Stem cell proliferation is induced by apoptotic bodies from dying cells during epithelial tissue maintenance

Courtney K. Brock, Stephen T. Wallin, Oscar E. Ruiz, Krystin M. Samms, Amrita Mandal, Elizabeth A. Sumner and George T. Eisenhoffer ()
Additional contact information
Courtney K. Brock: The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
Stephen T. Wallin: The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
Oscar E. Ruiz: The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
Krystin M. Samms: The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
Amrita Mandal: The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
Elizabeth A. Sumner: The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
George T. Eisenhoffer: The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center

Nature Communications, 2019, vol. 10, issue 1, 1-11

Abstract: Abstract Epithelial tissues require the removal and replacement of damaged cells to sustain a functional barrier. Dying cells provide instructive cues that can influence surrounding cells to proliferate, but how these signals are transmitted to their healthy neighbors to control cellular behaviors during tissue homeostasis remains poorly understood. Here we show that dying stem cells facilitate communication with adjacent stem cells by caspase-dependent production of Wnt8a-containing apoptotic bodies to drive cellular turnover in living epithelia. Basal stem cells engulf apoptotic bodies, activate Wnt signaling, and are stimulated to divide to maintain tissue-wide cell numbers. Inhibition of either cell death or Wnt signaling eliminated the apoptosis-induced cell division, while overexpression of Wnt8a signaling combined with induced cell death led to an expansion of the stem cell population. We conclude that ingestion of apoptotic bodies represents a regulatory mechanism linking death and division to maintain overall stem cell numbers and epithelial tissue homeostasis.

Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-09010-6 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:10:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-019-09010-6

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-09010-6

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().