Understanding Melanocyte Stem Cells for Disease Modeling and Regenerative Medicine Applications.

Melanocytes in the skin play an indispensable role in the pigmentation of skin and its appendages. It is well known that the embryonic origin of melanocytes is neural crest cells. In adult skin, functional melanocytes are continuously repopulated by the differentiation of melanocyte stem cells (McSCs) residing in the epidermis of the skin. Many preceding studies have led to significant discoveries regarding the cellular and molecular characteristics of this unique stem cell population. The alteration of McSCs has been also implicated in several skin abnormalities and disease conditions. To date, our knowledge of McSCs largely comes from studying the stem cell niche of mouse hair follicles. Suggested by several anatomical differences between mouse and human skin, there could be distinct features associated with mouse and human McSCs as well as their niches in the skin. Recent advances in human pluripotent stem cell (hPSC) research have provided us with useful tools to potentially acquire a substantial amount of human McSCs and functional melanocytes for research and regenerative medicine applications. This review highlights recent studies and progress involved in understanding the development of cutaneous melanocytes and the regulation of McSCs.

Differential localization and high expression of SURVIVIN splice variants in human embryonic stem cells but not in differentiated cells implicate a role for SURVIVIN in pluripotency.

The BIRC5 gene encodes the oncofetal protein SURVIVIN, as well as four additional splice variants (ΔEx3, 2B, 3B and 2α). SURVIVIN, an inhibitor of apoptosis, is also a chromosomal passenger protein (CPP). Previous results have demonstrated that SURVIVIN is expressed at high levels in embryonic stem cells and inhibition of SURVIVIN function results in apoptosis, however these studies have not investigated the other four splice variants. In this study, we demonstrate that all variants are expressed at significantly higher levels in human embryonic stem (hES) cells than in differentiated cells. We examined the subcellular localization of the three most highly expressed variants. SURVIVIN displayed canonical CPP localization in mitotic cells and cytoplasmic localization in interphase cells. In contrast, SURVIVIN-ΔEx3 and SURVIVIN-2B did not localize as a CPP; SURVIVIN-ΔEx3 was found constitutively in the nucleus while SURVIVIN-2B was distributed along the chromosomes during mitosis and also to the mitotic spindle poles. We used inducible shRNA against SURVIVIN to inhibit expression in a titratable fashion. Using this system, we reduced the mRNA levels of these three variants to approx. 40%, resulting in a concomitant reduction of OCT4 and NANOG mRNA, suggesting a role for the SURVIVIN variants in pluripotency.