Could a graze on the head help cure baldness? Biologists had thought that once mammals lose their hair follicles, they are gone forever. Now George Cotsarelis at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and his colleagues have shown that adult mice can regenerate follicles when their skin is wounded.
The team cut out a square centimetre of skin from the backs of mice two weeks after their hair follicles had formed. After 14 to 19 days the wounds had closed and formed new. When the researchers added Wnt proteins β signalling molecules usually involved in embryonic development β the number of follicles doubled and the skin healed with less scarring. This suggests that wound healing may trigger an embryonic state in skin, says Cotsarelis. Surprisingly, the new follicles originate from stem cells that are not usually involved in creating hair follicles.
Cotsarelis hopes the findings could lead to new therapies for baldness. βThe idea would be to disrupt the skin to trigger the embryonic pathways, and then come in with the Wnt proteins,β he says.
Advertisement
Journal reference:Nature (vol 447, p 318)
