Sox2-Mediated Regulation of Adult Neural Crest Precursors and Skin Repair

• Sox2 regulates murine skin repair
• Sox2 regulates the neural crest precursor response to tissue injury
• Sox2 identifies a nerve terminal-associated neural crest precursor in hair follicles

Nerve-derived neural crest cells are essential for regeneration in certain animals, such as newts. Here, we asked whether they play a similar role during mammalian tissue repair, focusing on Sox2-positive neural crest precursors in skin. In adult skin, Sox2 was expressed in nerve-terminal-associated neural crest precursor cells (NCPCs) around the hair follicle bulge, and following injury was induced in nerve-derived cells, likely dedifferentiated Schwann cell precursors. At later times postinjury, Sox2-positive cells were scattered throughout the regenerating dermis, and lineage tracing showed that these were all neural-crest-derived NCPCs. These Sox2-positive NCPCs were functionally important, since acute deletion of Sox2 prior to injury caused a decrease of NCPCs in the wound and aberrant skin repair. These data demonstrate that Sox2 regulates skin repair, likely by controlling NCPCs, and raise the possibility that nerve-derived NCPCs may play a general role in mammalian tissue repair.