Controllable Production of Transplantable Adult Human High-Passage Dermal Papilla Spheroids Using 3D Matrigel Culture

In the study from September 2014, researchers successfully cultured human dermal papilla (DP) cell spheroids using a three-dimensional Matrigel culture technique, which restored the cells' unique characteristics that are typically lost in vitro. When 10,000 DP cells from both passage 2 and passage 8 were cultured on Matrigel-coated plates for 5 days, they formed spheroidal microtissues. These spheroids could disaggregate and migrate similarly to primary DP cells. The expression levels of genes and proteins associated with hair follicle inductivity, such as NCAM, Versican, and α-smooth muscle actin, were higher in the spheroids than in dissociated DP cells. Furthermore, when DP spheroids were mixed and cultured with hair germinal matrix cells (HGMCs) on Matrigel, the HGMCs differentiated into hair-like fibers, an outcome not achieved with two-dimensional coculture of dissociated DP cells and HGMCs. This was the first demonstration that passage 3 human HGMCs could differentiate into hair-like fibers in the presence of human DP spheroids, indicating that the 3D Matrigel culture technique is effective for forming DP spheroids that can induce hair, even from high-passage DP cells.