During embryonic development, cells start out as pluripotent, or have the potential to become many different cell types through differentiation. Naive-state is the name for the earliest stage of development for pluripotent stem cells and is considered totipotential, with the ability to become every kind of cell in a multicellular organism. The expression of a particular gene or set of genes is what determines what kind of cell―a skin cell, for example―a cell will become. During embryonic development, cells start out as pluripotent, or have the potential to become many different cell types through differentiation. Naive-state is the name for the earliest stage of development for pluripotent stem cells and is considered totipotential, with the ability to become every kind of cell in a multicellular organism. The expression of a particular gene or set of genes is what determines what kind of cell―a skin cell, for example―a cell will become. Cell & Microbiology Molecular & Computational biology Phys.org – latest science and technology news stories