Development of Isolation and Cultivation Method for Outer Root Sheath Cells from Human Hair Follicle and Construction of Bioartificial Skin

It is difficult to obtain sufficient healthy skin for coverage of a wide area of skin wound. In the skin, an additional population of living epithelial cells is located in the outer root sheath (ORS) of hair $follicles.^{1),2)}$ ORS cells should be a good source of epithelium because they are easily obtainable and patients do not have to suffer from scar formation at donor sites. We modified ordinary primary culture technique for the purpose of solving such problem that epithelial cells have a low propagation and easy aging during culture periods. First of all, we improved primary cultivation methods. In the ordinary primary culture, average yield of human ORS cells was $2\;{\times}\;10^3$ cells/follicle by direct incubation with trypsin (0.1%)/EDTA (0.02%) solution for 15 min at $37^{\circ}C$ but we could obtain about $6.5\;{\times}\;10^3$ cells/follicle by two step enzyme digestion method with dispase (1.2 U/ml) and trypsin (0.1%)/EDTA (0.02%) solution. So we could achieve three times higher primary cultured ORS cell yield. Secondly, we could obtain total $2\;{\times}\;10^7$ cells in serum free medium and even more total $6\;{\times}\;10^7$ cells in modified E-medium with mitomycin C-treated feeder cells during 17 days. Using the cultured ORS cells, and we could make bioartificial skin equivalent in vitro and concluded that ORS cells were progenitor cells for skin epithelial cell.