Effect of Radix Astragalis on the Proliferative Activities of Epidermal Stem Cells Derived from Human Skin

To maintain the characteristics of the epidermal stem cells in vitro will be benefit for wound healing and skin tissue engineering. In this chapter, we investigated the effect of Radix Astragalis on the proliferation of human epidermal stem cells derived from human skin and its mechanism. The human epidermal stem cells was isolated from the skin samples by trypsin digesting method and purified by collagen adhering method, and then cultured in the keratinocyte serum free medium in present of Radix Astragalis. The results showed that Radix Astragalis could effectively increase the cellular expression of telomerase reverse transcriptase and the proliferative activities of human epidermal stem cells derived from human skin in vitro, which may be responsible for its main mechanism in treatment of skin defect.