568 Autophagy Controls Epidermal Tumour Formation and Hair Follicle Stem Cell Activation

Abstract

Autophagy is a cellular recycling program that serves as a crucial survival pathway and controls inflammatory responses in a context-dependent manner. Here we demonstrate that ablation of autophagy selectively in keratinocytes, results in exacerbated skin inflammatory responses and a higher sensitivity to skin tumour formation. Autophagy-deficient keratinocytes are markedly sensitized to apoptosis and single-cell RNA-sequencing of age-matched skin with autophagy-proficient or -deficient keratinocytes reveals the unique presence of a ‘hair growth’ signature in autophagy-deficient keratinocytes.