Corneal Limbal Microenvironment Can Induce Transdifferentiation of Hair Follicle Stem Cells Into Corneal Epithelial-Like Cells

This study demonstrated that murine vibrissa hair follicle stem cells could transdifferentiate into corneal epithelial-like cells when exposed to a limbus-specific microenvironment. The researchers isolated adult epithelial stem cells from the hair follicle bulge region and cultivated them on various extracellular matrices and conditioned media. They found that using laminin-5 and conditioned medium from limbal stromal fibroblasts led to the formation of stratified cell sheets and upregulated expression of cornea-specific markers K12 and Pax6, while downregulating the epidermal marker K10. These results suggested that hair follicle stem cells could serve as an accessible source for autologous stem cell therapy to replace corneal epithelium and restore vision in patients with ocular surface disorders.