Published in Volume 101, Issue 1
J. Clin. Invest.
101(1):
62-67 (1998).
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
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.