Human Hair Follicle Organ Culture: Theory, Application, and Perspectives

The 2015 document reviews the use of human hair follicle organ culture (HFOC) as a tool for hair research, detailing its methodology, applications, and limitations. HFOC allows for the study of human hair follicles ex vivo, preserving many in vivo characteristics, and has been used for functional and mechanistic studies, including gene knock-down and expression profiling. The document outlines the importance of maintaining viable hair follicles in the anagen VI phase, the need for stringent quality control, and the use of markers like Ki-67 for assessing keratinocyte proliferation and TUNEL staining for apoptosis. It also discusses the potential of HFOC in studying hair biology, pigmentation, and the effects of pharmacological agents, particularly in conditions like androgenetic alopecia. Despite challenges such as the absence of systemic influences and variability between individual follicles, HFOC is highlighted as a valuable model for preclinical hair research. The document emphasizes the need for standardized methods to improve study comparability and concludes that HFOC has a promising future in various aspects of human skin biology research.