Published in Volume
101, Issue 1 (January 1, 1998)
J Clin Invest. 1998;101(1):62–67.
doi:10.1172/JCI551.
Copyright ©
1998, The American Society for
Clinical Investigation.
Research Article
Autoimmune hair loss (alopecia areata) transferred by T lymphocytes to human scalp explants on SCID mice.
A Gilhar, Y Ullmann, T Berkutzki, B Assy and R S Kalish
Skin Research Laboratory, The Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 31096, Israel. gilhar@techunix.technion.ac.il
Published January 1, 1998
Alopecia areata is a tissue-restricted autoimmune disease of the hair follicle, which results in hair loss and baldness. It is often psychologically devastating. The role of T lymphocytes in this disorder was investigated with cell transfer experiments. Scalp explants from patients were transplanted to severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) mice and injected with autologous T lymphocytes isolated from involved scalp. T lymphocytes which had been cultured with hair follicle homogenate along with antigen-presenting cells were capable of inducing the changes of alopecia areata, including hair loss and perifollicular infiltrates of T cells, along with HLA-DR and ICAM-1 expression of the follicular epithelium. Similar changes were not noted in grafts injected with scalp-derived T cells that had not been cultured with follicular homogenate. These data indicate that alopecia areata is mediated by T cells which recognize a follicular autoantigen.