Clayton Elizabeth, Doupé David P, Klein Allon M, Winton Douglas J, Simons Benjamin D, Jones Philip H
MRC Cancer Cell Unit, Hutchison-MRC Research Centre, Cambridge CB2 0XZ, UK.
Nature. 2007 Mar 8;446(7132):185-9. doi: 10.1038/nature05574. Epub 2007 Feb 28.
According to the current model of adult epidermal homeostasis, skin tissue is maintained by two discrete populations of progenitor cells: self-renewing stem cells; and their progeny, known as transit amplifying cells, which differentiate after several rounds of cell division. By making use of inducible genetic labelling, we have tracked the fate of a representative sample of progenitor cells in mouse tail epidermis at single-cell resolution in vivo at time intervals up to one year. Here we show that clone-size distributions are consistent with a new model of homeostasis involving only one type of progenitor cell. These cells are found to undergo both symmetric and asymmetric division at rates that ensure epidermal homeostasis. The results raise important questions about the potential role of stem cells on tissue maintenance in vivo.
根据当前的成人表皮稳态模型，皮肤组织由两种不同的祖细胞群体维持：自我更新的干细胞；以及它们的后代，即所谓的过渡增殖细胞，这些细胞在经过几轮细胞分裂后会分化。通过利用可诱导的基因标记，我们在体内以单细胞分辨率追踪了小鼠尾部表皮中祖细胞代表性样本长达一年时间间隔的命运。在这里我们表明，克隆大小分布与仅涉及一种祖细胞类型的新稳态模型一致。发现这些细胞以确保表皮稳态的速率进行对称和不对称分裂。这些结果对干细胞在体内组织维持中的潜在作用提出了重要问题。
