Skin epidermis is a stratified epithelium that composed of interfollicular epidermis (IFE) and hair follicles (HFs). Integrins are cell-cell and cell-matrix adhesive ligands that play important roles in epidermal cell proliferation, migration and differentiation behaviors. Here, we analyzed the expression of both alpha 6 and beta 1 integrins. In vitro epidermal cell culture, both alpha 6 and beta 1 integrins displayed downregulation upon high Ca2+ induced differentiation. During wound healing (WH), alpha 6 integrin showed dynamic expression, first greatly upregulated in unclosed wounds and then downregulated upon re-epithelialization. Further analysis of different wound regions confirmed alpha 6 integrin significantly increased in migratory cells and migration was coupled with differentiation. However, expression level of ID integrin did not show significant correlation with migration. We discovered that alpha 6 integrin directly indicates epidermal cell differentiation and wound directed migration behaviors with its expression level. (C) 2019 Published by Elsevier Inc.