Follicular Stem Cells in Androgenetic Alopecia

April 2015 in “ Journal of Cytology and Histology ”

Hend Gamil, Magda Assaf, Manal Elsayed, Khaled Gharib, Ayman Yosef, Mohamed S. Khater, Mohamed E. Nasr, Mohamed Mohamed Soliman

androgenetic alopecia follicular stem cells Cytokeratin 15 immunostaining follicular bulge region outer root sheath biopsy specimens scalp AGA CK 15

TLDR Hair loss in Androgenetic Alopecia is not caused by damage to follicular stem cells.

In 2015, Hend Gamil and his team conducted a study on 20 patients with Androgenetic Alopecia (AGA), consisting of 17 males and 3 females, with an average age of 24.05 ± 1.6. They took biopsy specimens from both the occipital skin and frontal affected area of the scalp of each patient and immunostained them using the Cytokeratin 15(CK 15) Ab-1 mouse monoclonal antibody. The results showed that Cytokeratin 15 immunoreactivity was observed in the follicular bulge region and outer root sheath in all 20 AGA patients (100%). This indicated that follicular stem cells in the bulge region are not the target in AGA. The researchers suggested further studies using other stem cell markers to better understand the role of follicular stem cells in AGA pathogenesis.

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