Abstract
To search hair growth-promoting herbal extract, a screening platform of having HEK293T fibroblast being transfected with pTOPFLASH DNA construct was developed over a thousand of herbal extracts and phytochemicals were screened. One of the hits was ethanolic extract of Rhizoma Belamcandae, the rhizome of Belamcanda chinensis (L.) DC. Tectoridin, an isoflavone from Rhizoma Belamcandae, was shown to be responsible for this activation of promoter construct, inducing the transcription of pTOPFLASH in the transfected fibroblasts in a dose-dependent manner. The blockage by DKK-1 suggested the action of tectoridin could be mediated by the Wnt receptor. The hair growth-promoting effects of tectoridin were illustrated in human follicular dermal papilla cells and mouse vibrissae organ cultures. In tectoridin-treated dermal papilla cultures, an activation of Wnt signaling was demonstrated by various indicative markers, including TCF/LEF1 transcriptional activity, nuclear translocation of β-catenin, expressions level of mRNAs encoding axin-related protein, (AXIN2), β-catenin, lymphoid enhancer-binding factor-1 (LEF-1), insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) and alkaline phosphatase (ALP). In addition, an increase of hair shaft elongation was observed in cultured mouse vibrissae upon the treatment of tectoridin. Tectoridin, as well as the herbal extract of Rhizoma Belamcandae, possesses hair promoting activity, which deserves further development.
Highlights
Hair growth is a dynamic process being controlled by hair follicle in a cyclic manner
Dermal papilla cell (DPC), a cluster of specialized mesenchymal cells located at the base of hair follicle, plays an important role in regulating hair growth [6], which secretes different paracrine and autocrine factors to regulate the growth cycle of hair follicle, as well as various intracellular activities inside the follicles
Among over 100 positive hits, the extracts of Rhizoma Belamcandae showed robust activation on the assay of pTOPFLASH DNA construct, and which was chosen for further analysis
Summary
Hair growth is a dynamic process being controlled by hair follicle in a cyclic manner. The hair follicle cycle is mainly classified into three phases: (i) the active hair growth phase (anagen); (ii) the regression phase (catagen); and (iii) the resting phase (telogen) [2]. The Wnt/β-catenin signaling is known to play a role in the developmental processes of hair [3], and the activation of Wnt/β-catenin signaling triggers the growth of hair follicle, as well as to stimulate the expressions of genes at the anagen phase of hair cycle [4]. Several herbal extracts and phytochemicals have been shown to promote hair growth through Wnt/β-catenin signaling. Baicalin was shown to promote hair growth in mouse and DPC via Wnt/β-catenin signaling [14]. We reported a novel capability of tectoridin in promoting hair growth by activating the Wnt signaling
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