Hair bulb is composed of follicular melanocytes, keratinocytes, and dermal papilla fibroblasts and their relationship play an important role in the morphogenesis, growth and graying of the hair. To investigate the cause of graying hair in molecular le...
Hair bulb is composed of follicular melanocytes, keratinocytes, and dermal papilla fibroblasts and their relationship play an important role in the morphogenesis, growth and graying of the hair. To investigate the cause of graying hair in molecular levels, in this study, we analyzed changes of gene expression in hair bulb obtained from Korean male aged 20`s-30s`. We identified mRNA expression profiles in between graying and black hair bulb using DNA microarray analysis. We found 67 genes with more than 2-fold changes in their expression levels in graying hair bulb as compared with black hair bulb. Among them, 30 genes were up-regulated and 37 genes were down-regulated. The function of 67 genes turned out to be associated with melanogenesis, cell-cell interaction, regulation of calcium concentration, cytokine, keratin and serine type protease inhibition. These results indicate that graying is modulated by changes of the gene expression pattern in hair bulb, regulating various cellular functions.