Notice: Users may be experiencing issues with displaying some pages on stanfordhealthcare.org. We are working closely with our technical teams to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. Thank you for your patience.
 

Learn about the flu shot, COVID-19 vaccine, and our masking policy »

Stanford Health Care

A dermal HOX transcriptional program regulates site-specific epidermal fate GENES & DEVELOPMENT Rinn, J. L., Wang, J. K., Allen, N., Brugmann, S. A., Mikels, A. J., Liu, H., Ridky, T. W., Stadler, H. S., Nusse, R., Helms, J. A., Chang, H. Y. 2008; 22 (3): 303-307

Abstract

Reciprocal epithelial-mesenchymal interactions shape site-specific development of skin. Here we show that site-specific HOX expression in fibroblasts is cell-autonomous and epigenetically maintained. The distal-specific gene HOXA13 is continually required to maintain the distal-specific transcriptional program in adult fibroblasts, including expression of WNT5A, a morphogen required for distal development. The ability of distal fibroblasts to induce epidermal keratin 9, a distal-specific gene, is abrogated by depletion of HOXA13, but rescued by addition of WNT5A. Thus, maintenance of appropriate HOX transcriptional program in adult fibroblasts may serve as a source of positional memory to differentially pattern the epithelia during homeostasis and regeneration.

View details for DOI 10.1101/gad.1610508

View details for PubMedID 18245445