Isolation, Characterization, and Differentiation of Human Multipotent Dermal Stem Cells

Skin, as the body’s largest organ, has been extensively used to study adult stem cells. Most previous skin-related studies have focused on stem cells isolated from hair follicles and from keratinocytes. Here we present a protocol to isolate multipotent neural crest stem-like dermis-derived stem cells (termed dermal stem cells or DSCs) from human neonatal foreskins. DSCs grow like neural spheres in human embryonic stem cell medium and gain the ability to self-renew and differentiate into several cell lineages including melanocytes, neuronal cells, Schwann cells, smooth muscle cells, adipocytes, and chondrocytes. These cells express neural crest stem cell markers (NGFRp75 and nestin) as well as an embryonic stem cell marker (OCT4).