difference between stem cells and germ cells?
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Answer:
Stem cells are unspecialized cells with self-renewal capacity. They can divide through mitosis limitlessly to replenish other cell types of multicellular organisms throughout their life.
After stem cell division, each newly produced cell can either remain as a stem cell or differentiate to form any other cell type with more defined functions, such as muscle cell, blood cell, or neural cell.
Under special circumstances, differentiation of stem cells can also be induced to generate tissue- or organ-specific cell types with special functions. There are mainly two types of stem cells: embryonic stem cells, which are derived from embryos, and somatic or adult stem cells, which are undifferentiated cells residing in a tissue or organ along with other differentiated cells (somatic cells).
The major difference between embryonic and somatic stem cells is that embryonic stem cells have the potential to differentiate into all cell types of the body, as they are pluripotent stem cells (cells that are able to differentiate into three primary germ cell layers of the early embryo and, thus, into any cell type of the body); whereas, it is believed that somatic stem cells can differentiate only into different cell types present in the tissue of their origin.