BackgroundDuring normal development, cells undergo a unidirectional course of differentiation that progressively decreases the number of cell types they can potentially become. Pluripotent stem cells can differentiate into several types of cells, but terminally differentiated cells cannot differentiate any further. A fundamental problem in stem cell biology is the characterization of the difference in cellular states, e.g., gene expression profiles, between pluripotent stem cells and terminally differentiated cells.
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