Spontaneous hair follicle germ (HFG) formation in vitro, enabling the large-scale production of HFGs for regenerative medicine
February 2018
in “Biomaterials”
TLDR Researchers found a new way to create hair-growing structures in the lab that can grow hair when put into mice.
In the 2018 study, researchers successfully developed a method for creating hair follicle germs (HFGs) in vitro using mouse epidermal and mesenchymal cells. These cells were seeded into microwells on a custom-designed array plate made of oxygen-permeable silicone, where they spontaneously formed aggregates with HFG morphological features over three days. When transplanted into nude mice, these self-sorted HFGs (ssHFGs) generated hair follicles and shafts. The study highlighted the importance of oxygen supply in the formation of ssHFGs and hair shaft generation, with about 5,000 ssHFGs prepared using the microwell-array chip. Additionally, the encapsulation and transplantation of spatially aligned ssHFGs into mice resulted in the generation of spatially aligned hair follicles. The findings suggest a promising avenue for advancing hair-regenerative medicine, although further research is needed to explore the application of this method using human cells.
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