{"id":3458,"date":"2015-10-31T19:22:00","date_gmt":"2015-10-31T19:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/198.74.50.173\/2015\/10\/jak-inhibitor-drugs-could-restore-hair.html"},"modified":"2017-04-07T03:30:16","modified_gmt":"2017-04-07T03:30:16","slug":"jak-inhibitor-drugs-could-restore-hair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nextbigfuture.com\/2015\/10\/jak-inhibitor-drugs-could-restore-hair.html","title":{"rendered":"JAK inhibitor drugs could restore hair growth after loss from male pattern baldness"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/newsroom.cumc.columbia.edu\/blog\/2015\/10\/23\/blocking-enzymes-in-hair-follicles-promotes-hair-growth\/\" target=\"blank\" rel=\"noopener\">In experiments with mouse and human hair follicles, Angela M. Christiano, PhD, and<\/a> colleagues found that drugs that inhibit the Janus kinase (JAK) family of enzymes promote rapid and robust hair growth when applied to the skin.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.eurekalert.org\/pub_releases\/2015-10\/cumc-bei102015.php\" target=\"blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Inhibiting a family of enzymes inside hair follicles that are suspended in a resting state restores hair growth, a new study<\/a> from researchers at Columbia University Medical Center has found.<\/p>\n<p>The study raises the possibility that JAK inhibitors could be used to restore hair growth in forms of hair loss induced by male pattern baldness, and other types of hair loss that occur when hair follicles are trapped in a resting state.  Two JAK inhibitors have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. One is approved for treatment of blood diseases (ruxolitinib) and the other for rheumatoid arthritis (tofacitinib). Both are being tested in clinical trials for the treatment of plaque psoriasis and alopecia areata, an autoimmune disease that causes hair loss.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat we\u2019ve found is promising, though we haven\u2019t yet shown it\u2019s a cure for pattern baldness,\u201d said Dr. Christiano. \u201cMore work needs to be done to test if JAK inhibitors can induce hair growth in humans using formulations specially made for the scalp.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-q4-f3V4jtuo\/VjUUpjVIUYI\/AAAAAAABDxY\/LckDsQHjxUc\/s1600\/reversinghairloss.jpeg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" height=\"456\" src=\"https:\/\/www.nextbigfuture.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/reversinghairloss-1.jpeg\" width=\"640\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p>\n<i>Within 3 weeks, mice that received topical ruxolitinib or tofacitinib had regrown nearly all their hair (center and right photos; drug was applied only to the right side of the mouse). Little to no hair growth occurred in control mice during the same timeframe (left photo).<br \/>\nImage credit: From S. Harel et al.,  Sci. Adv. 1, e1500973 (2015).  Distributed under a Creative<br \/>\nCommons Attribution Non Commercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC).  10.1126\/sciadv.1500973<\/i><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/advances.sciencemag.org\/content\/1\/9\/e1500973\" =blank target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Science Advances &#8211; Pharmacologic inhibition of JAK-STAT signaling promotes hair growth<\/A><\/p>\n<p><a name='more'><\/a><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/6tPCqF0NmYE\" width=\"560\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>What we\u2019ve found is promising, though we haven\u2019t yet shown it\u2019s a cure for pattern baldness,\u201d said Dr. Christiano. \u201cMore work needs to be done to test if JAK inhibitors can induce hair growth in humans using formulations specially made for the scalp.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Christiano and her colleagues serendipitously discovered the effect of JAK inhibitors have on hair follicles when they were studying alopecia areata, a form of hair loss that\u2019s caused by an autoimmune attack on the hair follicles. Christiano and colleagues reported last year that JAK inhibitors shut off the signal that provokes the autoimmune attack, and that oral forms of the drug restore hair growth in some people with the disorder.<\/p>\n<p>In the course those experiments, Dr. Christiano noticed that mice grew more hair when the drug was applied to the skin than when the drug was given systemically. This suggested JAK inhibitors might be doing something to the hair follicles in addition to stopping the immune attack.<\/p>\n<p>When the researchers looked more closely at normal mouse hair follicles, they found that JAK inhibitors rapidly awakened resting follicles out of dormancy. Hair follicles do not produce hair steadily, but cycle between dormant and active phases.<\/p>\n<p>JAK inhibitors trigger the follicles\u2019 normal reawakening process, the researchers found. Mice treated for five days with one of two JAK inhibitors sprouted new hair within 10 days, greatly accelerating the onset of hair growth.  No hair grew on control mice within the same amount of time.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere aren\u2019t many compounds that can push hair follicles into their growth cycle so quickly,\u201d said Dr. Christiano. \u201cSome topical agents induce tufts of hair here and there after a few weeks, but very few compounds have this potent an effect so quickly.\u201d The drugs also produce longer hair from human hair follicles grown in culture and on skin grafted onto mice.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s likely that the drugs act on the same pathways in human follicles as they do in mice, suggesting they could induce new hair growth and extend the growth of existing hairs in humans.<\/p>\n<p>However, whether JAK inhibitors can reawaken hair follicles that have been frozen in a resting state because of androgenetic alopecia (which causes male and female pattern baldness) or other forms of hair loss is still unknown.  So far, all the experiments have been conducted in normal mice and human follicles. Experiments to address hair follicles affected by hair loss disorders are under way.<\/p>\n<p><b>Abstract<\/b><\/p><div class=\"nextb-last-paragraph\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center; \" id=\"nextb-1790237885\">\r\n<div data-aaad='true' data-aa-adunit='\/339474670\/Nextbigfuture_A\/InContent_3'><\/div>\r\n<div data-onpage='true' data-adpath='\/339474670,3911572\/Nextbigfuture_B\/InContent_3'><\/div><\/div>\n<p>Several forms of hair loss in humans are characterized by the inability of hair follicles to enter the growth phase (anagen) of the hair cycle after being arrested in the resting phase (telogen). Current pharmacologic therapies have been largely unsuccessful in targeting pathways that can be selectively modulated to induce entry into anagen. We show that topical treatment of mouse and human skin with small-molecule inhibitors of the Janus kinase (JAK)\u2013signal transducer and activator of transcription (STAT) pathway results in rapid onset of anagen and subsequent hair growth. We show that JAK inhibition regulates the activation of key hair follicle populations such as the hair germ and improves the inductivity of cultured human dermal papilla cells by controlling a molecular signature enriched in intact, fully inductive dermal papillae. Our findings open new avenues for exploration of JAK-STAT inhibition for promotion of hair growth and highlight the role of this pathway in regulating the activation of hair follicle stem cells<\/p>\n<p>SOURCES &#8211; Science Advances, Columbia University Medical Center <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In experiments with mouse and human hair follicles, Angela M. Christiano, PhD, and colleagues found that drugs that inhibit the Janus kinase (JAK) family of enzymes promote rapid and robust hair growth when applied to the skin. Inhibiting a family of enzymes inside hair follicles that are suspended in a resting state restores hair growth, &#8230; <\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more-container\"><a title=\"JAK inhibitor drugs could restore hair growth after loss from male pattern baldness\" class=\"read-more button\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nextbigfuture.com\/2015\/10\/jak-inhibitor-drugs-could-restore-hair.html#more-3458\" aria-label=\"More on JAK inhibitor drugs could restore hair growth after loss from male pattern baldness\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33361,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[112,11],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextbigfuture.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3458"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextbigfuture.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextbigfuture.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextbigfuture.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextbigfuture.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextbigfuture.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextbigfuture.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextbigfuture.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextbigfuture.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextbigfuture.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}