research The Chemotactic Effect of a Dermal Papilla Cell-Derived Factor on Outer Root Sheath Cells
The study investigated the chemotactic effect of factors derived from cultured human dermal papilla cells (DPCs) on the migration of human hair outer root sheath cells (ORSCs). It was found that ORSCs exhibited significantly increased migration towards both cultured DPCs and their conditioned medium, indicating that DPCs secrete a paracrine factor that attracts hair follicle epithelial cells. Among the soluble factors tested, insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I) and hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) significantly enhanced ORSC migration at concentrations of 1–10 ng/ml, while vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and transforming growth factor-β1 (TGF-β1) did not affect chemotaxis. This research was the first to demonstrate that IGF-I and HGF have both growth stimulatory and chemotactic effects on ORSCs, and it proposed a simplified method for chemotaxis assays of epithelial keratinocytes with low mobility.
