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Hair follicle stem cell cultures reveal self‐organizing plasticity of stem cells and their progeny
Author(s) -
ChacónMartínez Carlos Andrés,
Klose Markus,
Niemann Catherin,
Glauche Ingmar,
Wickström Sara A
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
the embo journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 7.484
H-Index - 392
eISSN - 1460-2075
pISSN - 0261-4189
DOI - 10.15252/embj.201694902
Subject(s) - biology , stem cell , microbiology and biotechnology , hair follicle
Understanding how complex tissues are formed, maintained, and regenerated through local growth, differentiation, and remodeling requires knowledge on how single‐cell behaviors are coordinated on the population level. The self‐renewing hair follicle, maintained by a distinct stem cell population, represents an excellent paradigm to address this question. A major obstacle in mechanistic understanding of hair follicle stem cell ( HFSC ) regulation has been the lack of a culture system that recapitulates HFSC behavior while allowing their precise monitoring and manipulation. Here, we establish an in vitro culture system based on a 3D extracellular matrix environment and defined soluble factors, which for the first time allows expansion and long‐term maintenance of murine multipotent HFSC s in the absence of heterologous cell types. Strikingly, this scheme promotes de novo generation of HFSC s from non‐ HFSC s and vice versa in a dynamic self‐organizing process. This bidirectional interconversion of HFSC s and their progeny drives the system into a population equilibrium state. Our study uncovers regulatory dynamics by which phenotypic plasticity of cells drives population‐level homeostasis within a niche, and provides a discovery tool for studies on adult stem cell fate.