Effect of Wnt-3a signaling on aggregative growth of dermal papilla cells:a pilot study

Abstract

Objective To investigate the influence of Wnt-3a signaling on aggregative growth of dermal papilla cells.Methods Recombinant adenovirus pAdEasy-1/Wnt-3a was constructed at first,and used to transfect cultured dermal papilla cells(DPCs).Then,the growth pattem of DPCs was observed by inverse microscopy;laser confocal microscopy and Western blot were utilized to detect the expressions of Wnt-3a,β-catenin and versican in low-passage DPCs,high-passage DPCs and transfected high-passage DPCs.Results The over-expression of Wnt-3a protein could effectively induce the aggregative growth of DPCs.Laser confocal microscopy showed that the fluorescence intensity of β-catenin and versican increased from 34.16±9.62 and 18.81±9.59 in high-passage DPCs to 87.35±17.28 and 92.18±18.39 in transfected high-passage DPCs(t=11.98,17.88,both P＜0.0 1),respectively.Also,Western blot proved a significant increase of expression intensity of β-catenin(15.27±2.17 vs 60.09±7.24,t=10.10,P＜0.01)and versican(19.32±2.46 vs 58.46±2.78,t=20.63,P＜0.01)in transfected high-passage DPCs compared with untransfected high-passage DPCS.ConclusionsWnt-3a signaling plays an important role in modulating aggregative growth of DPCs,which is mainly through the classical pathway with β-catenin as the key protein.As an important downstream gene of Wnt signaling,vesican is an indispensable part for the modulation of aggregative growth of DPCs. Key words: Wnt proteins; Hair follicles; Aggregative growth; Beta-catenin; Versicans