Posted on: June 2, 2004
Dr. Gho and his colleagues published their study on the presence of the human follicular stem cells in plucked hair. This study is fundamental for the hair multiplication technique, that Dr. Gho is plan to offer soon as the alternative to hair transplantation.
Dr. Gho
In his study, Dr. Gho states that a considerable portion of the hair follicle remains attached to plucked hair and can be used for follicle cell culture.
They used hair follicles from skin biopsies and plucked hair from the scalps of healthy volunteers, to culture follicular cells and further characterize these cells in an attempt to identify the stem cell fraction.
It is known that skin stem cells should be positive for cytokeratin (CK) 19. Because stem cells in general need to be protected from cell death, the presence of the Bcl-2 protein, together with the absence of the death-promoting Bax protein and the CK 19 profile may be used as an indicator of the stem cell population in the hair follicle, and in cultures of hair follicle cells.
Dr. Gho found coexpression for CK19 and Bcl-2, but not Bax in two distinct areas, localized in the upper and lower third of the follicle from both skin biopsies and plucked hairs.
CK19 and Bcl-2 were also coexpressed in combination in a fraction of the follicular cell culture.
Dr. Gho conclude that CK19/Bcl-2-positive and Bax-negative cells can be obtained from cells derived from plucked hair and are retained in cultures made from these cells.
Full text of this article is available at:
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2133.2004.05862.x/abs/ |
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