Abstract
Stem cells are defined as cells that have the dual capacity to generate mature cells through differentiation and to maintain themselves through self-renewal. It is a widely accepted concept that stem cells are maintained by their specialized microenvironment known as the stem cell niche. However, particularly in most mammalian tissues, the niche has remained elusive, because of the difficulty of identifying individual stem cells and their surrounding components. To overcome these difficulties, we employed the melanocyte system which allows indentification of individual stem cells at the bulge region in the mouse hair follicle. We engineered transgenic mice to label melanocyte stem cells by GFP. We isolated melanocyte stem cells and performed gene expression analysis to obtain the gene expression signature of the stem cells. The data would help to understand the exact molecular mechanisms of the stem cell regulation at the niche and also provide new insight into melanocyte-related dysregulations such as melanoma. [Skin Cancer (Japan) 2006; 21: 10-17]
