Isolation of a mesenchymal cell population from murine dermis that contains progenitors of multiple cell lineages

The skin contains two known subpopulations of stem cells/epidermal progenitors: a basal keratinocyte population found in the interfollicular epithelium and cells residing in the bulge region of the hair follicle. The major role of the interfollicular basal keratinocyte population may be epidermal renewal, whereas the bulge population may only be activated and recruited to form a cutaneous epithelium in case of trauma. Using 3-dimensional cultures of murine skin under stress conditions in which only reserve epithelial cells would be expected to survive and expand, we demonstrate that a mesenchymal population resident in neonatal murine dermis has the unique potential to develop an epidermis in vitro. In monolayer culture, this dermal subpopulation has long-term survival capabilities in restricted serum and an inducible capacity to evolve into multiple cell lineages, both epithelial and mesenchymal, depending on culture conditions. When grafted subcutaneously, this dermal subpopulation gave rise to fusiform structures, reminiscent of disorganized muscle, that stained positive for smooth muscle actin and desmin; on typical epidermal grafts, abundant melanocytes appeared throughout the dermis that were not associated with hair follicles. The multipotential cells can be repeatedly isolated from neonatal murine dermis by a sequence of differential centrifugation and selective culture conditions. These results suggest that progenitors capable of epidermal differentiation exist in the mesenchymal compartment of an abundant tissue source and may have a function in mesenchymal-epithelial transition upon insult. Moreover, these cells could be available in sufficient quantities for lineage determination or tissue engineering applications.