Researchers from Tsinghua University in China have developed a new drug cocktail that can
Totipotent stem cells can even becomesupporting tissues such as the placenta. They appear from the very first cell that is formed from a fertilized egg and remain throughout the first few stages of development.
In the new study, Tsinghua's team was able to return pluripotent stem cells to a totipotent state for the first time.
Researchers have studied thousands of combinations of smallmolecules until they identified a specific mixture of the three that appeared to induce totipotency in mouse pluripotent stem cells. They named their mixture the TAW cocktail, after the three molecules it contains - TTNPB, 1-Azakenpaullon, and WS6.
Molecular testing showed that cells exposed to the TAW cocktail were totipotent at all levels of the transcriptome, epigenome, and metabolome.
In the long term, scientists can createa living organism directly from a mature cell, bypassing the need for sperm and eggs. This discovery will give a serious development to reproductive medicine, as well as help to save endangered species. But the researchers acknowledge that ethical issues are sure to arise.
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