Cell differentiation video follow-along

Unravel the mystery of cell differentiation! Follow along with our video guide to understand how cells specialize.

How Cells Become Specialized Watch the video complete the note guide below. Actually watch the video so you can put the correct words in the blanks. 1. Multicellular organisms like plants and humans start as a fertilized egg cell.2. Another name for a fertilized egg is a zygote.3. Mitosis is great for making identical cells.4. In the growing embryo the first stage that has cells that are different is the blastocyst.5 . These different cells are stem cells.6. Stem cells are not specialized meaning they do not have any special structures.7. Body cells contain all of your DNA8. Different cells don’t have different DNA, they use different parts of your DNA.9. To regulate DNA, cells can turn genes on and off.10. Transcription factors are typically proteins that sit (or bind to) the DNA and determine what parts of the DNA will be transcribed.11. There are the externalfactors that come from outside the stem cell and internal factorsthat are inside the stem cell which involve transcription factors.12. Are stem cells only found in embryos? No13. Do you have stem cells in your body? Yes14. Cells that are multipotent can become many types of body cells but not all types of body cells.15. Stem cells are big in research because they could be used to regenerate organs damaged by disease, old age, or accidents.16. There are some concerns about using stem cells though, one problem is that when you extract embryonic stem cells it results in the death of the embryo. In summary... Differentiation is when stem cells change from unspecialized cells into cells that have specialized to have a specific function. For example, blood stem cells can become all the different types of blood cells in your body. Once differentiated cells do NOT change from one type of cells to another in your body.