Many adult regenerative cells divide infrequently but have high proliferative capacity. We developed a strategy to fluorescently label slow-cycling cells in a cell type-specific fashion. We used this method to purify the label-retaining cells (LRCs) that mark the skin stem cell (SC) niche. We found that these cells rarely divide within their niche but change properties abruptly when stimulated to exit. We determined their transcriptional profile, which, when compared to progeny and other SCs, defines the niche. Many of the >100 messenger RNAs preferentially expressed in the niche encode surface receptors and secreted proteins, enabling LRCs to signal and respond to their environment.Epidermis and its appendages undergo continuous renewal and maintain reservoirs of multipotent SCs whose descendants are organized spatially and temporally. The epidermal basal layer (BL) contains putative SCs in addition to the transiently amplifying (TA) cells, which give rise to terminally differentiating suprabasal layers (1-3). The BL and the hair follicle outer root sheath (ORS) are contiguous and biochemically similar ( fig. S1A). In the hair bulb, the dermal papilla (DP) maintains contact with matrix TA cells until they differentiate to form the inner root sheath (IRS) and hair shaft. Follicles periodically undergo cycles of growth (anagen), destruction (catagen), and rest (telogen). The zone between noncycling and cycling segments is a SC niche, the ORS "bulge" (4,5).Multipotent epithelial SCs with high proliferative potential reside in the bulge (6,7). The bulge contains the majority of infrequently cycling, label-retaining cells (LRCs), which can respond to anagen DP signals to regenerate the follicle. After wounding or transplantation, bulge cells give rise to epidermis, follicles, and sebaceous glands. Additionally, when dissected from rat whiskers and cultured, bulge cells yield more colonies than other follicle segments (7). It is not known what features define this specialized SC niche, what its interactions with bulgeLRCs are, and whether all LRCs are SCs. To begin to address these issues, we devised a strategy based on the prediction that bulge SCs are uniquely both slow-cycling and active for a keratinocyte-specific promoter. With this strategy, we purify and characterize bulge LRCs and related keratinocyte progeny in the BL and ORS. Analyses of their transcriptional profiles reveal the skin LRC mRNAs; some of these mRNAs are found in SCs of other tissues, whereas others specify the unique environment of the skin SC niche.To mark infrequently cycling cells of adult skin epithelium, we engineered transgenic mice to express histone H2B-green fluorescent protein (GFP) (8) controlled by a tetracyclineresponsive regulatory element (TRE). A tightly regulated TRE-mCMV-H2B-GFP founder animal was crossed with mice harboring a keratin 5 (K5) promoter-driven tet repressor-VP16

Wnt signaling has been implicated in stem cell (SC) biology, but little is known about how stabilized ␤-catenin functions within native SC niches. We address this by defining the impact of ␤-catenin stabilization on maintenance, proliferation, and lineage commitment of multipotent follicle SCs when in their native niche and in culture. We employ gain of function mutations and inducible loss of function mutations to demonstrate that ␤-catenin stabilization is essential for promoting the transition between SC quiescence and conversion to proliferating transit amplifying (TA) progeny. We transcriptionally profile purified SCs isolated directly from wild-type and elevated ␤-catenin follicles in both resting and activated states to uncover the discrete set of genes whose expression in native SCs is dependent upon ␤-catenin stabilization. Finally, we address the underlying mechanism and show that in the SC niche, Wnt signaling and ␤-catenin stabilization transiently activate Lef1/Tcf complexes and promote their binding to target genes that promote TA cell conversion and proliferation to form the activated cells of the newly developing hair follicle. We also show that these changes precede subsequent Wnt signals that impact on the TA progeny to specify the differentiation lineages of the follicle.

The potential of stem cells in regenerative medicine relies upon removing them from their natural habitat, propagating them in culture, and placing them into a foreign tissue environment. To do so, it is essential to understand how stem cells interact with their microenvironment, the so-called stem cell niche, to establish and maintain their properties. In this review, we examine adult stem cell niches and their impact on stem cell biology.