Oxidative Stress Associated Senescence in dermal Papilla Cells of Men with Androgenetic Alopecia
James H Upton, Rosalind F Hannen, Adiam W Bahta, Nilofer Farjo, Bessam Farjo, Michael P Philpott
Discussion
Here we show that environmental oxygen significantly alters DPC morphology, migration, #65532;proliferation, senescence and TGF-
signalling. BDPC were significantly more sensitive to oxidative stress than ODPC, with reduced cell proliferation and migration together with increased ROS and senescence at 21% O2. Crucially, BDPC that were protected from oxidative stress when cell culture was performed at 2% O2 did not secrete negative hair #65532;growth factor TGF- in response to DHT.
This suggests that oxidative stress as well as androgen signalling may play an important role in the BDPC phenotype and AGA.
Remodelling of the dermal papilla is essential for hair follicle cycling and is largely dependent on the migration of DPC between the dermal papilla and the connective tissue sheath (Tobin et al., 2003). Balding follicles exhibit shrinkage and rounding of the dermal papilla (Miranda et al., 2010), suggesting restricted cell migration. Here we show BDPC have slower migratory velocity than ODPC under both oxygen conditions. However, oxygen significantly altered cell motility - faster migration velocity was observed at 2% O2 in both DPC phenotypes. Therefore these data suggests that reduced DPC migration caused by oxidative stress may inhibit hair follicle remodelling and could promote the balding phenotype.
We previously reported that BDPC undergo premature senescence in vitro, caused by elevated expression of p16INK4a and pRB, but not p53 or p21 (Bahta et al., 2008). We now show that the expression of p16INK4a and pRB is associated with high levels of oxygen. Environmental stress has been reported to trigger senescence via p16INK4a in dermal fibroblasts (Chen, 2000, Jacobs and de Lange, 2004) and is considered a key factor of skin aging (Alaluf et al., 2000). Although cell passage did have an effect on the expression of senescence markers in DPC, the differences between BDPC and ODPC cultured at 2% and 21% O2 were similar at low and high passage number. This suggests that the senescence we observed was due to oxidative stress as opposed to replicative senescence commonly observed in dermal fibroblasts as the result of passage-induced telomere shortening (Itahana et al., 2001).
Catalase was significantly higher in BDPC than ODPC at passage 2, possibly in response to ROS. Catalase has previously been associated with hair follicle ageing. However, in contrast to BDPC, greying hair follicles express lower levels of catalase and higher levels of ROS compared to healthy, pigmented follicles (Wood et al., 2009, Kauser et al., 2011). ROS produced by the melanocytes in greying follicles may be responsible for creating an oxidative environment that could impact upon DPC especially in balding scalp. The elevated levels of catalase present in the BDPCs did not translate to a reduction in total ROS nor reduced levels of senescence, suggesting that the BDPCs may be deficient in other antioxidants or in their ability to handle ROS.
As well as catalase we also showed that glutathione levels were higher in BDPC compared to ODPC at 21% O2. Glutathione is a ROS-sensitive signal modulator that senses the oxidative equilibrium of the cell (Maher, 2005). Reduced (active) GSH regulates intracellular signalling by blocking the promoter binding sites of AP-1 and SP-1 (Vayalil et al., 2007). When ROS is abundant, GSH is oxidised forming a dimer (GSSG) with altered binding function of intracellular transcriptional mediators (Maher, 2005). Therefore, the proportion of active GSH is not only critical as an antioxidant but also for regulating transcription in response to oxidative stress. There was no difference in GSH and GSSG levels between BDPC and ODPC at 2% O2, indicating limited oxidative stress and no associated change in intracellular signalling. However, BDPC exposed to 21% O2 had significantly higher levels of GSSG and proportionally less GSH. There is therefore scope for further examination of the role of GSH and whether it is able to modulate DHT signalling in DPC.
Secretion of TGF- in response to oxidative stress is the underlying pathophysiology of pulmonary fibrosis (Cui et al., 2011), heart disease (Yeh et al., 2011) and photo-ageing of skin (Debacq-Chainiaux et al., 2005). We chose to measure total TGF-#946; – as opposed to active TGF-#946; – as the most suitable measure of TGF-#946;, as it gives a more accurate indication of the overall bioavailability of the growth factor (Koli et al., 2001). TGF-#946;1 and -#946;2 are negative regulators of hair growth (Foitzik et al., 2000, Hibino and Nishiyama, 2004) and H2O2-induced senescence of fibroblasts causes sustained over-expression of TGF-#946;1 and -#946;2 via a pRB-regulated pathway (Frippiat et al., 2001). We showed that TGF-#946;1 and -#946;2 secretion by BDPC was stimulated by an acute dose of H2O2 and therefore, that oxidative stress is able to stimulate secretion of known hair growth inhibitory factors. However, the fact #65532;that we observed no increase in TGF- secretion under 21% O2 suggests that the conditions of oxidative stress experienced in vitro are insufficient to affect TGF- DPC.
We also investigated the effects of oxygen on secretion of IGF-I a positive regulator of hair growth in vitro (Philpott et al., 1994). BDPCs secreted significantly less IGF-1 than ODPCs. As IGF-1 has been shown to maintain in vitro cultured human hair follicles in anagen; reduced IGF-1 secretion by BDPCs may result in impaired hair growth. While oxygen had no effect on IGF-1 secretion in BDPCs secretion of IGF-1 by ODPCs was significantly lower under 21% oxygen compared to 2%. This suggests BDPCs#8223; secretion of IGF-I may be dependent on environmental stimuli.
Androgen receptors (AR) are found in both balding and non-balding DPC, with balding cells expressing a higher number of receptors (Hibberts et al., 1998). Androgens have been shown to stimulate TGF-#946;1 secretion in AR-transfected balding DPC (Inui et al., 2002). In our study #65532;DHT stimulated TGF- secretion from DPC only at 21% O2 suggesting oxidative stress is an
essential component of androgen response in AGA. Also of note was our observation that at 2% oxygen, DHT had significantly reduced TGF-1 secretion in ODPC and BDPC.