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. 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.