Developmental potential of mammalian somatic cells

The analysis of the experiments on somatic cloning of mammals revealsthat possibly there is a group of cells whose nuclei have greater developmentalpotential than those of other cells. The group comprises cells of a particular developmental lineage, namely those originating from embryonic mesenchymeand mesoderm. It remains to be elucidated if somatic cells effectively used forcloning are terminally differentiated, not yet fully differentiated or if they arestem cells.