When I give an “Intro to Stem Cells” presentation to, say, high school students or to a local Rotary Club, I begin by explaining that there are three main types of stem cells: (1) embryonic stem cells (ESCs) (2) adult stem cells and (3) induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). Well, like most things in science, it’s actually not that simple.

To delve a little deeper into the details of characterizing stem cells, I recommend checking out a video animation produced by BioInformant, a stem cell market research company. The video is introduced in a blog, “Do you know the 5 types of stem cells?” by Cade Hildreth, BioInformant’s founder and president.

Image credit: BioInformant

Hildreth’s list categorizes stem cells by the extent of each type’s shape-shifting abilities. So while we sometimes place ESCs and iPSCs in different buckets because the methods for obtaining them are very different, in this list, they both belong to the pluripotent stem cell type. Pluri (“many”) – potent (“potential”) refers to the ability of both stem cell types to specialize into all of the cell types in the body. They can’t, though, make the cells of the placenta and other extra-embryonic cells too. Those ultimate blank-slate stem cells are called toti (“total”) – potent (“potential”).

When it comes to describing adult stem cells in my talks, I often lump blood stem cells together with muscle stem cells because they are stem cells that are present within us throughout life. But based on their ability to mature into specialized cells, these two stem cell types fall into two different categories in Hildreth’s list:  blood stem cells which can specialize into closely related cell types – the various cell types found in the blood – are considered “oligopotent” while muscle stem cells are “unipotent” because the can only mature into one type of cell, a muscle cell.

For more details on the five types of stem cells based on their potential to specialize, head over to the BioInformant blog. And scroll to the very bottom for the video animation which can also viewed on FaceBook.

Click here to watch the video on FaceBook.