Assaying Candidate Human Skin Keratinocyte Stem Cells by Determining Their Long-Term Serial Proliferative Output in Culture.

Stem cells are found in niches around the body, including the epidermis of the skin, and can be distinguished from their more committed progeny by their high long-term proliferative capacity in vitro. Here we describe a technique used to isolate three main epidermal cell fractions from human neonatal foreskin termed early differentiating (ED), transient amplifying (TA) and keratinocyte stem cells (KSC) based on their differential expression of two cell surface markers: CD49f and CD71. These three fractions were cultivated in parallel in a serial proliferation assay to determine their long-term proliferative output.

Pericytes in Metastasis.

Pericytes have long been known to contribute indirectly to tumour growth by regulating angiogenesis. Thus, remodelling tumour blood vessels to maintain blood supply is critical for continued tumour growth. A role for pericytes in restricting leakage of tumour cells through blood vessels has also become evident given that adequate pericyte coverage of these blood vessels is critical for maintaining vascular permeability.

Ovarian cancer stem cells and their role in drug resistance.

Ovarian cancer is typically diagnosed at advanced stages (III or IV), with metastasis ensuing at stage III. Complete remission is infrequent and is not achieved in almost half of the women diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Consequently, management and treatment of this disease is challenging as many patients are faced with tumour recurrence disseminating to surrounding organs further complicated with acquired chemo-resistance.

Pericytes promote skin regeneration by inducing epidermal cell polarity and planar cell divisions.

The cellular and molecular microenvironment of epithelial stem/progenitor cells is critical for their long-term self-renewal. We demonstrate that mesenchymal stem cell-like dermal microvascular pericytes are a critical element of the skin's microenvironment influencing human skin regeneration using organotypic models. Specifically, pericytes were capable of promoting homeostatic skin tissue renewal by conferring more planar cell divisions generating two basal cells within the proliferative compartment of the human epidermis, while ensuring complete maturation of the tissue both spatially and temporally.

Qualitative bioluminescence imaging.

Bioluminescence imaging (BLI) technology is an advanced method of carrying out molecular imaging on live laboratory animals . This powerful technique is widely-used in studying a variety of biological processes, and it has been an ideal tool in exploring tumor growth and metastatic spread in real-time. This technique ensures the optimal use of laboratory animal resources, particularly the ethical principle of reduction in animal use, given its non-invasive nature, ensuring that ongoing biological processes can be studied over time in the same animal, without the need to euthanize groups of mice at specific time points.