Long-Term Renewal of Hair Follicles from Clonogenic Multipotent Stem Cells

This study demonstrated that adult stem cells from rat whisker follicles were clonogenic and multipotent, capable of generating all hair follicle and sebaceous gland lineages after over 140 doublings in culture. When transplanted into newborn mouse skin, these stem cells contributed to developing follicles, with thousands of follicles arising from a single stem cell's progeny. The cultured stem cells expressed self-renewal genes Bmi1 and Zfp145, and multiple stem cells were involved in forming a single hair bulb. The findings also revealed a higher number of stem cells in whisker follicles than previously estimated.