Characterization of the epidermal-dermal junction in skin organoids
2022
Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, Netherlands
Human induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC)-derived hair-bearing skin organoids offer new possibilities for modelling diseases like epidermolysis bullosa (EB). These inherited diseases result from perturbed expression and/or structure of components of the epidermal-dermal junction (EDJ). To establish whether hiPSC-derived skin organoids might be able to capture salient features of EB, it is thus important to characterize their EDJ. Here, the authors reported the successful generation of hair-bearing skin organoids from two hiPSC lines that exhibited fully stratified interfollicular epidermis. Using immunofluorescence and electron microscopy, it could be shown that basal keratinocytes in organoids adhere to laminin-332 and type IV collagen-rich basement membrane. Importantly, they demonstrated that EDJs in organoids are almost devoid of type VII collagen, a fibril that mediates anchoring of the epidermis to the dermis. This should be considered when using skin organoids for EB modelling.
The EDJ in the organoids was almost devoid of ColVII, indicating that further maturation is required to take full advantage of skin organoids as a disease model for some forms of EBs, in particular those caused by mutations in the COL7A1 gene.
Characterization of the epidermal-dermal junction in hiPSC-derived skin organoids
Karine Raymond
Added on: 02-06-2023
[1] https://www.cell.com/stem-cell-reports/fulltext/S2213-6711(22)00197-7?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS2213671122001977%3Fshowall%3Dtrue
