Role of Atg16L1 in skin biology

In order to unravel the functional role of autophagy in skin homeostasis, we performed single-cell RNA-sequencing on total skin of 10-weeks-old male mice lacking ATG16L1 selectively in keratinocytes. Keratinocyte-specific ATG16L1 knock-out (KO) mice do not show an overt skin phenotype. By performing single-cell analysis on total skin of control mice and mice lacking ATG16L1 in keratinocytes, we could identify a crucial role for keratinocyte autophagyin mediating the timing of hair follicle stem cell activation in hair growth. Overall design: The purpose of this study was to delineate the cellular and molecular changes that occur in the skin when ATG16L1 is absent in keratinocytes. Total skin was harvested from wild-type (WT) and keratinocyte-specific ATG16L1 knock-out (KO) mouse skin. We FACS sorted live cells from single-cell suspensions of total skin.