New Delhi: A new look at sebaceous glands offers insight into the development and maintenance of the skin and how cancer mutations affect stem cell behaviour. Most people are familiar with the sebaceous glands which are responsible for moisturising the skin — during puberty sometimes more than we would like. But even though the glands are a main component of our skin, scientists know surprisingly little about their formation and maintenance.
“We demonstrate for the first time ever how the sebaceous glands that contribute to the natural moisture of the skin are formed and how they are maintained throughout life by stem cells. This knowledge may be transferred to individuals with sebaceous gland conditions, e.g. acne or very dry skin,” says postdoctoral researcher Marianne Stemann Andersen from the Biotech Research & Innovation Centre (BRIC) at the University of Copenhagen.
The study also shows that the behaviour of the stem cells changes when the researchers introduce a specific and frequently found cancer mutation to the skin stem cells. Surprisingly, the mutation did not as expected cause cells to divide more often; instead stem cells had a tendency to generate more stem cells and not mature sebaceous gland cells when they divided. In the study, the researchers tracked stem cell division in the skin of live mice and coloured individual stem cells with fluorescent proteins. This let the researchers follow stem cells during a number of cell divisions and essentially generate family trees describing the heritage of individual cells.
During the formation of the sebaceous gland, the researchers found that when a stem cell divided and gave rise to two daughter cells, this more often led to the formation of two new stem cells than into mature sebaceous gland cells. This way, the sebaceous gland continued to grow until it had reached its mature size. At this point the behaviour of the stem cells changed: New cells only emerged when mature sebaceous gland cells burst to release their moisturising lipids on the skin and thereby be lost from the sebaceous gland.
