[neverdem]

The analysis was unusually rigorous

"They looked at 1.2 billion places in each genome where such chemical markers [epigenomes] exist. The analysis was unusually rigorous — and therefore unusually revealing, Ecker said. Earlier studies examined representative regions in the genome, rather than the whole thing."

IIRC, the last time I checked, there are just a little more than 20,000 genes in the human genome. This is the first time anybody checked for these epigenetic/epigenomic differences, IIRC. They happen as an organism matures after fertilization. That's the reason it's rigorous.

[dartuser]

Hmm ... If you can't cast that in x's and y's I have no clue what you're talking about ...

Perhaps I should just defer lol.

[grey_whiskers]

So the fallout is, at first blush, these cells are 'good enough' -- but on closer inspection the cells are not perfect replicas of (so to speak) "real, live, virgin" stem cells, and so they might fail to express certain proteins needed in their final destinations in the same amount or timing as needed, or might produce unwanted proteins, thereby hampering their function?

And this lack of methylation is as far as we can tell, random and therefore not limited to certain genes, which might in principle either be controlled for ("gee, that gene never gets turned on in a liver cell, who cares") ?

BUT such markers -- providing a faint memory of the cells' former role, might make them all the more suited if used to treat / regenerate the same organ from whence they came?

Cheers!