Investigation of a Non-Invasive Method of Assessing the Equine Circadian Clock Using Hair Follicle Cells

This study reports a less invasive method for detecting human clock gene expression using hair follicle cells, which accurately reflects individual behavioral rhythms and suggests a time lag issue for rotating shift workers.

The authors concluded that utilizing clock gene expression from hair follicle cells may improve circadian-phase estimation in clinical settings, aiding the detection of circadian-related sleep problems despite social time constraints.

This study found that leukocytes and beard hair follicle cells have an endogenous circadian clock, with PER1 and PER3 expression possibly serving as biomarkers for assessing individual biological clock traits.

In this study, researchers developed a simple, non-invasive method to monitor circadian gene expression using whole hair root cultures, finding that elderly dementia patients' peripheral clocks still oscillate similarly to younger, healthier individuals, which suggests cellular senescence minimally affects some aspects of circadian rhythms.

This review discusses the expression of circadian genes in hair follicles and their potential for monitoring circadian-rhythm-related conditions, reporting no clinical results; the authors suggest combining hair sampling with other assessments for better insight.