Postmodern biology: (adult) (stem) cells are plastic, stochastic, complex, and uncertain

This chapter will discuss recent findings regarding cell plasticity and stem cell behavior, focusing on ways in which experimental design, observer interference, and inherent stochasticity and complexity are serving to create a new, postmodern biology. The chapter will summarize: (a) the four recognized pathways whereby cell plasticity occurs physiologically; (b) recent findings regarding unexpected epigenetic reversibility of gene restrictions that provide the mechanistic core of plasticity; (c) current evidence for the stochastic nature of gene expression and, therefore, of cell fate decisions. It will be noted that stochastic, however, does not imply completely random; rather, constrained randomness, intermediate between rigid determinism and complete disorder is what is usually seen experimentally. Possible sources of such constrained disorder, from a biomolecular point of view, will be discussed. The chapter will conclude with discussions of how these findings contribute to a Complexity Theory formulation of the body as self-organizing emergence of interacting biomolecules and the implications of such concepts for design and interpretation of experimental results (i.e., a cellular version of Heisenbergian uncertainty).