Editor's Summary
17 May 2007
A good hair day?
The mammalian hair follicle is thought to form anew only during development, and loss of an adult follicle is generally considered permanent. Fifty years ago in Nature, Billingham and Russel reported 'hair neogenesis' in rabbit skin, but this was later discounted. Now it is back, with the discovery that hair follicle regeneration is triggered by wounding the skin of adult mice. This suggests that mammalian skin responds to wounding with greater plasticity and regenerative capacity than was previously believed, and has implications for those studying wound healing, tissue regeneration and stem cell function.
News and Views: Regenerative biology: New hair from healing wounds
In mammals, most wounds heal by repair, not regeneration. It now seems that, as they heal, open skin wounds in adult mice form new hair follicles that follow similar developmental paths to those of embryos.
Cheng-Ming Chuong
doi:10.1038/447265a
Letter: Wnt-dependent de novo hair follicle regeneration in adult mouse skin after wounding
Mayumi Ito, Zaixin Yang, Thomas Andl, Chunhua Cui, Noori Kim, Sarah E. Millar & George Cotsarelis
doi:10.1038/nature05766
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (1,633K) | Supplementary information