Extensive tissue-regenerative capacity of neonatal human keratinocyte stem cells and their progeny
J. Clin. Invest. Amy Li, et al. 113:390 doi:10.1172/JCI19140 [
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Figure 2KSCs and their progeny exhibit equivalent epidermal tissue-regenerative capability when cocultured with early-passage dermal cells. (
a–
h) Epithelial tissue regeneration in organotypic cultures obtained from 4.5 × 10
4 UF cells (
a and
b), KSCs (
c and
d), TA cells (
e and
f), and differentiating cells (
g and
h) on dermal equivalents populated with p1 foreskin dermal cells (p1 DEs) analyzed at day 4 (prior to lifting to the air-liquid interface; see
a,
c,
e, and
g) and at day 14 after airlift (
b,
d,
f, and
h). Note that the actively cycling TA cells had regenerated a thicker epithelium compared with the other fractions of keratinocytes by day 4 (
e). By day 14, however, all fractions, including differentiating cells, had regenerated an epithelium of similar thickness and cellularity. Scale bar: 50 μm. (
i–
l) Coculture with minimally passaged dermal cells enhances the epidermal regenerative capacity of low numbers of differentiating α
6dim basal keratinocytes. Here, 4.5 × 10
4 (
i and
j) or 10
4 α
6dim cells (
k and
l) collected from a single FACS experiment were placed simultaneously in organotypic cultures consisting of either p7 DEs (
i and
k) or p1 DEs (
j and
l) and were harvested at day 14 after airlift. H&E-stained sections of these cultures show that while the tissue regeneration obtained from α
6dim cells on the p7 DEs (
i) can be compromised by decreasing the number of keratinocytes plated to 10
4 (
k), this can be compensated for by coculture with p1 DEs (
l). Inset: higher magnification of regenerated epidermis from differentiating cells shown in
k. Scale bar: 50 μm.