Department of Pediatrics, National Jewish Medical and Research Center, Denver, CO, U.S.A.
Cytotechnology. 2003 Mar;41(2-3):103-9. doi: 10.1023/A:1024870605447.
Cell plasticity is a central issue in stem cell biology. In many recent discussions, observation of cell fusion has been seen as a confounding factor which calls into question published results concerning cell plasticity of, particularly, adult stem cells. An examination of the voluminous literature of "somatic cell fusion" suggests the relatively frequent occurrence of "spontaneous" cell fusion and shows that the complicated cellular phenotypes which it can give rise to have long been recognized. Here, a brief overview of this field is presented, with emphasis on studies of special relevance to current work on cell plasticity.
细胞可塑性是干细胞生物学的一个核心问题。在最近的许多讨论中，观察到细胞融合被视为一个混淆因素，这使得有关特别是成年干细胞的细胞可塑性的已发表结果受到质疑。对“体细胞融合”的大量文献的研究表明，“自发”细胞融合的相对频繁发生，并表明它可以产生的复杂的细胞表型早已被认识到。在这里，简要介绍了这一领域的研究现状，重点介绍了与当前细胞可塑性研究特别相关的研究。
