P4.34 ELLAGIC ACID, AN ANTI-OXIDATIVE SUPPRESSOR OF TGF-β₁ PROLONGS ANAGEN PHASE OF MURINE HAIR FOLLICLES

Won-seok Park, Dae-seok Sung, Dae-kwon Kim, Chang-hoon Lee, Yong-chul Shim

AmorePacific R&D Center, Yongin-si, Korea

It has been recently reported that TGF-β plays a crucial role in follicular apoptosis in the catagen phase of murine and human hair follicles. At the cellular level, TGF-β inhibits proliferation of epithelial, endothelial and haematopoietic cells, regulates the differentiation of immune, neuronal, mesenchymal and epithelial cell types and modulates their apoptotic response.

We searched for an effective suppressor of TGF-β to delay catagen progression. We found that ellagic acid, known as an anti-oxidant, reduces cell death of HaCaT keratinocytes and PAI-1 proteins induced by TGF- β₁. After hair depilation on 7 week-old female C57bl/6 mice, we topically applied 0.5% ellagic acid to the dorsal skin after 6 days. On the 14^th day, catagen induction was measured by inner skin pigment using chromameter (L value) and by histological classification of the hair cycle. The group treated with 0.5% ellagic acid showed significantly lower L values and greater numbers of late anagen hair follicles than the vehicle group.

Ellagic acid may be effectively used to delay in vivo progression of catagen, which is a result of androgen & TGF- β signal pathways in androgenetic alopecia.