A research group led by Professor Emi Nishimura, Assistant Professor Hiroyuki Matsumura, and Dr. Liu Kusunoki of the Institute for Intractable Diseases, Tokyo Medical and Dental University found that aging weakens the competition for stem cells in the skin and reduces the mechanism for maintaining homeostasis, resulting in skin aging. I clarified the mechanism of what happens.
It is known that damage and stress are the triggers for aging of tissues and organs, but even if they are exposed to a large amount of ultraviolet rays, they do not immediately become skin like the elderly.The skin has maintained its youth and function for decades.The stem cell system is known as a mechanism for maintaining homeostasis of such tissues and organs, but the details of how stem cells compete with each other have not been clarified so far.
Therefore, this time, the group analyzed the dynamics of stem cells in vivo.As a result, it was found that stress-responsive stem cell competition occurs in epidermal stem cells.Furthermore, we found that the expression of "XVII type collagen (COL17A1)" that connects stem cells and basement membrane is physiologically fluctuated by genomic stress / oxidative stress-induced proteolysis.From this, it was clarified that skin aging occurs when the cell competition of epidermal stem cells mediated by COL17A1 is attenuated by aging.
This result elucidated a part of the mechanism of stem cell competition in skin aging.The epithelial tissues of other organs may have a similar control mechanism, and it is expected that they will be applied to the prevention and treatment of anti-aging, regeneration, and age-related diseases by competitive control of stem cells in the future.
Paper information:[Nature] Stem cell competition orchestrates skin homeostasis and aging
