Fig. 4: Stem cells from squamous epithelia have innate skin competence.

a Schematic representation of an experiment to determine the hair-forming ability of a non-hairy epithelial tissue. A total of 204 mice were transplanted with various β-galactosidase-expressing epithelial tissues. For each tissue, the number of transplanted mice and the number of positive transplants are given in Supplementary Table 6. b Microscopic appearance of the different tissues before transplantation and after transplantation into a newborn wild type mouse skin microenvironment. Donor tissue expressing β-galactosidase: blue; X-gal staining; recipient newborn mouse tissue: pink; Nuclear Fast Red. The arrow points to a club hair in a hair follicle generated from cornea; the presence of a club hair indicates that the hair follicle has cycled. The star shows a pink follicular papilla, hence indicating that it has originated from the mesenchyme of the recipient mouse skin. Bars: 100 μm.