走进科学：制造毛囊胚芽才是治疗脱发的关键，干细胞助您实现！

脱发困扰着全球各地的大量人群，特别在老龄化社会，每年针对脱发问题的新疗法研究经费投入惊人。毛发再生的关键在于毛囊再生，后者是支持头发生长的重要微小结构，其难点在于如何大规模地制造出具有生发功能的“毛囊胚芽”（hair follicles germ，HFG）。

近日，来自日本横滨大学的研究人员似乎找到了根治脱发的有效方法，其关键在于一种被称为二甲聚硅氧烷（PDMS）的物质，令人称奇的是，PDMS也是麦当劳炸薯条中使用的一种化学物质。麦当劳加入这种成分是出于安全考虑，防止食用油起泡，令人意外的是，添加PDMS可以有效提高HFG体外培养的成功率和效率，因为氧气很容易从中通过。不得不提的是，这一发现与他们此前的研究成果有着密切关系。研究人员曾将小鼠的皮肤细胞与小鼠和人类的干细胞混合，然后接种在特制芯片的微孔中，培养三天后，细胞在空间上彼此分离，表现出典型的HFG特征。将这些微小的“HFG芯片”注射到小鼠体内后，小鼠身上产生了毛囊，并观察到开始生长毛发。最后，在接受移植手术小鼠的背部和头部，都长出了明显的黑色毛发。此前已有研究人员成功利用人类角质形成细胞和真皮乳头细胞培养了人类的HFG。而在这项新的研究中，研究人员利用透氧的聚硅氧烷制成的微孔阵列芯片成功培育了约5000个HFG，表明大规模制造HFG在技术上可以被实现，制造获得的HFG能够发展为有效的毛囊，并在注射到小鼠背部后良好地生长。在HFG的制造过程中，通过底部硅片供应充足的氧气十分重要。

研究人员表示，再生的毛发表现出典型的小鼠毛发生长周期，初步测试表明，这项技术在人类皮肤细胞测试上也将取得成功。让我们期待技术的发展能实现毛发再生，尤其是解决雄激素性脱发等问题。

推荐阅读原文：

Spontaneous hair follicle germ (HFG) formation in vitro, enabling the large-scale production of HFGs for regenerative medicine.

Hair follicle morphogenesis is triggered by reciprocal interactions between hair follicle germ (HFG) epithelial and mesenchymal layers. Here, we developed a method for large-scale preparation of HFGs in vitro via self-organization of cells. We mixed mouse epidermal and mouse/human mesenchymal cells in suspension and seeded them in microwells of a custom-designed array plate. Over a 3-day culture period, cells initially formed a randomly distributed single cell aggregate and then spatially separated from each other, exhibiting typical HFG morphological features. These self-sorted hair follicle germs (ssHFGs) were shown to be capable of efficient hair-follicle and shaft generation upon intracutaneous transplantation into the backs of nude mice. This finding facilitated the large-scale preparation of approximately 5000 ssHFGs in a microwell-array chip made of oxygen-permeable silicone. We demonstrated that the integrity of the oxygen supply through the bottom of the silicone chip was crucial to enabling both ssHFG formation and subsequent hair shaft generation. Finally, spatially aligned ssHFGs on the chip were encapsulated into a hydrogel and simultaneously transplanted into the back skin of nude mice to preserve their intervening spaces, resulting in spatially aligned hair follicle generation. This simple ssHFG preparation approach is a promising strategy for improving current hair-regenerative medicine techniques. 

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