New discovery helps scientists understand the intricacies of skin regeneration

A Northwestern University research team has identified a molecular switch in cells that can help scientists establish a fuller understanding of skin regeneration. In addition, these findings may lead to new developments in cancer research and wound healing.

Their study was supervised by Xiaomin Bao, stem cell biologist in the Department of Molecular Biosciences at Northwestern University, and was recently published by the journal Nature Communications.

“Skin stem cells need to continuously make decisions, to either make more copies of themselves — a process known as self-renewal — or to switch their fate towards differentiation. A delicate balance between these two decisions is crucial to maintain the integrity of skin and its barrier function,” said Bao. “We have discovered the switch bound to selected genomic regions inside the stem cells, ready to trigger the cell fate switch of initiating the stem cell’s movement towards differentiation.”

“We are probing the unknown,” Bao said. “Stem cell regulation is fundamental for sustaining the integrity of human tissue. We have found a key mechanism initiating the fate switch of skin stem cell towards differentiation, an integral process of regeneration. Learning more about the fundamental molecular mechanisms can help in the understanding of many different human diseases.”

Learn more in Northwestern Now’s article, “Scientists identify key mechanism controlling skin regeneration.”