Molecular Genetic and Endocrine Mechanisms of Hair Growth

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Abstract

The prenatal morphogenesis of hair follicles depends upon a precisely regulated series of molecular genetic processes. Hormones and their receptors play prominent roles in modulating postnatal hair cycling, which recapitulates some aspects of morphogenesis. The responses to androgen are the most obvious of these. The postnatal androgen sensitivity of pilosebaceous units in different skin areas is programmed during prenatal development to permit clinical outcomes such as hirsutism and pattern baldness. Thyroid hormone, glucocorticoids, insulin-like growth factor-I, and prolactin have clinically significant effects on specific aspects of hair growth. The nuclear receptors vitamin D receptor and retinoid X receptor are essential for postnatal hair cycling. Other hormones have less clear effects on hair growth. Advances in research on the interaction of hormone target genes with the biological processes involved in hair morphogenesis and cycling can be expected to improve management of hirsutism and alopecia.

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Most cited references 31

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The secret life of the hair follicle.

M. Hardy (1992)

The mammalian hair follicle is a treasure waiting to be discovered by more molecular geneticists. How can a tiny cluster of apparently uniform epithelial cells, adjacent to a tiny cluster of uniform mesenchymal cells, give rise to five or six concentric cylinders, each of which is composed of cells of a distinctive type that synthesize their own distinctive set of proteins? There is now evidence that several growth factors, cell adhesion molecules and other molecules play important roles in the regulation of this minute organ.

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Targeted ablation of the vitamin D receptor: An animal model of vitamin D-dependent rickets type II with alopecia

R. Baron, R Bronson, M Amling … (1997)

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Differences in hair follicle dermal papilla volume are due to extracellular matrix volume and cell number: implications for the control of hair follicle size and androgen responses.

Leigh T. Stephenson, Margaret Elliott, Louisa Messenger (1999)

The size of a hair follicle is thought to be determined by the volume of its dermal papilla. The volume of the dermal papilla depends on the number of cells it contains and on the volume of the extracellular matrix. To establish which of these two variables is related to differences in hair follicle size we performed a stereologic study on 235 hair follicles from different sites, including male facial skin (beard), female facial skin, and scalp. In facial follicles there was a strong correlation between the area of the hair cortex and the volume of the dermal papilla. The area of the hair cortex also correlated with the number of cells in the dermal papilla and with the volume of dermal papilla per cell. In scalp hair follicles, where there was a smaller range of sizes, the correlations between these variables were weaker. In large male facial follicles the mean total dermal papilla volume was almost 40-fold higher than in vellus follicles from female facial skin. This difference was associated with a mean 17-fold greater number of cells in the dermal papilla and a 2.4-fold greater volume associated with each cell. Intermediate results were obtained in scalp follicles. In many regions of the skin hair follicles enlarge in response to androgens during adult life hair. Our results imply that the increase in the volume of the dermal papilla in these follicles is due to an increase in the number of cells, either through proliferation or through the migration of cells from the follicular dermal sheath, and to an increase in the amount of extracellular matrix per cell. As androgens are thought to act primarily on the dermal papilla, these changes may have a direct bearing on the mechanism of androgen-mediated alterations in hair follicle size.