Just as people’s joints can get stiff as they age and make it harder for them to move around, hair follicle stem cells also get stiff, making it harder for them to grow hair, reports a new Northwestern Medicine study.
But if the hair follicle’s stem cells are softened, they are more likely to produce hair, the scientists found.
Northwestern scientists discovered how to soften up those stem cells to enable them to grow hair again. In a study in mice published this week in PNAS, the investigators report that they can soften the stem cells by boosting the production of a tiny RNA, miR-205, that relaxes the hardness of the cells. When scientists genetically manipulated the stem cells to produce more miR-205, it promoted hair growth in young and old mice.
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