Frizzled 7 maintains the undifferentiated state of human limbal stem/progenitor cells.

ABSTRACT: Wnt signaling pathway plays an important role in the regulation of human limbal stem/progenitor cells (LSCs). To examine the possible function of Frizzled (Fz) receptors in LSCs, the expression of 10 Fz receptors was profiled in the limbus and cornea. Only Fz7 had preferential expression in the basal limbal epithelium which contains the LSCs. The expression of Fz7 was colocalized with the putative LSC markers including p63α, N-cadherin and keratin (K) 14, and was minimum in cells expressing the corneal maturation marker K12. The expression of Fz7 was higher in the enriched LSCs population and decreased in cultured LSCs when there was a loss of progenitor phenotype. When the Fz7 was knocked down (Fz(KD)) using shRNA in primary LSCs, the expression of putative LSC markers ABCG2, ΔNp63α, and

SUBMITTER: Mei H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3960362 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature