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Scientists disclose minute-by-minute details of the biological clock of skin stem cells

By 14 de October de 2013November 18th, 2020No Comments
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The study was conducted on healthy skin stem cells (Image: Aznar Benitah's laboratory)
 14.10.2013

Scientists disclose minute-by-minute details of the biological clock of skin stem cells

In an article published in the journal Cell Stem Cell (), scientists led by ICREA Research Professor Salvador Aznar Benitah –who has recently moved his lab to IRB Barcelona, based in the PCB– have described how the circadian rhythm (internal biological clock) modulates the function of human skin stem cells to achieve optimum regeneration and protection against harmful agents. The study also demonstrates that a disruption in the internal biological clock deeply affects the correct function of stem cells and leads to tissue aging and potential predisposition to skin cancer.


Our skin regenerates daily and has to face harmful environmental factors such as sunlight and pathogens. Thus, during long periods of exposure to pathogens or UV light, stem cells of the human skin protect themselves. In contrast, during the evening and night, they produce new keratinocyte. Found in the uppermost layers of the skin, keratinocytes, which are dead cells rich in keratin, provide an impermeable protective barrier. Over the course of the night the stem cells regenerate tissue and replace keratinocytes that are damaged or that have been lost during the day.

In 2011, Aznar Benitah and collaborators (amongst them Eduard Batlle from IRB) previously reported on the relevance of circadian rhythms in the regulation of skin stem cells. At that time they found that the cells discriminate between day and night.

“Stem cells have some genes that control their biological clock and that determine peaks of activity and intervals of inactivity over 24-hour periods. In this study, we describe how the cells manage to perceive what time of the day it is. This precision allows the stem cells to adapt their activity to the time of day and to its environmental conditions,” explains Salvador Aznar Benitah, who conducted this study at the Center for Genomic Regulation (CRG) and who has recently settled his new lab “Stem Cells and Cancer” to IRB Barcelona.