Culture Techniques and Potential Research Applications of Human Hair Follicle Cells In Vitro

Abstract

Since 1980, when human hair follicle cells were cultured in vitro for the first time, a whole series of techniques have been developed that render hair follicle keratinocytes as easy to handle in culture as fibroblasts. As a consequence, one can conclude that the need for a method providing for the routine cultivation of easily obtainable human primary epithelial cells has now been met, and it may be expected that more and more workers will use hair follicle keratinocytes for studies that specifically require human epithelial cells. The ease of culture and the ready availability of material may encourage workers to consider human hair follicle cell culture before either animal models or cultures of cells derived from invasive skin biopsies.