Isolation, Culture And Phenotypic Characterization Of Hair Follicle Stem Cells

Stem cells (SCs) have the unique capability to self-renew and the potentiality of high proliferate. They can differentiate into cell lineages that constitute their tissue of origin.The hair follicle bulge area is an abundant, easily accessible source of actively growing pluripotent adult stem cells. It is part of the hair follicle outer sheath that is in continuity with the arrector muscle and under with the sebaceous gland. Hair follicle stem cells which located in the hair follicle bulge are adult stem cells. We call it hair follicle stem cells. Hair follicle stem cells possess stem cell characteristics, including multipotency, high proliferation potential and ability to enter quiescence.Lineage analysis has demonstrated that all epithelial layers within the adult follicle and hair originate from bulge cells. Therefore, the hair follicle stem cells appear to be responsible for regenerating the hair follicle in each hair cycle. The hair follicle bulge stem cells are potentially bipotent as they can give rise to not only cells of the hair follicle, but also epidermal cells. Other experiments have also provided new evidence that the upper outer root sheath of whisker follicles of adult mice contain multipotent stem cells, which can differentiate into hair follicle matrix cells, sebaceous gland basal cells and epidermis.The lack of unique markers to identify hair follicle stem cells in the bulge area has hindered the study of hair follicle stem cells. So far, studies on the marks of hair follicle stem cells are focus on integrin, keratin,CD34,CD200,p63,CD71,Cx43 and so on. We use these marks isolate and identify hair follicle stem cells.According to the literature, in most of experiences they choose the mouse's vibrissae follicles and human scalp sample as the source of hair follicle stem cells. First, using dispaseâ…¡to deal with the tissue sample, and then, separating and removing the epidermis. Last, plucking and collecting the follicles from the dermis. In this way, they can separate and culture the hair follicle stem cells.Our experiment is studying on the hair follicle stem cells'segregation, culture and identification. In experience, we pluck the hair follicles from the volunteer's head. In order to search for the means of hair follicle stem cells'primary culture,we had carried out many different methods. Luckily, we first use 0.25%trypsin and 0.05%EDTA to digest the human hair follicles, and then co-culture the human hair follicle cells and human fibroblasts which were treated by mitomycin. In this way, we successfully obtain the pavement-like hair follicle hair follicle stem cells.More and more people are paying close attention to hair follicle stem cells. If we can set up a consummate system of hair follicle stem cells'cultivation and amplification, maybe we can construct the epidermis leather-diaphragm using a few hair follicles to repair the clinical cutaneous deficiency.