P02 Accelerated ageing of hair follicles in androgenetic alopecia

Abstract Introduction and aims Androgenetic alopecia (AGA) is defined by hair loss from the frontal, parietal and vertex regions of the scalp; however, occipital follicles are spared. Hair follicles in AGA undergo miniaturization, which is the transition of terminal follicles into vellus follicles. Similarly with age, the diameter of the hair shaft decreases with loss of pigmentation, which is also seen in miniaturized follicles. To investigate whether frontal follicles have accelerated ageing compared with occipital follicles, we looked at methylation levels of genes associated with ageing. As the thickness and pigmentation of hair fibre are influenced by the dermal papilla (DP), we conducted microarray analysis of frontal and occipital DP to establish whether accelerated ageing of follicles is driven by DP. Methods The biological age of frontal and occipital follicles was calculated using methylation status of ELOVL2, ASPA, EDARADD and PDE4C (n = 3). For microarray analysis, DP was microdissected from the frontal (FDP) and occipital (ODP) follicles from patients undergoing hair transplantation surgeries to treat AGA (n = 4). Results Frontal follicles were found to have significantly higher biological age compared with patient-matched occipital follicles suggesting accelerated ageing of follicles in AGA. Transcriptomic analysis revealed significant increase in expression of several genes in FDP and notably EGR1, HSPB1, DNAJB1 and APOD, which have been shown to be upregulated in the DP of aged mice compared with young mice. We found downregulation of TRPS1 in FDP, which represses EGR1. Mutations in TRPS1 underlie trichorhinophalangeal syndrome which is associated with vellus-type hair. Conclusions Our transcriptional and molecular analysis revealed that FDP and frontal follicles have an advanced biological age relative to ODP. This increased age is also reflected in the transcriptional signature of FDP. We hypothesize that these changes are in part due to regulation of signalling by the transcriptional repressor TRPS1, whose expression is decreased in FDP.