FLICKR, TED GOLDRING
Stem cells in the skin, which are responsible for replacing dead skins cells that are continuously sloughed off, follow a daily rhythm that is under the control of a 24-hour circadian cycle, according to a study published today (November 9) in Nature.
“It was known that in mice [skin] proliferation occurs mostly in the night,” said Salvador Aznar-Benitah of the Centre de Regulació Genòmica in Barcelona, Spain, who led the study. “Now that we have added the molecular mechanism we know that this is purely regulated by circadian rhythms.”
“This is a very exciting paper because it links what we knew about signaling molecules [in skin stem cells]…to a much more global regulation—the circadian clock,” said Valentina Greco of Yale University, who was not involved ...
