Mouse Hair Follicle Stem Cells Help Nerves

Mouse Hair Follicle Stem Cells Help Nerves

According to a story on the NBC affiliate KSDK in St. Louis, researchers at the University of California San Diego have injected stem cells from hair follicles into mice with severed nerves in their legs. New nerves grew. Prior studies had discovered that hair follicle stem cells can express the protein nestin, which is similar to one expressed by brain stem cells, and that the hair follicle stem cells could be directed to grow into neurons.

The story says that the research is reported on the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, but I could find nothing there or on the websites for either UCSD or its research partner in the study, AntiCancer, Inc, so I don’t have any further details yet.

UPDATE: An article on New Kerala (an Indian on-line paper) says that the stem cells were differentiated into a kind of glial cell called Schwann cells, which then produced myelin sheaths that surrounded the nerve axons.