Upcoming work, to be published in Applied Materials Today, describes how a team of researchers from Chinese universities converted dermal fibroblasts to dermal papilla cell-like structures. This finding could advance hair loss and growth research.
According to the article abstract, new sources for human dermal papilla cells (hDPCs) are crucial to advancing hair follicle regeneration strategies. Here, the authors used alginate-poly-L-lysine-alginate (APA) microcapsules to transform human dermal fibroblasts (hDFs) into hDPC-like cells.
See related: Skin Rashes and Hair Loss, Biological Connectsion to COVID-19
The resulting cells were reportedly comparable to native DPCs. They also were shown to induce the formation of hair follicle-like structures and hair pigmentation in animal models.