stem cell therapy has been applied for the treatment of degenerative diseases encompassing corneal disorders.this consideration is regarding the unique characteristics of stem cells including self-renewal and pluripotency. some corneal diseases result from deficiencies in the limbal region. in these conditions, limbal stem cell therapy is considered in which limbal stem cells are cultured in vi...

OBJECTIVES Multipotential human hair follicle stem cells can differentiate into various cell lineages and thus are investigated here as potential autologous sources for regenerative medicine. Towards this end, we have attempted to expand these cells, directly isolated from minimal amounts of hair follicle explants, to numbers more suitable for stem-cell therapy. MATERIALS AND METHODS Two type...

The mammalian hair cycle involves periodic regeneration of a tiny organ, the hair follicle, through a stem-cell-mediated process. The Hairless (Hr) gene encodes a nuclear receptor corepressor (HR) that is essential for hair follicle regeneration, but its role in this process is unknown. Here, we demonstrate that transgenic expression of HR in progenitor keratinocytes rescues follicle regenerati...

Kloepper JE, Tiede S, Brinckmann J et al. (2008) Immunophenotyping of the human bulge region: the quest to define useful in situ markers for human epithelial hair follicle stem cells and their niche. Exp Dermatol 17: 592–609 Lyle S, Christofidou-Solomidou M, Liu Y et al. (1998) The C8/144B monoclonal antibody recognizes cytokeratin 15 and defines the location of human hair follicle stem cells. ...

The perivascular microenvironment helps in maintaining stem cells in many tissues. We sought to determine whether there is a perivascular niche for hair follicle stem cells. The association of vessels and follicle progenitor cells began by embryonic day 14.5, when nascent hair placodes had blood vessels approaching them. By birth, a vascular annulus stereotypically surrounded the keratin 15 neg...

INTRODUCTION There are major new advancements in the fields of stem cell biology, developmental biology, regenerative hair cycling, and tissue engineering. The time is ripe to integrate, translate, and apply these findings to tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. Readers will learn about new progress in cellular and molecular aspects of hair follicle development, regeneration, and poten...

The cell surface marker CD34 marks mouse hair follicle bulge cells, which have attributes of stem cells, including quiescence and multipotency. Using a CD34 knockout (KO) mouse, we tested the hypothesis that CD34 may participate in tumor development in mice because hair follicle stem cells are thought to be a major target of carcinogens in the two-stage model of mouse skin carcinogenesis. Follo...

A hairy kinase o get a hairy mouse, look to the Sgk3 kinase. So say Alonso et al. on page 559. The control of hair follicle growth has been an enigma for cell biologists. While growth factors such as EGF are known for their ability to stimulate proliferation in epithelial cells, EGF causes hair loss. In addition, the downstream signals that control hair growth are largely unknown. Now, an Akt r...

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVES Skin is an established tissue source for cell based therapy. The hair follicle has been introduced later as a tissue source for cell based therapy. The ease of tissue harvest and multipotent nature of the resident stem cells in skin and hair follicle has promoted basic and clinical research in this area. This study was conducted to evaluate skin stem cells (SSCs) and hai...