New research published in the journal PLoS One found that embryonic stem cells can be used to form a type of cell that induces new hair follicle growth, and that these cells promote robust hair growth when implanted into mice.

Background

Dermal Papilla (DP) cells play a role in new hair follicle formation and in the growth of new hair. Because of this role, it was hoped that DP cells grown in the laboratory (i.e., grown in culture) could form the basis of a treatment for genetic hair loss. However, it turned out that these cultured DP cells lost their hair follicle-inducing potential too quickly to be useful in treating hair loss.

New Research

Now, however, new research has found that human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) can generate cells that are functionally equivalent to DP cells. ((Gnedeva K, Vorotelyak E, Cimadamore F, Cattarossi G, Giusto E, Terskikh V.V, Terskikh A.V. Derivation of hair-inducing cell from human pluripotent stem cells. PLoS One. 2015 Jan 21;10(1)) Like DP cells, these functionally equivalent cells can induce hair follicle formation just as readily as DP cells. But more significantly, unlike cultured DP cells, they do not lose their potential to induce hair follicle formation when grown in the laboratory. This discovery represents an important advance in developing a hair cloning technique to cure pattern baldness.

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