<P> Cell potency is a cell's ability to differentiate into other cell types . The more cell types a cell can differentiate into, the greater its potency . Potency is also described as the gene activation potential within a cell which like a continuum begins with totipotency to designate a cell with the most differentiation potential, pluripotency, multipotency, oligopotency and finally unipotency . </P> <P> Totipotency (Lat . totipotentia, "ability for all (things)") is the ability of a single cell to divide and produce all of the differentiated cells in an organism . Spores and zygotes are examples of totipotent cells . In the spectrum of cell potency, totipotency represents the cell with the greatest differentiation potential . </P> <P> It is possible for a fully differentiated cell to return to a state of totipotency . This conversion to totipotency is complex, not fully understood and the subject of recent research . Research in 2011 has shown that cells may differentiate not into a fully totipotent cell, but instead into a "complex cellular variation" of totipotency . Stem cells resembling totipotent blastomeres from 2 - cell stage embryos can arise spontaneously in the embryonic stem cell cultures and also can be induced to arise more frequently in vitro through down - regulation of the chromatin assembly activity of CAF - 1 . </P>

Undifferentiated cells that have the potential to become specialized