With its recently described improved technologies for specifically identifying adult tissue stem cells or detecting their function by a computer simulation technology, biotech start-up Asymmetrex is anticipating a need for rules to move the field of stem cell biology from a past of common errors and misconceptions to a future of exact quantification.
Asymmetrex’s 5 rules to counting adult tissue stem cells:
1. Consider that there may be no tissue stem cells in the sample.
2. Realize that previously described “stem cell biomarkers” are not specific.
3. Do not call CD34-positive or CD133-positive cells “stem cells,” because >99% are not.
4. Evaluate H2A.Z asymmetry, a specific tissue stem cell biomarker based on exclusive stem cell functions.
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