A Preliminary Study of Markers for Human Hair Follicle Melanin Stem Cells

In the 2019 study, researchers analyzed foreskin tissue samples from 9 individuals to identify markers for human hair follicle melanin stem cells (MSCs) and hair follicle stem cells (HFSCs). They used flow cytometry to detect these cells, employing PAX3 and CD34 as markers. The results showed that 4.82±0.15% of cells were PAX3+, 5.38±0.21% were CD34+, and 0.58±0.05% were both PAX3+ and CD34+. Further analysis revealed that PAX3+/CD34+ cells had a similar expression of TRP-2 to the control group but significantly lower expression of other melanocyte markers. Immunofluorescence confirmed the presence of TRP-2 on PAX3+/CD34+ cells, while MITF and Melan-A were not expressed. The study concluded that the phenotype PAX3+/CD34+/TRP-2+/MITF-/Melan-A- could serve as candidate markers for MSCs. The study was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China.