Phenotypic indications that human sweat glands are a rich source of nestin positive stem cell populations.

Access to files

Full-text and supplementary files are not available from Manchester eScholar. Full-text is available externally using the following links:

Abstract

Summary Background We have recently shown that the expression of nestin, a progenitor/stem cell marker protein, is localized to different, mesenchymal compartments in human skin including the sweat gland stroma. Objectives Since other exocrine glands are recognized sources of multipotent stem cell populations with multilineage differentiation potential, it was our aim to isolate, expand and characterize glandular stem cells from human sweat glands. Methods Isolation of human sweat glands was based on mechanical and enzymatical digestion of axillary skin. Cultivation was performed on collagen-coated cell culture dishes and the resulted cell population was investigated on protein and mRNA level. Results Outgrowing cells of isolated sweat glands showed a high proliferation activity and were characterized by nestin expression in more than 80% of the cells. These sweat gland stem cells could be maintained in culture for long periods of time and showed spontanous differentiation into cells representative for the different germ layers. Conclusions This pilot study provides the first, simple protocol for the isolation of adult human nestin positive (nestin(+)) stem cells from the sweat gland mesenchyme, which promises to provide an easily accessible and abundantly available, autologous source of multipotent stem cells for cell-based regenerative medicine applications.

Bibliographic metadata

Institutional metadata

Record metadata