Culturing skin cells outside of the body has been a cornerstone of dermatological investigation for many years; however, human skin equivalent systems typically lack the full complexity of native skin. Notably, skin appendages, such as hair follicles and sweat glands, remain a challenge to generate or maintain in cell cultures and reconstruct in damaged skin. Recent work from our lab has demonstrated methods for generating appendage-bearing skin tissue-known as skin organoids-from pluripotent stem cells. Here, we will summarize this work and other related works, and then discuss the potential future applications of skin organoids in dermatological research.
Keywords: differentiation; epidermis; hair follicle; regeneration; stem cells.
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