Immunohistochemical Assessment of SOX10 and Its Relation to the Immune Cellular Infiltrate in Alopecia Areata Follicles

August 2024 in “ Journal of the Egyptian Womenʼs Dermatologic Society ”

Sherif Awad, Amal T. Abdel‐Rahman, Manal Gabril, Keroles Nageh, Ahmed F. Rezk

SOX10 alopecia areata inflammatory infiltrates melanocytes autoimmunity hair follicles AA

Studysummary In this observational study, SOX10 was expressed in 53 out of 81 examined hair follicles in patients with alopecia areata and showed a significant positive relation with the perifollicular lymphocytic infiltrate, suggesting that melanocytes may play a role in the disease's autoimmune pathogenesis. Our plain-language summary of this paper — not a Tressless recommendation.

This study examined the role of SOX10 expression in alopecia areata (AA) by analyzing 81 hair follicles from 16 patients. It found a significant positive correlation between SOX10 expression and perifollicular inflammatory infiltrate (P<0.001), suggesting SOX10's involvement in AA pathogenesis. SOX10 expression was not linked to disease duration or activity. The study indicates that follicular melanocytes might play a role in AA, as follicles with positive SOX10 staining showed significant inflammatory infiltrates. Despite the small sample size and absence of control samples, the findings suggest that melanocytes could trigger organ-specific autoimmunity in AA, potentially explaining the regrowth of only white hair follicles in some cases.

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