Mouse Study May Get at Roots of Hair Loss

By Robert Preidt
HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, Oct. 28, 2021 (HealthDay News) — New analysis in mice could present clues to age-related hair loss in women and men.

Scientists discovered that as hair stem cells in mice age, they lose the stickiness that retains them secured contained in the hair follicle. This permits the stem cells to float away from the follicle.

“The result’s fewer and fewer stem cells within the hair follicle to supply hair,” stated examine lead creator Rui Yi, a professor of pathology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, in Chicago. This results in thinning hair and baldness throughout getting old, he famous.

The researchers additionally recognized genes that will regulate hair stem cell adhesion. And they created mice that lacked two of the genes, FOXC1 and NFATC1.

The mice with out these genes began dropping hair quickly at 4 months and had been fully bald inside 12 to 16 months, in line with the examine. The outcomes had been revealed in October within the journal Nature Aging.

Mice and people share many similarities in hair and stem cells, so these discovering could apply to older women and men with thinning hair, Yi instructed. However, analysis in animals would not at all times pan out in people.

“We consider this stem cell escape mechanism has by no means been reported earlier than, as a result of no person may observe the getting old course of in dwell animals,” Yi stated in a college information launch.

It was identified that hair follicles shrink with age, but it surely wasn’t clear how that occurred. Many consultants believed it was attributable to cell demise or cells’ lack of ability to divide as they age.

“We found, no less than partially, it is because of hair follicle stem cells migrating away from their area of interest,” Yi stated. Noting that cell demise additionally occurred throughout their commentary, he added, “Our discovery would not dispute current theories however offers a brand new mechanism.”

In a brand new examine, the researchers try to reinstate the FOXC1 and NFATC1 genes to seek out out if doing so will reverse hair loss.

More info

The American Academy of Dermatology Association has extra on hair loss.

SOURCE: Northwestern University, information launch, Oct. 26, 2021