The cell cycle is a four-stage process in which the cell increases in size (gap 1, or G1, stage), copies its DNA (synthesis, or S, stage), prepares to divide (gap 2, or G2, stage), and divides (mitosis, or M, stage).

The correct order of events in mitosis is prophase, prometaphase, metaphase, anaphase, and telophase.

Cell differentiation

Cell differentiation can be reversed. Full differentiation is normally stable. However, cells can be altered in regenerating tissues.

Yamanaka factors (Oct3/4, Sox2, Klf4, c-Myc) are highly expressed in embryonic stem (ES) cells, and their over-expression can induce pluripotency in both mouse and human somatic cells, indicating that these factors regulate the developmental signaling network necessary for ES cell pluripotency.

Shinya Yamanaka, MD, PhD, a senior investigator at the Gladstone Institutes — which is affiliated with UCSF — has won the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of how to transform ordinary adult skin cells into cells that, like embryonic stem cells, are capable of developing into any cell in the …

Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka have been awarded this year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for work that has revolutionised cell biology. The Nobel Prize committee awarded the prize, “for the discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become pluripotent”.

In 2006, Shinya Yamanaka succeeded in identifying a small number of genes within the genome of mice that proved decisive in this process. When activated, skin cells from mice could be reprogrammed to immature stem cells, which, in turn, can grow into different types of cells within the body.

The Yamanaka factors (Oct3/4, Sox2, Klf4, c-Myc) are a group of protein transcription factors that play a vital role in the creation of induced pluripotent stem cells (cells that have the ability to become any cell in the body), often called iPSCs. They control how DNA is copied for translation into other proteins.

In 2006, Shinya Yamanaka discovered that adult somatic cells can be reprogrammed into an embryonic-like pluripotent state by delivering transcription factors.

Stem cells are the body’s raw materials — cells from which all other cells with specialized functions are generated. Under the right conditions in the body or a laboratory, stem cells divide to form more cells called daughter cells.