Beta-catenin can induce hair follicle stem cell differentiation into transit-amplifying cells through c-myc activation.

Hair follicle stem cells play important roles in maintaining homeostasis and skin tissue self-renewal. Transit-amplifying cells represent the transition of cells from hair follicle stem cells into differentiated epidermal cells. Thus far, the signaling pathway and the molecular biological mechanism that regulate the proliferation and differentiation of hair follicle stem cells remain unclear. In this paper, we studied the relationship between β-catenin and c-myc during the process of the differentiation of hair follicle stem cells into transit-amplifying cells. Based on our results, the expression of β-catenin can activate the nuclear gene c-myc and regulate the expression of transit-amplifying cell markers K15, K19, a6-integrin and β1-integrin, indicating that β-catenin is involved in the transformation process from hair follicle stem cells to transit-amplifying cells and suggesting that β-catenin plays an important biological role in the induction of this differentiation process.