Stem Cells: Is there a preponderance of these from one parent over the other?

Question

Where do my stem cells stem from (is one parent favored over the other in terms of the genome it contains)?

Or are stem cells composed of both mom and dad's genome?

What does "Chimerism" mean in light of stem cells for a male offspring (me).

Answer 1

Your stem cells are your own, which means exactly half of the DNA in them is from mom and half from dad.

The previous answer did a pretty good job of chimerism, but for what you want to know, I could guess that some stem cells are using x-genes and some are using y-genes, so in that way, they are kind of a mix. That would be called mosaicism, I think, which might be the term you want.

Answer 2

Stem cells are just like any other cell in your body as far as DNA is concerned. The difference between a stem cell and any other cell is that it is not fully committed to a specific lineage (i.e. connective tissue, white blood cell, neuronal, etc.). Though an adult stem cell is somewhat committed, embryonic stem cells are not at ALL committed to a lineage.

Chimerism refers to using stem cells from one organism and transplanting them into another organism. For example, using a human embryo's stem cells, and transplanting them into a sheep's brain for developmental purposes.