Abstract

Human blastocyst-derived, pluripotent cell lines are described that have normal karyotypes, express high levels of telomerase activity, and express cell surface markers that characterize primate embryonic stem cells but do not characterize other early lineages. After undifferentiated proliferation in vitro for 4 to 5 months, these cells still maintained the developmental potential to form trophoblast and derivatives of all three embryonic germ layers, including gut epithelium (endoderm); cartilage, bone, smooth muscle, and striated muscle (mesoderm); and neural epithelium, embryonic ganglia, and stratified squamous epithelium (ectoderm). These cell lines should be useful in human developmental biology, drug discovery, and transplantation medicine.

Keywords

BiologyEmbryonic stem cellEndodermGerm layerCell biologyEctodermStem cellAmniotic epithelial cellsBlastocystInner cell massMesodermEpitheliumEmbryoid bodyAdult stem cellInduced pluripotent stem cellAnatomyEmbryogenesisEmbryoGenetics

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Publication Info

Year
1998
Type
article
Volume
282
Issue
5391
Pages
1145-1147
Citations
15732
Access
Closed

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Cite This

James A. Thomson, Joseph Itskovitz‐Eldor, Sander S. Shapiro et al. (1998). Embryonic Stem Cell Lines Derived from Human Blastocysts. Science , 282 (5391) , 1145-1147. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.282.5391.1145

Identifiers

DOI
10.1126/science.282.5391.1145