| First Author | Baba Y | Year | 2022 |
| Journal | Sci Rep | Volume | 12 |
| Issue | 1 | Pages | 17820 |
| PubMed ID | 36280775 | Mgi Jnum | J:330404 |
| Mgi Id | MGI:7377958 | Doi | 10.1038/s41598-022-22427-2 |
| Citation | Baba Y, et al. (2022) Nestin is a marker of unipotent embryonic and adult progenitors differentiating into an epithelial cell lineage of the hair follicles. Sci Rep 12(1):17820 |
| abstractText | Nestin is an intermediate filament protein transiently expressed in neural stem/progenitor cells. We previously demonstrated that outer root sheath (ORS) keratinocytes of adult hair follicles (HFs) in mice descend from nestin-expressing cells, despite being an epithelial cell lineage. This study determined the exact stage when nestin-expressing ORS stem/precursor cells or their descendants appear during HF morphogenesis, and whether they are present in adult HFs. Using Nes-Cre/CAG-CAT-EGFP mice, in which enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) is expressed following Cre-based recombination driven by the nestin promoter, we found that EGFP(+) cells appeared in the epithelial layer of embryonic HFs as early as the peg stage. EGFP(+) cells in hair pegs were positive for keratin 14 (K14) and K5, but not vimentin, SOX2, SOX10, or S100 alpha 6. Tracing of tamoxifen-induced EGFP(+) cells in postnatal Nes-CreERT2/CAG-CAT-EGFP mice revealed labeling of some isthmus HF epithelial cells in the first anagen stage. EGFP(+) cells in adult HFs were not immunolabeled for K15, an HF multipotent stem cell marker. However, when hairs were depilated in Nes-CreERT2/CAG-CAT-EGFP mice to induce the anagen stage after tamoxifen injection, the majority of ORS keratinocytes in depilation-induced anagen HFs were labeled for EGFP. Our findings indicate that nestin-expressing unipotent progenitor cells capable of differentiating into ORS keratinocytes are present in HF primordia and adult HFs. |
