A study reported by ScienceDaily and published in Nature found that skin stem cells in female and male mice behave in surprisingly different ways. Using advanced microscopy, researchers tracked individual stem cells and their descendants in living mice for five months, an unusually long observation period. They found that female skin cells tend to work together in a coordinated way, while male cells behave more independently.
The difference is most visible in pairs of newly formed “sister” cells. In female mice, the two cells often make the same choice at the same time—both dividing again or both beginning to specialize into mature skin cells. In male mice, sister cells are less synchronized and follow more independent paths. The researchers say this helps explain why female mice heal skin wounds faster than males, especially in the first few days.
Experiments showed that sex hormones control the effect. Removing testosterone from male mice made their skin cells behave more like female cells, and giving DHT, an active form of testosterone, restored the male pattern. Removing ovaries from female mice reduced stem cell proliferation and nearly eliminated the synchronized behavior, while estradiol reversed the effect on proliferation. The findings, from researchers at Université libre de Bruxelles and the University of Cambridge, suggest that biological sex shapes skin renewal in ways that could matter for personalized wound healing and treatment of skin disease.