Preliminary Study on Differentiation potential of ES derived epidermal stem cells in abdominal cavity micronenvironment

Objective To investigate the differentiation of the ES-derived epidermal stem cells in abdominal cavity microenvironment, to lay a basis for the study of stability and totipotence of epider-mal stem cells in different microenvironment, and to seek new source of seed cells for skin tissue engi-neering. Methods Mouse embryonic stem cells of E14 were cocultured with human amnion for 4-5 days. The clone of epidermal-like stem cells were formed with positive expression of β1 integrin, CK15 and CK19. The differentiation patterns of dornor cells were observed and estimated with morphologi-cal and CEA,CK10,CK18,CK19 immunohistochemical method. Results Within 1-4 weeks after trans-plantion into nude mice abdominal cavity, the ES-derived epidermal-like stem cells were differentiated into the tubular or follicular like structure lined with simple or stratified epithelium-like cells. After 5 weeks, keratinized stratified squamous epithelium, hair follicles-like, sweat glands-like and seba-ceous glands-like structure were observed. The sweat glands-like structure expressed CEA and CK18 respectively, the stratum basale of keratinized stratified squamous epithelium were CK19 and CK10 posi-tive staining. Conclusion The preliminary study suggests that the ES-derived epidermal-like stem cells have the differentiation potential to form the structure including keratinized stratified squamous epithelium, hair follicles-like, sweat glands-like and sebaceous glands-like structure in abdominal cavi-ty microenviorment.