Differentiation of Pluripotent Stem Cells for Modeling Human Skin Development and Potential Applications

Overview

Journal Front Cell Dev Biol

Specialty Cell Biology

Date 2022 Dec 12

PMID 36506084

Authors

Fabian Oceguera-Yanez

Alfonso Avila-Robinson

Knut Woltjen

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

The skin of mammals is a multilayered and multicellular tissue that forms an environmental barrier with key functions in protection, regulation, and sensation. While animal models have long served to study the basic functions of the skin , new insights are expected from models of human skin development. Human pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) have proven to be invaluable tools for studying human development . To understand the mechanisms regulating human skin homeostasis and injury repair at the molecular level, recent efforts aim to differentiate PSCs towards skin epidermal keratinocytes, dermal fibroblasts, and skin appendages such as hair follicles and sebaceous glands. Here, we present an overview of the literature describing strategies for human PSC differentiation towards the components of skin, with a particular focus on keratinocytes. We highlight fundamental advances in the field employing patient-derived human induced PSCs (iPSCs) and skin organoid generation. Importantly, PSCs allow researchers to model inherited skin diseases in the search for potential treatments. Skin differentiation from human PSCs holds the potential to clarify human skin biology.

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