Studies of developmental biology have demonstrated that the zygote is totipotent and can gradually differentiate into all tissues and organs of the human body, that is composed by more than 200 types of specialized cells.
The sites of atherosclerotic plaque development in the arterial wall are characterized by cholesterol accumulation and infiltration of peripheral blood monocytes, which gradually differentiate into macrophages.
M. truncatula possesses green embryos, and during seed development, the chloroplasts gradually differentiate into storage plastids [ 56].
Although the CEPs would gradually differentiate into CECs, the next course of chemotherapy might destroy some cells that were in transition before they could fully differentiate into CECs.
After stem cell division, the daughter cells migrate along the crypt-villus axis as they gradually differentiate into different types of epithelial cells.
After AAF intoxication, regeneration is known to proceed from the division of oval cells that proliferate and gradually differentiate into hepatocytes [1], [24], [25].
The descendants of the stem cells actively proliferate, gradually differentiate into absorptive cells, goblet cells, endocrine cells, and Paneth cells as they migrate along the crypt-villus axis, and finally undergo apoptosis at the tip of villi.
Our previous studies showed that after P. acnes priming, circulating CD11c+B220− DC precursors could be mobilized to the liver and gradually differentiate into functional, mature DCs to elicit immune responses.
Seminal papers demonstrated that cell cycle becomes more frequent as HSCs gradually differentiate into lineage-restricted progenitors (Bradford et al., 1997; Morrison and Weissman, 1994; Pietrzyk et al., 1985; Suda et al., 1983; Uchida et al., 2003).
As the stem cells proliferate in the crypt, their daughter cells migrate up along the crypt-villus axis and gradually differentiate into different types of epithelial cells, leading to the replacement of the entire epithelium once every 1 6 days in mammals [ 1, 2, 4].
