Skin Stem Cells - Methods and Protocols

One of the most accessible source of stem cells, the skin, is here disvealed thanks to a mass of great histological, physiological, biochemical and stem cell biology details while providing step by step elegantly illustrated methods for isolation, characterization, maintenance and differentiation of skin stem cells. Details so much needed since eventhough we are dealing with one of the most accessible source of stem cells we have not to forget that we are meantime dealing as well with one of the most complicated stem cell niche. Thus all of the details provided are wellcome. Quite interesting are all of the twentyfour chapters which cover all of the biological aspects of skin stem cell (all of which are presented by rec-known specialists) but what captured my attention more is the use of 3D culture to investigate the role of mechanical signaling in keratinocyte stem cell physiology: simply fascinating ! Lee Wallace and Julia Reichelt (Newcastle University) illustrates how the cytoskeleton reorganize itself to transduce mechanical signals between cells. Several other chapters are of the highest interest (telling the truth, all of the chapters …. but for the economy of page space I cannot go through all of them and I kindly ask the reader to do that for me); just to give a taste of them I will recall those devoted to the isolation of mesenchymal stem cells from the human dermis or the generation of human melanocytes from induced pluripotent stem cells. A favourite book for the stem cells scholars.