Hairy Moles May Hold Key to Baldness Treatment

Hairy moles may be unsightly, but they may hold the key to effective baldness treatment. Researchers at the University of California-Irvine said their findings could lead to new treatments for androgenetic alopecia.

A specific molecule in those hairy moles, osteopontin, “causes normally dormant and diminutive hair follicles to activate their stem cells for robust growth of long and thick hairs,” said lead researcher Maksim Plikus, PhD, a professor of developmental and cell biology at the UC- Irvine.

The global team led by researchers at the university analyzed hair follicle stem cells and discovered that osteopontin drives accelerated hair growth. The study, published this week in Nature, describes the essential role that the osteopontin and CD44 molecules play in activating hair growth inside hairy skin nevi. These skin nevi accumulate particularly large numbers of senescent pigment cells and yet display very robust hair growth, said the researchers.

“We found that senescent pigment cells produce large quantities of a specific signaling molecule called osteopontin, which causes normally dormant and diminutive hair follicles to activate their stem cells for robust growth of long and thick hairs,” said Plikus. “Senescent cells are typically viewed as detrimental to regeneration and are thought to drive the aging process as they accumulate in tissues throughout the body, but our research clearly shows that cellular senescence has a positive side to it.”

The growth of hair follicles is well regulated by stem cell activation; these cells divide, enabling follicles to produce new hair in a cyclical manner. After each round of hair growth, there’s a period of dormancy, during which the follicle’s stem cells remain inactive until the next cycle begins.

This latest study was conducted on mice. A drug company co-founded by Plikus said in a news release that it had further tested the hair growth technique on human hair follicles, and “the researchers were able to induce new growth by human hair follicles in a robust pre-clinical model.” The company, Amplifica, said in the release that it has an exclusive licensing agreement with the university for the new hair growth “inventions” described in the newly published findings.