Background: The hair follicle is a unique structure, one of the most dynamic structures in mammalians, which can reproduce in every new cycle all the mechanism involved in its fetal development. Although a lot of research has been made about the human hair follicle much less has been discovered about the importance of the cytokeratins (CKs) in its development.
Objective: Study the immunohistochemical pattern of epithelial CKs during human hair follicle development.
Methods: We performed an immunohistochemical study using fresh post-mortem skin biopsies of human fetuses between 4 and 25 weeks of gestational age to study the expression of cytokeratins (CKs): CK1, CK10, CK13, CK14, CK16 and CK20 during human hair follicle fetal development.
Study limitations: Restrospective study with a good number of makers but with a small population.
Results/conclusion: We found that, the CKs were expressed in an intermediate time during follicular development. The epithelial CKs (CK1, CK14, CK10, CK13) and the epithelial CKs with a proliferative character such as CK16 were expressed first, as markers of cellular maturation and follicular keratinization. At a later phase, CK20 was expressed in more developed primitive hair follicles as previously discussed in literature.
Keywords: Hair follicle; Hair-specific; Keratins; Molecular; Pathology.
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