Order From Disorder: Self-Organization In Mammalian Hair Patterning

In the study, researchers found that in Frizzled6 (Fz6) −/− mice, the global orientation of hair follicles was disrupted, resulting in waves, whorls, and tufts. They observed that wild-type (WT) hairs achieved a nearly parallel arrangement from fields of imperfectly aligned follicles, while Fz6 −/− hair patterns arose from grossly misoriented or randomly oriented follicles. Both mutant and WT hair follicles showed plasticity, reorienting over days through a self-organized refinement process. This process was modeled using a cellular automata model with a local consensus rule. The study identified two systems for hair orientation: a global system dependent on Fz6 acting early in development, and a local self-organizing system acting later and independent of Fz6.