Skip to main content
. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2013 Jan 1.
Published in final edited form as: J Craniofac Surg. 2012 Jan;23(1):319–323. doi: 10.1097/SCS.0b013e318241dbaf

Figure 1. Schematic of available stem cells for tissue engineering.

Figure 1

Embryonic stem cells (left) are pluirpotent and can be differentiated into multipotent mesenchymal stem cells. Similarly, mesenchymal multipotent cells can be harvested from adipose tissue and bone marrow and can differentiate to adult tissue–specific stem cells. Recent studies have demonstrated that mulipotent cells and adult tissue–specific stem cells can be reprogrammed to induced pluirpotent stem cells (iPS) which, similar to embryonic stem cells, can differentiate to any of the three main germ layers (endoderm, ectoderm and mesoderm).