高效率基因轉殖技術於毛髮生長上的應用

Abstract

基因轉移到毛囊是一種有潛力的技術來治療皮膚疾病。因為皮膚有非常低的滲透性，所以在活體的皮膚毛囊細胞上，非病毒基因轉殖才被認為是一種困難的方法。在此，我們利用聚乙烯亞胺 (PEI)來包覆人類的端粒酶逆轉錄酶基因 (hTERT)，然後利用塗抹在皮膚表面的方式，可以成功的將hTERT這個基因送到正常大鼠皮膚組織和受傷過的皮膚組織的毛囊細胞，讓這些細胞表現hTERT這個基因。我們發現，在正常皮膚組織的毛囊中，hTERT的表達會使毛囊幹細胞增生，進而加速毛髮的生長。另一方面，在受傷的皮膚組織的毛囊中，hTERT的表達則是會造成毛囊的再生。本研究利用創新的基因轉移的方法，並提供了一種實際的解決方法治療皮膚疾病。

Gene transfer to hair follicles is a potential technology to treat skin disease. Non-viral transfection is considered a difficult method to deliver genes into hair follicles in vivo because of the extremely low permeability of skin. We utilized polyethylenimine (PEI) to transfect the human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) in hair follicle cells in normal and wounding rat skin tissues. We found that expression of hTERT in normal skin tissue could increase the number of proliferating stem cells in hair follicles. On the other hand, expression of hTERT in wounding skin tissue can promote hair follicle de novo formation. These studies might not only reveal an innovative method for gene transfer, but also provide a practical solution for skin disease therapy.