several benefits: 1) It means that the number of stem cells can be small and their division rate can be low. This reduces the cumulative burden of genetic damage, since most mutations occur in the course of DNA replication and mitosis, and mutations occurring in cells that are not stem cells are discarded in the course of tissue renewal. The likelihood of cancer is thus reduced. 2) a low stem-cell division rate in normal circumstances allows for dramatic increase when there is an urgent need - for example, in wound repair.
Thus, for example, when a patch of hairy skin
is cut away, the slowly dividing stem cells in the bulge region of surviving hair follicles near the wound are switched into rapid proliferation, and some of their progeny move out as new stem cells to form fresh interfollicular epidermis to cover the wounded patch of body surface Concluding remarks
Cell turnover in the epidermis seems at first
glance a simple matter, but the simplicity is deceptive. There are many points in the process that have to be controlled according to circumstances: ◦ the rate of stem-cell division; ◦ the probability that a stem-cell daughter will remain a stem cell; ◦ the number of cell divisions of the transit amplifying cells; the timing of exit from the basal layer, ◦ the time that the cell then takes to complete its differentiation program and be sloughed from the surface.
Regulation of these steps must enable the
epidermis to respond to rough usage by becoming thick and callused, and to repair itself when wounded. One important influence is contact with the basal lamina, signaled via integrins in the plasma membrane of the cells. If cultured basal keratinocytes are held in suspension, instead of being allowed to settle and attach to the bottom of the culture dish, they all stop dividing and differentiate. To remain as an epidermal stem cell, it is apparently necessary (although not sufficient) to be attached to the basal lamina or other extracellular matrix. This requirement helps ensure that the size of the stem cell population does not increase without limit. If crowded out of their regular niche on the basal lamina, the cells lose their stem cell character. When this rule is broken, as in some cancers, the result can be an ever- growing tumor.