Characterization of Epithelial Stem Cells and Mesenchymal Stem Cells from Human Hair Follicle

Hair follicle mesenchymal stem cells (HF-MSCs) and epithelial stem cells (HF-EpSCs) play a key role in hair growth and regeneration. The isolation, culture and characterization of HF-MSCs and HF-EpSCs will provide clues for in vitro tissue models and regenerative medicine applications. In this study, HF-MSCs and HF-EpSCs from the hair bulge were harvested using the tissue culture method. HF-MSCs exhibited a fibroblast shape and expressed highly the mesenchymal markers CD44, CD73, CD90 and CD105 and a lack of hematopoietic markers CD45, CD34, CD11b, CD19 and HLA-DR. They showed the potential for differentiation into adipogenic, osteogenic and chondrogenic lineages.HF-EpSCs possessed the keratinocyte shape and expressed typical markers for epithelial stem cells such as CD200, CK15 and CK19. The stemness marker CD49f was preferentially expressed in HF-EpSCs over HF-MSCs. Moreover, the expression of pluripotent factors including c-myc, oct-4, sox-2, klf-4 and nanog at the mRNA level was higher in HF-EpSCs compared to the expression in HF-MSCs. In conclusion, we successfully isolated mesenchymal and epithelial stem cells via culturing the hair follicle bulge tissues and preliminarily evaluated the stemness and plasticity of these two populations. This information will provide clues for further studies on hair regeneration in vitro and in vivo.