Fig. 1
From: The march of pluripotent stem cells in cardiovascular regenerative medicine
Generation of embryonic stem cells. A fertilized egg is allowed to develop to the blastocyst stage. The inner cell mass dissociates from the trophoblast by laser dissection or enzymatic digestion. Isolated cells are cultured in this pluripotent state for a long period of time in the presence of growth factors. The pluripotent stem cells can be differentiated into various cell lineages, such as cardiomyocytes, neurons, or liver cells