The skin is the body’s largest organ, and is the first line of defence against the external environment. The epidermis – the outermost layer of the skin – is highly specialised and often exhibits unique characteristics depending on its anatomical location and the function it serves. It has long been known that this specialisation is dependent on inductive signals that originate from underlying fibroblasts; however, the exact nature of the signals and their role in maintaining the epidermis is only just starting to emerge. In this issue (p. 1498), John Foley and colleagues identify an oestrogen-regulated TGFβ signalling pathway that is crucial for the maintenance of the highly specialised nipple epidermis. Using a series of grafting experiments, the authors show that fibroblasts taken from the nipple-like skin of mice can induce reprogramming of trunk keratinocytes into nipple-like epidermis. Transcriptional profiling of the nipple-like fibroblasts identifies oestrogen signalling as a strong candidate factor for the maintenance of the nipple epidermis and, indeed, ablation of oestrogen signalling in ovariectomised mice results in an abnormally thin nipple epidermis. The authors further identify Tgfb1 as a direct target of oestrogen signalling and show how ectopic treatment of TGFβ1 protein into the connective tissue of the nipple causes a decrease in epidermal proliferation and a thinning of the nipple epidermis. Taken together, these data represent an important step forward in understanding the signalling network that maintains the specialisation of the nipple epidermis.
Specialised fibroblasts maintain the nipple epidermis
Specialised fibroblasts maintain the nipple epidermis. Development 15 April 2017; 144 (8): e0804. doi:
Download citation file:
Advertisement
Cited by
Call for papers: Uncovering Developmental Diversity
Development invites you to submit your latest research to our upcoming special issue: Uncovering Developmental Diversity. This issue will be coordinated by our academic Editor Cassandra Extavour (Harvard University, USA) alongside two Guest Editors: Liam Dolan (Gregor Mendel Institute of Molecular Plant Biology, Austria) and Karen Sears (University of California Los Angeles, USA).
Choose Development in 2024
In this Editorial, Development Editor-in-Chief James Briscoe and Executive Editor Katherine Brown explain how you support your community by publishing in Development and how the journal champions serious science, community connections and progressive publishing.
Journal Meeting: From Stem Cells to Human Development
Register now for the 2024 Development Journal Meeting From Stem Cells to Human Development. Early-bird registration deadline: 3 May. Abstract submission deadline: 21 June.
Pluripotency of a founding field: rebranding developmental biology
This collaborative Perspective, the result of a workshop held in 2023, proposes a set of community actions to increase the visibility of the developmental biology field. The authors make recommendations for new funding streams, frameworks for collaborations and mechanisms by which members of the community can promote themselves and their research.
Read & Publish Open Access publishing: what authors say
We have had great feedback from authors who have benefitted from our Read & Publish agreement with their institution and have been able to publish Open Access with us without paying an APC. Read what they had to say.