Laboratory for Tissue Microenvironment

In our bodies, we have millions of different environments to which cells are exposed, which are known as cellular or tissue microenvironments. These specialized tissue microenvironments instruct the fate and behaviors of cells, and organ formation. We focus on hair follicle stem cells and their microenvironment, or niche, and aim to understand the mechanisms underlying the ways in which the stem cell niche is regionally specialized, and how the specialized niche then instructs cellular behavior and communication. A deeper knowledge of this will provide a molecular basis to an improved understanding of the niche regulation of stem cells, and the development of tailor-made microenvironments for different lineages of stem cells.

Research Fields

Biology & Biochemistry / Molecular Biology & Genetics

Research Subjects

• Identification of the components of the hair follicle stem cell niche
• Niche regulation of hair follicle stem cell fate and function
• Understanding of the stem cell dynamics using in vivo live cell imaging

Publications

1. Fujiwara, H., Ferreira, M., Donati, G., Marciano, D.K., Linton, J.M., Sato, Y., Hartner, A., Sekiguchi, K., Reichardt, L.F., Watt, F.M.:
   "The basement membrane of hair follicle stem cells is a muscle cell niche."
   Cell 144, 577-589 (2011)
2. Watt, F.M., Fujiwara, H.:
   "Cell-extracellular matrix interactions in normal and diseased skin"
   Cold Spring Harb Perspect Biol. 1;3(4) (2011)
3. Ferreira, M., Fujiwara, H., Morita, K., Watt, F.M.:
   "An activating β1 integrin mutation increases the conversion of benign to malignant skin tumors."
   Cancer Research 69, 1334-1342 (2009)
4. Fujiwara, H., Hayashi, Y., Sanzen, N., Weber, C., Emoto, T., Futaki, S., Niwa, H., Murray, P., Edgar, D., Sekiguchi, K.:
   "Regulation of mesodermal differentiation of mouse embryonic stem cells by basement membranes."
   Journal of Biological Chemistry 282, 29701-29711 (2007)
5. Fujiwara, H., Gu, J., Sekiguchi, K.:
   "Rac regulates integrin-mediated endothelial cell adhesion and migration on laminin-8."
   Experimental Cell Research 292, 67-77 (2004)
6. Fujiwara, H., Kikkawa, Y., Sanzen, N., Sekiguchi, K.:
   "Purification and characterization of human laminin-8. Laminin-8 stimulates cell adhesion and migration through α3β1 and α6β1 integrins."
   Journal of Biological Chemistry 276, 17550-17558 (2001)