NEW YORK -- Scalp hair from a man has been successfully transplanted into the forearm of a woman. Sounds creepy -- but the study findings may lead to new treatments aimed at curing baldness and at preventing organ rejection.
The remarkable thing about the transplant is that the woman did not share
the same blood type, let alone the same immune system markers as the man,
suggesting a high risk that she might reject the follicle cells. The fact that
she didn't suggests that the technique may be a treatment for hair loss, and may
help scientists to better understand why the body rejects some transplants.
Although such unrelated hair follicles have been transplanted without
rejection between rats, this has never before been achieved in humans, according
to Colin Jahoda of Durham University in Durham, UK, and his associates. Their
report is published in the November 4th issue of the journal Nature.
Three members of the research team were involved in the skin-sharing
scheme. First, they report, tiny pieces of skin dissected from a man's scalp
were implanted into shallow skin wounds created in the forearm of one of his
female colleagues, described as "genetically unrelated and immunologically
incompatible." To their surprise, the transplants were not rejected.
Next, the team again transplanted skin follicles from the male to female
team member, thinking that the second transplant would certainly be rejected
once the woman's immune system had its second encounter with the same foreign
material. But once again, the graft took.
To further test the process, the investigators then transplanted follicles
from a second, unrelated male into the forearm of the same female team member.
Again, the sites healed rapidly without rejection or inflammation, the
researchers report.
Even more surprising, Jahoda and colleagues note, the new hairs resembled
scalp hairs -- large, thick, colored, and growing in all directions-rather than
the soft, uncolored hairs carpeting the untouched female forearm surrounding the
grafts.
Biopsies of the transplanted grafts showed no microscopic signs of
rejection, and DNA testing proved the transplants were in fact male cells living
in a female forearm, the results indicate.
The scientists surmise that the follicles are somehow privileged
immunologically, such that transplants into foreign sites can be made without
being rejected.
While hair transplants from men's scalps to women's forearms are not
expected to become fashionable, these results suggest that such transplants
between incompatible donor-host pairs could be used in new treatments for hair
loss, the investigators note.
They also suggest that the findings "might be used in tissue and organ
engineering" to provide more organs for patients in need of transplants.
