Abstract: Human non-embryonic adult totipotent and pluripotent stem cells are isolated in a simplified serum-free and feeder cell-free process. Most remarkably, certain stem cells, and especially BLSCs, are extremely small, fail to exclude trypan blue, but are nevertheless able to proliferate from even high dilutions. Therefore, so obtained stem cells can be used to prepare true monoclonal stem cell populations, which are useful in numerous uses, including therapeutic, prophylactic, diagnostic, and research uses.

Abstract: Human non-embryonic adult totipotent and pluripotent stem cells are isolated in a simplified serum-free and feeder cell-free process. Most remarkably, certain stem cells, and especially BLSCs, are extremely small, fail to exclude trypan blue, but are nevertheless able to proliferate from even high dilutions. Therefore, so obtained stem cells can be used to prepare true monoclonal stem cell populations, which are useful in numerous uses, including therapeutic, prophylactic, diagnostic, and research uses.

Abstract: Non-embryonic blastomere-like totipotent stem cells are disclosed. Most preferably, such cells are obtained from various tissues of postnatal mammals (e.g., using tissue biopsied from the mammal), are smaller than 1 ?m, have normal karyotype, and do not spontaneously differentiate in serum-free medium without differentiation inhibitors. These non-embryonic blastomere-like totipotent stem cells typically express CD66e, CEA-CAM-1 and telomerase, but do not typically express CD10, SSEA-1, SSEA-3, and SSEA-4. Such blastomere-like totipotent cells can be differentiated into ectodermal, mesodermal, or endodermal tissues, including placental tissues and germ cells. Moreover, when implanted into a mammal, such cells will not be teratogenic.

Abstract: Methods are presented in which release of stem cells from skeletal muscle is quantitated and correlated with severity of a disease or trauma, a future treatment option, prognosis, and/or anticipated time to recovery. Most preferably, the stem cell is a BLSC and/or an ELSC, and the stem cell isolation for the cell count is performed using sedimentation or filtration as principal separation step, thereby avoiding commonly used complicated, expensive, and time-consuming processes such as antibody-based separation and fluorescence-activated cell sorting.