Hair follicle stem cells promote epidermal regeneration under expanded condition

Yu Zhang; Jiangbo Cui; Zhengqiang Cang; Jiaomiao Pei; Xi Zhang; Baoqiang Song; Xing Fan; Xianjie Ma; Yang Li

doi:10.3389/fphys.2024.1306011

Hair follicle stem cells promote epidermal regeneration under expanded condition

Front Physiol. 2024 Feb 22:15:1306011. doi: 10.3389/fphys.2024.1306011. eCollection 2024.

Authors

Yu Zhang^#¹, Jiangbo Cui^#¹, Zhengqiang Cang^#¹, Jiaomiao Pei¹, Xi Zhang¹, Baoqiang Song¹, Xing Fan¹, Xianjie Ma¹, Yang Li¹

Affiliation

¹ Department of Plastic Surgery, Xijing Hospital, Fourth Military Medical University, Xi'an, Shaanxi, China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Skin soft tissue expansion is the process of obtaining excess skin mixed with skin development, wound healing, and mechanical stretching. Previous studies have reported that tissue expansion significantly induces epidermal proliferation throughout the skin. However, the mechanisms underlying epidermal regeneration during skin soft tissue expansion are yet to be clarified. Hair follicle stem cells (HFSCs) have been recognized as a promising approach for epidermal regeneration. This study examines HFSC-related epidermal regeneration mechanisms under expanded condition and proposes a potential method for its cellular and molecular regulation.

Keywords: epidermal regeneration; hair follicle stem cells; mechanical stretch; skin soft tissue expansion; wound healing.

Publication types

Review

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This article was supported by grants from Natural Science Foundation of Shaanxi Province (2021JM-239) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant number: 82302824). This work was supported by the Department of Plastic Surgery, Xijing Hospital, Fourth Military Medical University, Xi’an, China. This study is also funded by the Nanjing Medical University Fan Daiming Research Funds for Holistic Integrative Medicine and the National Key Research and development Program of China (2021YFA0717004).