Three-Dimensional Culture of Plucked Human Hair Follicles Inside the Collagen Gel Matrix
July 1990
in “
PubMed
”
Studysummary This study demonstrated that plucked human hair follicles cultured in a collagen gel matrix developed spike-like structures, suggesting a useful method to study outer root sheath cell growth and differentiation in vitro. Our plain-language summary of this paper — not a Tressless recommendation.
The study explored the three-dimensional culture of plucked human hair follicles within a collagen gel matrix. Epithelial cells, likely outer root sheath keratinocytes, emerged from the outer root sheath 4 to 5 days after culturing and continued to grow into the gel, forming spike-like structures over the next 3 weeks. The number and size of these spikes varied among follicles. Autoradiography revealed numerous DNA-synthesizing cells in the outer cell layer of the enlarged outer root sheath and at the edges of the new spike-like structures. This culture method was deemed suitable for studying the growth, morphogenesis, and differentiation of outer root sheath cells in vitro.
