| The properties of embryonic hybrid cells obtained by fusion of embryonic stem (ES) or teratocarcinoma (TC) cells with differentiated cells are reviewed. Usually, ES-somatic or TC-somatic hybrids retain pluripotent capacity at high levels quite comparable or nearly identical with those of the pluripotent partner. When cultured in vitro, ES-somatic- and TC-somatic hybrid cell clones, as a rule, lose the chromosomes derived from the somatic partner; however, in some clones the autosomes from the ES cell partner were also eliminated, i.e. the parental chromosomes segregated bilaterally in the ES-somatic cell hybrids. This opens up ways for searching correlation between the pluripotent status of the hybrid cells and chromosome segregation patterns and therefore... |
