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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2026 Jan 24.
Published in final edited form as: Cell Stem Cell. 2025 Aug 14;32(9):1421–1437.e6. doi: 10.1016/j.stem.2025.07.010

Figure 5: CYP26B1 inhibition prevents and rescues skin fibrosis.

Figure 5:

(A) Schematic of injection of pro-fibrotic and pro-regenerative fibroblasts following bleomycin treatment. (B) H&E analysis following injection of pro-fibrotic and pro-regenerative fibroblasts with (C) hair follicle quantitation. (D) Picrosirius red images of skin following pro-fibrotic and pro-regenerative fibroblasts. (E) RT-qPCR analysis of fibrotic markers [Collagen Type 1 (Col1), Collagen Type III (Col3), alpha-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA)] following treatment of bleomycin treated skin with profibrotic and proregenerative fibroblasts. (F) ELIZA Collagen type I Secretion following treatment of bleomycin treated skin with profibrotic and proregenerative fibroblasts. (G) Immunostaining of regenerative markers following treatment of bleomycin treated skin with profibrotic (Middle column), control (Right column) and proregenerative (Left column) fibroblasts with quantitation (Right). (H) Immunohistochemistry showing co-staining of CD248 (Green) (Right) and CD55 (Green) (Left) with CYP26B1(Red) at Day 12. White arrows indicate colocalization. Yellow dotted lines represent the dermis. (I) Schematic of concomitant prevention (Left) and rescue treatment (Right) experiments with CYP26B1 inhibition (Cyp26b1i). (J) H&E analysis and (K) hair follicle quantitation of concomitant prevention (Left) and rescue treatment (Right) experiments. (L) Schematic of sc-RNAseq analysis of CY26B1 inhibition of bleomycin treated skin. (M) UMAP of the fibroblast subclusters identified by sc-RNAseq (Left) and quantitation across the timepoints (Right). (N) Violin plots of cluster 0 fibrotic markers following Cyp26b1 inhibition. (O) Violin plots of fibrotic marker expression with and without Cyp26b1i. Scale bar (B) 250 μm, (D) 50 μm, (G) 200 μm, (H) 75 μm, (J) 250 μm. *p< 0.05. n = 3 per timepoint unless otherwise stated. Data shown as mean ± standard deviation (S.D.); statistical comparisons were made using one-way ANOVA with Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons or unpaired T-test.