Autophagy Controls the Protein Composition of Hair Shafts

The study "Autophagy Controls the Protein Composition of Hair Shafts" used hair from 13 mice to investigate the role of autophagy, a major intracellular degradation process, in hair formation. The results showed that while inhibiting autophagy did not cause significant defects in hair, it did change the molecular composition of hair shafts. Specifically, autophagy was found to reduce the concentration of noncytoskeletal proteins in the mature hair shaft, while increasing the synthesis of a few structural proteins. The study also found that regulators of protein homeostasis were particularly elevated in hair from mice with autophagy inhibited, suggesting they are preferential substrates of autophagy during normal hair keratinocyte differentiation. This suggests that dysfunctions of autophagy could potentially be detected noninvasively through proteomics of hair shafts.