Melanocytes are essential for skin homeostasis and protection, and their defects in humans lead to a wide array of diseases that are potentially extremely severe. To date, the analysis of molecular mechanisms and the function of human melanocytes have been limited because of the difficulties in accessing large numbers of cells with the specific phenotypes. This issue can now be addressed via a differentiation protocol that allows melanocytes to be obtained from pluripotent stem cell lines, either induced or of embryonic origin, based on the use of moderate concentrations of a single cytokine, bone morphogenic protein 4. Human melanocytes derived from pluripotent stem cells exhibit all the characteristic features of their adult counterparts. This includes the enzymatic machinery required for the production and functional delivery of melanin to keratinocytes. Melanocytes also integrate appropriately into organotypic epidermis reconstructed in vitro. The availability of human cells committed to the melanocytic lineage in vitro will enable the investigation of those mechanisms that guide the developmental processes and will facilitate analysis of the molecular mechanisms responsible for genetic diseases. Access to an unlimited resource may also prove a vital tool for the treatment of hypopigmentation disorders when donors with matching haplotypes become available in clinically relevant banks of pluripotent stem cell lines.

Tissue stem cells must be endowed with superior maintenance and repair systems to ensure genomic stability over multiple generations, which would be less necessary in more differentiated cells. We previously reported that human keratinocyte stem cells were more resistant to ionizing radiation toxicity than their direct progeny, the keratinocyte progenitor cells. In the present study we addressed the mechanisms underlying this difference. Investigations of DNA repair showed that both single and double DNA strand breaks were repaired more rapidly and more efficiently in stem cells than in progenitors. As cell signaling is a key regulatory step in the management of DNA damage, a gene profiling study was performed. Data revealed that several genes of the fibroblast growth factor type 2 (FGF2) signaling pathway were induced by DNA damage in stem cells and not in progenitors. Furthermore, an increased content of the FGF2 protein was found in irradiated stem cells, both for the secreted and the cellular forms of the protein. To examine the role of endogenous FGF2 in DNA repair, stem cells were exposed to FGF2 pathway inhibitors. Blocking the FGF2 receptor (FGF receptor 1) or the kinase (Ras-mitogen-activated protein kinase 1) resulted in a inhibition of single and double DNA strand-break repair in the keratinocyte stem cells. Moreover, supplementing the progenitor cells with exogenous FGF2 activated their DNA repair. We propose that, apart from its well-known role as a strong mitogen and prosurvival factor, FGF2 helps to maintain genomic integrity in stem cells by activating stress-induced DNA repair.