日本研究人员在新一期英国《自然·通信》杂志上发表报告说,他们利用成年实验鼠干细胞和人类干细胞分别培育出毛囊,并移植到没毛发的实验鼠皮肤上,都成功让它长出毛发,未来有望将这一技术用于治疗秃头症。
东京理科大学教授辻孝领导的研究小组从实验鼠皮肤上获取了两种干细胞,并在实验室中将它们培育成毛囊,然后将这种人工培育的毛囊移植到本身没有毛发的实验鼠皮肤上,结果后者成功长出了毛发。分析显示,移植的毛囊与周围的皮肤和神经等组织融合良好,在毛发脱落后还能继续长出新的毛发。
据研究人员介绍,他们还从一名人类秃头症患者的头皮上提取了相关组织,并按同样方法培育出毛囊,移植到实验鼠皮肤上后也能长出毛发。
这项成果为秃头症患者带来新希望。如果进一步临床实验取得成功,秃头症患者将来也许只需提供一些头皮细胞,就能重新长出头发。研究人员说,将力争10年内把这项技术转化为可临床应用的新疗法。
除了头发再生外,研究人员还说,可通过在人工培育毛囊时改变其中的细胞构成,从而控制毛囊移植后所长出毛发的密度和颜色。也就是说,一名白发稀疏的老者将来或可利用这项技术获得满头浓密的黑发。(生物谷:Bioon.com)
doi:10.1038/ncomms1784
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Fully functional hair follicle regeneration through the rearrangement of stem cells and their niches
Koh-ei Toyoshima, Kyosuke Asakawa, Naoko Ishibashi, Hiroshi Toki, Miho Ogawa, Tomoko Hasegawa, Tarou Irié, Tetsuhiko Tachikawa, Akio Sato, Akira Takeda & Takashi Tsuji
Cholesterol regulates the signaling of μ-opioid receptor in cell models, but has not been demonstrated in mice or humans. In addition, whether cholesterol regulates the signaling by mechanism other than supporting the entirety lipid raft microdomains is still unknown. By modulating cholesterol-enriched lipid raft microdomains and/or total cellular cholesterol contents in human embryonic kidney cells stably expressing μ-opioid receptor, it is concluded that cholesterol stabilized opioid signaling both by supporting the lipid raft's entirety and by facilitating G protein coupling in heterologous expression system. Similar phenomena were also observed in the primary rat hippocampal neurons. In addition, reducing the brain cholesterol level with simvastatin impaired the analgesia effect of opioids in mice, whereas opioid analgesic effect was enhanced in mice fed with high-cholesterol diet. Furthermore, when the records of patients were analyzed, an inverse correlation between cholesterol levels and fentanyl doses used for anesthesia was identified, which suggested the mechanisms above could also be applicable in humans. Current results identified the interaction between opioids and cholesterol, which should be considered in clinic as a probable route for drug-drug interaction. The studies also suggested that low cholesterol level could lead to clinical issues such as the observed impairment in opioid functions.