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Response to The terminology of teratocarcinomas and teratomas

Nature Biotechnology volume 25, pages 1211–1212 (2007)Cite this article

Anthony Atala and Mark Furth respond:

We used the term 'teratocarcinoma' in our paper because it accurately reflects observations and language from some of the original reports on ES cells that we cited. For instance, in her seminal paper from 1981, Martin1 describes “a method...for isolating and establishing pluripotent cell lines with the properties of teratocarcinoma stem cells directly from normal early mouse embryos in vitro.” She characterizes the tumor type formed after injection of ES cells into athymic mice as follows: “In most cases, a typical teratocarcinoma, containing derivatives of all three primary germ layers, formed within 6 weeks.” Furthermore, she documents the presence of undifferentiated stem cells within tumors formed from ES cell clones. This may help to explain Martin's choice of the term teratocarcinoma, rather than teratoma, as it was one of the key criteria used by original workers in the field, including Stevens2.

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Response to The terminology of teratocarcinomas and teratomas. Nat Biotechnol 25, 1211–1212 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt1107-1211b

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