Skin

The skin with their large surface and easy accesibility has stimulated the realization of multiplestudies and research.

In the dermatology field in the last years, there have been great advances in the diagnosis and treatment of cutaneous diseases.

The skin mesenchymal stems cells research is expected to have a great impact on the medicine of the 21st century, specially related with their therapeutic implications.

It is a technology that has grown rapidly in the field of medicine and especially dermatology, where it has multiple applications both in skin protection products, and in the diagnosis and treatment of skin diseases.

Mesenchymal skin stem cells

Stem cell-based therapies have had a great impact on 21st century medicine. The skin is and has been the subject of study in relation to stem cells due to its extension and easy access.

Characteristics of the stem cells

The most exciting feature of stem cells is their plasticity, that is, the ability to differentiate into a wide range of different cell types from their original lineage or from the type of tissue they originate from.

Functionally they represent undifferentiated cells that can follow two paths: produce a progeny of other stem cells (self-perpetuating) or divide asymmetrically into another stem cell and a transient cell that lost its ability to self-perpetuation and differs in a certain type.

Scientific evidence supporting the existence of CMMP:

These cells apart from generating progeny of mesodermal origin (adipocytes and smooth muscle cells) in vitro, can also be differentiated into neurons, so they showed characteristics of stem cells

This dermal stem cell is likely to be an autologous reservoir easily accessible in future transplants.

CMMPs have also demonstrated the ability to differentiate in vitro in neurons, Schwann cells and astrocytes, which opens up perspectives in the treatment of neurovegetative diseases or spinal cord trauma, although in vitro results may not necessarily be extrapolated to probable responses in vivo

Where are these cells located in the dermis?

Three publications using experimental designs found that CMMP cells were part of the connective tissue sheath surrounding the hair follicle

Therapeutic applications of CMMP:

Because stem cells derived from bone marrow have proven to have many therapeutic benefits, CMMPs represent a serious competitor especially for their easy access and culture.

There is a similarity between the stem cells of the dermal hair follicle and those of the bone marrow, since they express the same surface markers, have similar morphology and both have the ability to differentiate into several mesenchymal cell lines

The study of the immunosuppressive characteristics of bone marrow stem cells is very close to being a reality in clinical application. A stem cell product for intravenous administration has been used in the treatment of graft versus corticosteroid-refractory host disease and in Crohn's disease.

Pharmacogenetics and pharmacogenomics

The pharmacogenome, on the other hand, provides pharmacogenetic studies of individual genes using technologies that were applied in the Human Genome Project, allowing extensive studies of associations within the human genome.

Genomic technologies are allowing information about skin diseases at a molecular level.

Psoriasis

Psoriasis is a chronic skin disease that affects up to 2.5% of the Caucasian population. Despite notable advances in pathogenesis and the availability of new drugs today, a significant percentage of patients do not respond to usual treatments

Diagnosis of skin diseases

The diagnostic devices will be small (at the level of cellular organelles), fast, highly sensitive and specific and will require minimal amounts of analytical material and will certainly displace current diagnostic methods such as biopsies, tissue and fungal cultures, examinations of Blood and images.

Optical systems: Optical distribution systems are currently being used to monitor breathing in common clothing impregnated with optoelectronic fibers

Quantum dots: they are highly fluorescent semiconductor nanostructures whose absorption and emission spectrum can be tuned in a wide range of frequencies from infrared to ultraviolet.

Biosensors

Surface plasmon resonance (RPS): it is based on the generation of plasmons on a surface. Plasmons are oscillations of free electrons propagated in parallel in the metal-medium interface which allows to measure the changes in the refractive index of the sensor surface

RPS is a very versatile technique that has incalculable potential for use in both the medical and laboratory fields. It is fast, in real time and an analytical technique without labeling.

Therapy

Gold nanocaps: Gold nanoparticles have unique optical properties based on their size, shape and thickness characteristics. In the nanoscale these gold nanoparticles produce the phenomenon of RPS, which is extremely powerful mainly when stimulated by incident light producing the phenomenon of phototermolysis used in the destruction of tumors..

Because the normal tissue is not affected, the selective phototermolysis guided by nanocaps promises to be very useful in the treatment of cutaneous tumors with poorly defined edges and to a depth of several centimeters as has been demonstrated in phototermolysis studies in breast cancer

Skin in the 21st century