Characteristics and application of epidermal stem cells:How far is it from basic research to clinical application? / 中国组织工程研究

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Epidermal stem cell as a specific stem cell in skin tissue, not only plays an important role in maintaining the metabolism of skin, but also closely related to wound repair, is the basis of occurrence of skin and its appendages. OBJECTIVE: To summarize the research status on features and application of epidermal stem cells in recent years. METHODS: A computer-based online search was conducted in PubMed Database and CNKI Database with the key words of "epidermal stem cell, basic study, gene therapy" from June to August, 2009. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: 532 articles were received in the first round, including 283 in Chinese and 249 in English. Articles which were unrelated articles (n=127), repeated research (n=158), and Meta analysis (n=25) were excluded. A total of 31 articles were reserved for review. Epidermal stem cell had the typical characteristics of long periodicity in vivo, self-renew capacity and easy to adherent to skin basement membrane. They had constant position in tissues which were located in basal layer and hair follicle bulge with rich blood supply in epidermis. The proliferation and differentiation of epidermal stem cells were affected by external and internal factors. The former meant microenvironment which stem cell existed in, that was called "Niche" of stem cell; the latter included integrin-mitogen-activated protein kinase pathway, Wnt signaling pathway, c-Myc proto-oncogene, and Notch signaling pathway. Currently, common marker of epidermal stem cells includes integrin, keratin, p63, p75, and epidermal cell-surface transferrin receptor CD71, etc. Epidermal stem cells can be explored in tissue engineering and wound repair, gene therapy, epidermal tumors, etc.