Overexpression of Fgf8 in the epidermis inhibits hair follicle development
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Updated: Dec 2, 2025

Rapid Genetic Analysis of Epithelial-Mesenchymal Signaling During Hair Regeneration
Published on: February 28, 2013
Zhengsen Wang1, Yixuan Chen2, Meiyang Chen1
1Fujian Key Laboratory of Developmental and Neural Biology, Southern Center for Biomedical Research, College of Life Sciences, Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou, China.
Abstract:
The hair follicle is a classical model for studying epithelial-mesenchymal interactions. Given the critical role of fibroblast growth factor 8 (Fgf8) in embryonic development, we generated a mouse model that overexpresses Fgf8 specifically in the epidermis. Interestingly, these mutant mice exhibited stunted, smaller bodies and severe hypotrichosis. Histological analysis showed that the hair follicles in the mutants were arrested at stage 2 of hair development. The density of hair follicles in the mutant mice was also lower compared to that in the control mice. Overexpression of Fgf8 inhibited the proliferation of epidermal cells and simultaneously promoted apoptosis, leading to the arrest of hair follicle development. Further analysis showed that sonic hedgehog (Shh) and bone morphogenetic protein 4 (Bmp4) were downregulated and upregulated, respectively. To summarize, our study demonstrates that FGF signalling plays an important role in the regulation of hair follicle development.
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