How cells change their phenotype

Until recently, it was thought that once a cell had acquired a stable differentiated state, it could not change its phenotype. We now know this is not the case, and over the past few years a plethora of well-documented examples have been presented whereby already differentiated cells or tissue-specific stem cells have been shown to alter their phenotype to express functional characteristics of a different tissue. In this chapter, we examine evidence for these examples, comment on the underlying cellular and molecular mechanisms, and speculate about possible directions of research.