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The new shape-shifters: pluripotent stem cells

Scientists have discovered a kind of stem cell that could point to a more efficient way of creating the valuable biological building blocks

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Researchers have identified a new class of lab-engineered stem cells - cells capable of transforming into nearly all forms of tissue - and have dubbed them F-class cells because they cluster together in "fuzzy-looking" colonies.

The discovery, which was described in a series of papers published on Wednesday in the journals Nature and Nature Communications, sheds new light on the process of cell reprogramming and may point the way to more efficient methods of creating stem cells, researchers say.

Because of their extraordinary shape-shifting abilities, so-called pluripotent cells have enormous value to medical researchers. They allow scientists to study the effects of drugs and disease on human cells when experiments on actual people would be impossible, and they have given rise to the field of regenerative medicine, which seeks to restore lost or damaged organs and tissues.

The F-class cells were created using genetically engineered mouse cells, and may not occur naturally outside the lab, according to senior author Andras Nagy, a stem cell researcher at Toronto's Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute of Mount Sinai Hospital.

However, the find suggests that there may be other classes of pluripotent cells - or a spectrum of reprogrammed cells - yet to be discovered, authors say.

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