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Migrating melanocyte stem cells: masters of disaster?

Nature Medicine volume 19, pages 818–819 (2013)Cite this article

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A new study provides an example of the delicate balance between stem cell migration, differentiation and maintenance in the context of skin wounding. In mice, wounding or ultraviolet irradiation induces melanocyte stem cells in the hair follicle to leave their niche before cell division and migrate up the follicle to differentiate into functional melanocytes, thus providing a protective pigmented barrier (pages 924–929).

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Figure 1: Epidermal repigmentation from hair follicle reservoirs.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ralf Paus is at the Department of Dermatology, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany. He is also at the Institute of Inflammation and Repair, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK.,

    Ralf Paus

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  1. Ralf Paus
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Correspondence to Ralf Paus.

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Competing interests

R.P. runs several industry-sponsored (Unilever, Henkel, Giuliani, Wolff, Braun, Follicum) skin and hair research projects unrelated to hair or skin pigmentation and serves as consultant on skin and hair research matters for industry (Giuliani, Wolff, Chelac).

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Paus, R. Migrating melanocyte stem cells: masters of disaster?. Nat Med 19, 818–819 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nm.3264

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