A neuron and a muscle cell carry exactly the same genome; the difference lies entirely in which genes are switched on. Along the road from stem cell down into specialised lineages, potency steps down from totipotent through pluripotent to multipotent while methylation climbs, and the fact that those two numbers move in opposite directions is no accident: the more epigenetic marks are stuck onto the DNA, the fewer routes stay open. Introducing the four Yamanaka factors into an adult cell erases those marks and winds the clock back, work that won the 2012 Nobel Prize in Medicine.
A neuron and a muscle cell carry exactly the same genome; the difference lies entirely in which genes are switched on. Along the road from stem cell down into specialised lineages, potency steps down from totipotent through pluripotent to multipotent while methylation climbs, and the fact that those two numbers move in opposite directions is no accident: the more epigenetic marks are stuck onto the DNA, the fewer routes stay open. Introducing the four Yamanaka factors into an adult cell erases those marks and winds the clock back, work that won the 2012 Nobel Prize in Medicine.
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