Epidermal cells accelerate the restoration of the blood flow in diabetic ischemic limbs

Epidermal progenitor cells (EpPCs) were long thought to be unipotent, giving rise only to other keratinocytes but recent studies question this assumption. Here, we investigated whether mouse EpPCs can adopt other antigenic and functional phenotypes. To test this, we injected freshly isolated and cultured EpPCs and transient amplifying cells into diabetic and non-diabetic mouse ischemic hindlimb and followed the cells' fate and the recovery of the ischemic limb blood flow over time. Both freshly isolated and cultured EpPCs and transient amplifying cells were incorporated into the vasculature of the ischemic limb 2 and 5 weeks post-injection, and some expressed endothelial cell but not keratinocyte antigens. Additionally, in the non-diabetic animals, first transient amplifying cells and then EpPCs accelerated the restoration of the blood flow. By contrast, in diabetic animals, only injected EpPCs or unsorted epidermal cells accelerated the restoration of the blood flow. These data indicate that epidermal cells can adopt non-skin phenotypes and functions, and that this apparent pluripotency is not lost by differentiation of EpPCs into transient amplifying cells. They also suggest that epidermal cell therapy might be of therapeutic value in the treatment of diabetic ischemia. Finally, because epidermal cells are readily accessible and expandable, they appear to be ideally suited for use as a non-viral gene delivery therapy.