Posted on: May 16, 2007
In the recent study published in Nature it is reported that in mice large skin wounds can regenerate new hair follicles.
Report by Dr. George Cotsarelis, a dermatology professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philadelphia underlines that in regenerating woulds skin undergoes processes similar to these during embryonic development which results in formation of new hair follicles. This process happens in wounds of adult animals. This fact shows that mammals and humans have better regenerative abilities than commonly believed.
These new findings could provide basis for developing new treatment strategy for male-pattern baldness and other types of hair loss. It is shown that hair follicles newly formed from wounds functioned normally, cycle through the normal stages of hair cycle. More importantly, hair fibers that they produce are indistinguishable from pre-existing hairs with one exception - lack of pigmentation.
Finding details:
In the reported experiments scientists produced relatively large wounds on the backs of adult mice. When wounds reached a certain size new hair follicles developed at the center of wounds. This developmental process closely resembled normal embryonic development of hair follicles.
It appears that as the part of this hair neogenesis non-hair skin stem cells were able to transform into hair cell types. It was shown that the stem cells that gave rise to de novo hair follicles were not stem cells usually associated with hair follicle development (i.e. bulge stem cells).
Dr. Cotsarelis comments: "...They're actually coming from epidermal cells that don't normally make hair follicles. So they're somehow reprogrammed and told to make a follicle..."
Research team of Dr. Cotsarelis also developed a way to magnify this normal regenerative process, making mice to grow twice as many new hair follicles by supplying skin with a specific signaling molecules.
Dr. Cotsarelis is affiliated with with Follica Inc., that has a license for the patent on this process of hair regeneration from wounds (see our patents section). He predicts that it will be more than 5 years before a baldness treatment will be available.
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