1. Academic Validation
  2. miR-24 controls the regenerative competence of hair follicle progenitors by targeting Plk3

miR-24 controls the regenerative competence of hair follicle progenitors by targeting Plk3

  • Cell Rep. 2021 Jun 8;35(10):109225. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2021.109225.
Fengzhen Liu 1 Xia Zhang 1 You Peng 1 Liping Zhang 1 Yao Yu 1 Peng Hua 1 Peiying Zhu 1 Xinyu Yan 1 Yin Li 1 Liang Zhang 2
Affiliations

Affiliations

  • 1 CAS Key Laboratory of Tissue Microenvironment and Tumor, Shanghai Institute of Nutrition and Health, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200031, China.
  • 2 CAS Key Laboratory of Tissue Microenvironment and Tumor, Shanghai Institute of Nutrition and Health, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200031, China; Institute for Stem Cell and Regeneration, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 1 Beichen West Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100101, China; Department of Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery, Shanghai Ninth People's Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, 639 Zhizaoju Road, Shanghai 200011, China. Electronic address: zhangliang01@sibs.ac.cn.
Abstract

Maintaining a suitable level of sensitivity to environmental cues is crucial for proper function of adult stem cells. Here, we explore how the intrinsic sensitivity of skin hair follicle (HF) progenitors to growth stimuli is dynamically regulated. We discover miR-24 is an miRNA whose expression in HF progenitors inversely correlates with their growth potency in vivo. We show that its upregulation in adult skin epithelium leads to blunted responses of HF progenitors to growth cues and retards hair regeneration, while its conditional ablation leads to hyper-sensitized growth responsiveness of HF progenitors and precocious hair regeneration. Mechanistically, we find that miR-24 limits the intrinsic growth competence of HF progenitor by directly targeting PLK3, whose downregulation leads to reduced expression of CCNE1, a key cyclin for cell-cycle entry. These findings reveal an miRNA-mediated dynamic and cell-intrinsic mechanism used by HF progenitors to adapt their regenerative competence for different physiological conditions.

Keywords

hair follicle; microRNA; polo-like kinase; stem cell; tissue regeneration.

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