Human hair dermal papilla cells (HHDPCs) play a significant role in hair growth. This study found that human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cell-derived exosomes (UC-MSC-Es) effectively enhanced cell growth of HHDPCs. UC-MSC-Es has a size range of 30-180 nm and expression of CD9, CD63, CD81, CD73, and TSG101. UC-MSC-Es significantly increased cell populations of HHDPCs in the S and G2/M phases. UC-MSC-Es also increased the expression of cell cycle-related proteins, β-catenin, and cyclin D1. Further mechanistic studies demonstrated that UC-MSC-Es promoted the phosphorylation of Akt and GSK-3β, and the inhibition of PI3K and Akt reduced the proliferative effects of UC-MSC-Es. Collectively, these findings suggest that UC-MSC-Es have a potential effect in treating hair loss through modulating PI3K and Akt-dependent pathways in HHDPCs.
Copyright: © 2025 Chen et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.