title: Embryonic attenuated Wnt/β-catenin signaling defines niche location and long-term stem cell fate in hair follicle.
abstract: Long-term adult stem cells sustain tissue regeneration throughout the lifetime of an organism. They were hypothesized to originate from embryonic progenitor cells that acquire long-term self-renewal ability and multipotency at the end of organogenesis. The process through which this is achieved often remains unclear. Here, we discovered that long-term hair follicle stem cells arise from embryonic progenitor cells occupying a niche location that is defined by attenuated Wnt/β-catenin signaling. Hair follicle initiation is marked by placode formation, which depends on the activation of Wnt/β-catenin signaling. Soon afterwards, a region with attenuated Wnt/β-catenin signaling emerges in the upper follicle. Embryonic progenitor cells residing in this region gain expression of adult stem cell markers and become definitive long-term hair follicle stem cells at the end of organogenesis. Attenuation of Wnt/β-catenin signaling is a prerequisite for hair follicle stem cell specification because it suppresses Sox9, which is required for stem cell formation.
authors.affiliation: College of Biological Sciences, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China.|National Institute of Biological Sciences, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Zijian
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: National Institute of Biological Sciences, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Wenjie
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: National Institute of Biological Sciences, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Kaiju
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.affiliation: National Institute of Biological Sciences, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Zhou
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.affiliation: National Institute of Biological Sciences, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Huanwei
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: National Institute of Biological Sciences, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Fengchao
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Nutrition and Metabolism, Institute for Nutritional Sciences, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Graduate School of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China.
authors.forename: Bin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: National Institute of Biological Sciences, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Ting
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Chen
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D018859:Hair Follicle / Q000196:embryology*; D051379:Mice; D038081:Organogenesis; D013234:Stem Cells / Q000502:physiology*; D060449:Wnt Signaling Pathway
keywords: Wnt; developmental biology; hair follicle; mouse; niche; regeneration; self-renewnal; stem cell; stem cells