Integrated Transcriptomics and Metabolomics Analyses of Stress-Induced Murine Hair Follicle Growth Inhibition.

Qichang Liang,Lihua Lai,Xia Wu,Changqing Cai,Yinjing Song,Meng Xia,Xuewen Wang,Xiaoyun Jiang,Hao Cheng,Qiang Zhou

doi:10.3389/fmolb.2022.781619

Qichang Liang, Lihua Lai

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fmolb.2022.781619

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Abstract

Psychological stress plays an important role in hair loss, but the underlying mechanisms are not well-understood, and the effective therapies available to regrow hair are rare. In this study, we established a chronic restraint stress (CRS)-induced hair growth inhibition mouse model and performed a comprehensive analysis of metabolomics and transcriptomics. Metabolomics data analysis showed that the primary and secondary metabolic pathways, such as carbohydrate metabolism, amino acid metabolism, and lipid metabolism were significantly altered in skin tissue of CRS group. Transcriptomics analysis also showed significant changes of genes expression profiles involved in regulation of metabolic processes including arachidonic acid metabolism, glutathione metabolism, glycolysis gluconeogenesis, nicotinate and nicotinamide metabolism, purine metabolism, retinol metabolism and cholesterol metabolism. Furthermore, RNA-Seq analyses also found that numerous genes associated with metabolism were significantly changed, such as Hk-1, in CRS-induced hair growth inhibition. Overall, our study supplied new insights into the hair growth inhibition induced by CRS from the perspective of integrated metabolomics and transcriptomics analyses.

Highlights

As one of the most common skin diseases, hair loss has negative effects on patient’s psychological well-being and reduces their life quality (Williamson et al, 2001)
To confirm the inhibition of hair growth induced by chronic restraint stress (CRS), we established the inhibition of hair growth affected by CRS model on C57BL/6 mice (Figure 1A)
Statistical analyses showed the skin pigmentation scores of murine dorsal skins in CRS group are significantly less than the control group on 10 days after depilation (p < 0.01) (Figure 1C)

Summary

Introduction

As one of the most common skin diseases, hair loss has negative effects on patient’s psychological well-being and reduces their life quality (Williamson et al, 2001). Previous studies indicate that psychoemotional stress plays a pivotal role in triggering and aggravating hair loss, such as alopecia areata (AA), telogen effluvium and androgenetic alopecia (Hadshiew et al, 2004; Peters et al, 2006; Alexopoulos and Chrousos, 2016; Dainichi and Kabashima, 2017). Numerous studies reveal that hair loss is highly related to hair follicle (HF) pathophysiological changes (Cotsarelis and Millar, 2001; Pratt et al, 2017). The hair follicle cycling is modulated by various signals which control quiescence and activation of hair follicle stem cells (HFSCs) (Chai et al, 2019; Feng et al, 2020). Psychological stress has been reported to alter the hair cycle via neuroendocrine or neuroimmunological signaling pathways (Paus et al, 2008; Ito, 2010; Paus et al, 2014).

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