Hair growth-promoting effect of Aconiti Ciliare Tuber extract mediated by the activation of Wnt/β-catenin signaling.

Hair growth-promoting effect of Aconiti Ciliare Tuber extract mediated by the activation of Wnt/β-catenin signaling.
Park PJ, Moon BS, Lee SH, Kim SN, Kim AR, Kim HJ, Park WS, Choi KY, Cho EG, Lee TR.
Bioscience Research Institute, AmorePacific Corporation R&D Center, 314-1, Bora-dong, Giheung-gu, Yongin 446-729, Republic of Korea.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0024320512005073

AIMS:
The activation of Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway plays an important role in hair follicle morphogenesis by stimulating bulge stem cells. This study was to obtain the activator of Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway from natural products and to determine whether this activator can induce anagen hair growth in mice.

MAIN METHODS:
To identify materials that activate Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway, 800 natural product extracts were screened using pTOPFlash assay and neural progenitor cell (NPC) differentiation assay. A selected extract was further tested for its effects on alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity in human immortalized dermal papilla cell (iDPC) and the proliferation in iDPC and immortalized rat vibrissa DPC (RvDP). Finally, hair growth-promoting effects were evaluated in the dorsal skin of C57BL/6 mice.

KEY FINDINGS:
Aconiti Ciliare Tuber (ACT) extract was one of the most active materials in both pTOPFlash and NPC differentiation assays. It promoted the differentiation of NPC cells even under proliferation-stimulating conditions (basic fibroblast growth factor: bFGF). It also increased ALP activity and proliferation of iDPC in dose-dependent manners, and it stimulated the induction of the anagen hair growth in C57BL/6 mice. These results suggest that ACT extract activates the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway by enhancing β-catenin transcription and has the potential to promote the induction of hair growth via activation of the stem cell activity of the dermal papilla cells.

SIGNIFICANCE:
This is the first report indicating benefits of ACT extract in hair loss prevention by triggering the activation of Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway and induction of the anagen hair growth in mice.

"Table 1. Natural compounds capable of inducing Wnt/β-catenin pathway activation and NPC differentiation.

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That part of the study is most interesting to me, since doing a web search for the tuber extract in absence of this study generates nothing. But the study costs 35 dollars.