The ability of a particular cell of one tissue, organ or system, including stem or progenitor cells, to be caused to differentiate into a cell type characteristic of another tissue, organ, or system; e.g., HSC to liver hepatocytes.

Direct differentiation of one type of cells to another

When adult stem cells from one type of tissue grow into cells of another type. An example of this would be stem cells from bone marrow, which are already partially developed to be blood cells, growing into heart cells when they are injected into the heart.

The observation that stem cells from one tissue may be able to differentiate into cells of another tissue.

The process by which stem cells from one tissue are able to differentiate into cells of another tissue.

Transdifferentiation in biology takes place when a non-stem cell transforms into a different type of cell, or when an already differentiated stem cell creates cells outside its already established differentiation. Developmental biologist and biochemist David Tosh has restricted the definition of transdifferentiation to irreversible switches of one differentiated cell type to another. Trandifferentiation is a type of metaplasia, which includes all cell fate switches, including the interconversion of stem cells.