Once in a while, we should compulse over well-established paradigms, and I have been
thinking about the terminality of differentiated epithelial cells. There are many believers in
terminal differentiation, but if the concept encourages a sense of immutability, then does it
cripple new ideas regarding the plasticity of transitions among mature epithelia? I think so,
and my apostasy is this: Although epithelial cells differentiate to expected levels of function,
they are not necessarily terminal. Mature epithelia occasionally morph into other phenotypes …