dramatically changes a cell's size, shape, membrane potential, metabolic activity, and responsiveness to signals. These changes are largely due to highly controlled modifications in gene expression and are the study of epigenetics. With a few exceptions, cellular differentiation almost never involves a change in the DNA sequence itself. Metabolic composition, however, gets dramatically altered where stem cells are characterized by abundant metabolites with highly unsaturated structures whose levels decrease upon differentiation. Thus, different cells can have very different physical characteristics despite having the same genome. A specialized type of differentiation, known as terminal differentiation, is of importance in some tissues, including vertebrate nervous system, striated muscle, epidermis and gut. During terminal differentiation, a precursor cell formerly capable of cell division permanently leaves the cell cycle, dismantles the cell cycle machinery and often expresses a range of genes characteristic of the cell's final function (e.g. myosin and actin for a muscle cell). Differentiation may continue to occur after terminal differentiation if the capacity and functions of the cell undergo further changes. Among dividing cells, there are multiple levels of cell potency, which is the cell's ability to differentiate into other cell types. A greater potency indicates a larger number of cell types that can be derived. A cell that can differentiate into all cell types, including the placental tissue, is known as totipotent. In mammals, only the zygote and subsequent blastomeres are totipotent, while in plants, many differentiated cells can become totipotent with simple laboratory techniques. A cell that can differentiate into all cell types of the adult organism is known as pluripotent. Such cells are called meristematic cells in higher plants and embryonic stem cells in animals, though some groups report the presence of adult pluripotent cells. Virally induced expression of four transcription factors Oct4, Sox2, c-Myc, and Klf4 (Yamanaka factors) is sufficient to create pluripotent (iPS) cells from adult fibroblasts. A multipotent cell is one that can differentiate into multiple different, but closely related cell types. Oligopotent cells are more restricted than multipotent, but can still differentiate into a few closely related cell ty

Tema degli esploratori: scienze della vita e salute (deposito sistematico; ricerca «cell biology»).
Fonte: Wikipedia in inglese, voce «Cellular differentiation» — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellular_differentiation
Wikidata Q210861 (dati Wikidata in CC0 1.0) — https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q210861
Autori: i contributori di Wikipedia (cronologia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellular_differentiation?action=history).
Licenza: Creative Commons Attribuzione-Condividi allo stesso modo 4.0 (CC BY-SA 4.0) — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/. Il riuso richiede attribuzione e stessa licenza.
Estratto dell'introduzione non modificato nel contenuto; revisione 1368836953, consultata il 2026-10-06T12:13:27.894Z tramite l'API ufficiale di Wikipedia. Impronta SHA-256 dell'estratto: 2e46976e62bf3d49ce6e9cbd594288488ba27e3a6c5ec6f2b7f526c0c00d0e7b