Test Tube hair

Scientists have learned how to grow new "roots" of hair for the treatment of baldness

RIA NewsAmerican scientists have created a method of treating baldness without hair transplantation – by growing new hair follicles "from scratch," according to an article published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Higgins et al., Microenvironmental reprogramming by three-dimensional culture enables dermal papilla cells to induce de novo human hair-follicle growth – VM).

Now baldness is mainly treated by transplanting hair follicles, or follicles, from the hairy parts of the body to the bald ones. At the same time, the patient should have a lot of healthy hair.

"Our method will create many new hair follicles and restore existing ones using only a few hundred donor hairs. Transplantation will become available to people with a limited number of follicles, such as with baldness in women or with hair loss at the sites of scars and burns," explained study co–author Angela Cristiano from Columbia University, quoted by the university's press service (Hair Regeneration Method is First to Induce New Human Hair Growth - VM)

The hair grows from the hair papilla at the bottom of the follicle, consisting of so-called papillary cells.

If the hair dies, but the papilla persists, these cells "trigger" the formation of a new follicle from skin stem cells. Previously, it was proved that follicles are formed in mice when papillary cells are engrafted on a hairless area. It has not been possible to achieve the same for human hair so far. But now scientists have figured out the reasons for the failure.

The problem was related to the method of growing papillary cells – they lose their "triggering" ability when growing on a flat surface. It turned out that cells taken from humans and cells from a Petri dish have different characteristics of gene activity. In "artificial" cells, the work of many genes was suppressed. The "inclusion" of a part of the genes occurred when the "flat" method of growing cells was replaced by a "three–dimensional" one - in the form of spheroid droplets similar to real papillae.

Only 22% of the "silent" genes worked, but this was enough for the "triggering" ability to return to the cells.

"Theoretically, a single follicle is enough to get a lot of spheroids and thus restore an unlimited number of hairs," the scientists write.

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru22.10.2013