Kevin’s oral stem cell paper published in Cell Stem Cell

Heterogeneity within Stratified Epithelial Stem Cell Populations Maintains the Oral Mucosa in Response to Physiological Stress

Highlights

• Oral epithelia are maintained by both delamination and oriented cell divisions

• The hard palate contains a slow-cycling population residing in the junctional zone

• Lrig1+ clones are biased to self-renew and Igfbp5+ clones to differentiate

• Lrig1+ slow-cycling junctional zone stem cells are stress responsive

• Wounding activates Lrig1+ stem cells while stress-mitigating soft diet promotes quiescence