Cell fate is the developmental outcome of a biological cell or its descendants in a specified setting. What it normally becomes and what it can become after an experimental intervention are different questions. The intestinal nucleus transfer experiment tests potential after cellular reprogramming, rather than directly tracing the normal cell fate of the donor.
Persistence of a developmental choice. cell specification tests behaviour in a neutral environment; cell determination tests persistence in a viable conflicting environment.
Context-dependent capacity to change differentiated identity or developmental potential. Demonstrating a transition requires distinguishing conversion of a defined starting cell from selection of a rare pre-existing population.
Changes in intestinal epithelial potential that allow previously committed cells to restore a renewing stem-cell compartment under particular conditions.
Conversion between differentiated cellular identities. Whether a progenitor-like intermediate is traversed is an experimental question rather than part of a universal mechanism.
A return from a more committed state toward a less committed or progenitor-like state. Re-expression of one marker is weaker evidence than sustained renewal and functional lineage output.
A commitment demonstrated by retaining a fate in a conflicting environment that is viable and supplies the alternative developmental cues.
A provisional developmental commitment demonstrated operationally by adopting a fate in an appropriate neutral environment. It is weaker than cell determination.
A description of the normal developmental descendants of identified embryonic regions or cells. It reports realised fate, not the entire potential revealed by experimental transplantation.
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