a. Biol. [f. L. tōti- (see prec.) + POTENT: cf. omnipotent.] Capable of developing into or generating a complete organism: said of a cell. So Totipotence, Totipotentiality, the quality of being totipotent.
1901. T. H. Morgan, Regeneration, xii. 243. If we substitute the term ‘totipotence,’ meaning that any meridian of the egg has the possibility of becoming the median plane of the embryo.
1904. Amer. Nat., July–Aug., 504. While in this species also the material is totipotent, yet when the determining influence of polarity is removed the stronger tendency is to produce a tail.
1909. J. W. Jenkinson, Experim. Embryology, 281. Further, in very many, though not in all, instances the parts of the ovum—blastomeres or egg-fragments—are totipotent…. The totipotence is, however, sooner or later lost. Ibid., 76. From other sources also there is evidence of a progressive loss of totipotentiality of the parts. Ibid. (1911), Sea Urchin, 292.
