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Elimination of unfit cells in young and ageing skin

Cell competition in the skin promotes tissue youthfulness, but the same process later leads to skin ageing. This finding helps to explain how skin is maintained, and uncovers potential anti-ageing therapeutic targets.
  1. Ganna Bilousova

    1. Ganna Bilousova is in the Department of Dermatology, Charles C. Gates Center for Regenerative Medicine, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, Aurora, Colorado 80045, USA.

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  2. James DeGregori

    1. James DeGregori is in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, Aurora, Colorado 80045, USA.

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Charles Darwin referred1 to natural selection as “one general law, leading to the advancement of all organic beings, namely, multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die”. We now know that Darwin’s (and Alfred Russel Wallace’s) concept also applies to certain mechanisms that govern organ development, tissue maintenance and ageing. Just as different species compete for limited resources and space, so cells in a multicellular organism compete for a niche, and less-fit cells are eliminated to keep tissues and organs ‘youthful’. Writing in Nature, Liu et al.2 provide insight into how tissue youthfulness is maintained, and which mechanisms drive the ageing process in epithelial organs such as the skin.

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Nature 568, 318-319 (2019)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-00825-3

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