Using hair-follicle stem cells for urinary bladder-wall regeneration

There are many diseases in which autologous urothelial and muscle cells cannot be used for in vitro construction of the urinary bladder wall for augmentation (cystoplasty). These diseases are the most frequent indications for bladder augmentation. The present paper focuses on the idea of harvesting potentially multipotent stem cells out of hair follicles in order to use them for regeneration of the urinary bladder wall. Current clinical practice suggests the use of cultures enriched with progenitors. The hair follicle stem cell niche gives an opportunity to reduce the invasiveness of harvesting these cells. Both epithelial and dermal multipotent stem cells populations within hair follicles raise new possibilities for tissue engineering of the urinary bladder. The hypothesis is that hair-follicle stem cells can be used, with the guarantee of the sufficient cell number, for a construction in vitro of the urinary bladder wall replacement.