Devastating baldness disease can develop without genetic involvement, Haifa study shows
Haifa researchers have found a non-genetic cause for alopecia areata baldness. About one in 50 people – equally in men and women –will suffer from alopecia areata at some point in their life. The condition can develop at any age, although most people are diagnosed for the first time before the age of 30.
In recent years, more and more research evidence has accumulated on the source of the autoimmune disease in an inflammatory process caused by cells that develop in patients with genetic predisposition that attack the hair follicle at its growth stage and results in the collapse of the immune system that characterizes it.
A new study at the dermatology department at the Rambam Healthcare Campus and the skin research lab at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology’s Rappaport Faculty of Medicine has found evidence of another source – involvement of innate lymphoid cells-type 1 (ILC1) – that can cause its outbreak among people who do not belong to the high-risk group.
The research was published in the online journal e-Life under the title “Involvement of ILC1-like innate lymphocytes in human autoimmunity, lessons from alopecia areata.”
A common skin disease that breaks out when the immune system attacks and harms the hair follicles after accidentally recognizing the body’s tissue as a foreign tissue, alopecia causes baldness on large areas of the scalp. In more severe cases, there is body-hair loss on larger and other places, as well as itching and a feeling of burning in the affected areas. There is no known cure, but last June, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a first drug to treat severe cases – baricitinib (Olumiant).
Olumiant is a Janus kinase (JAK) inhibitor that blocks the activity of one or more of a specific family of enzymes, interfering with the pathway that leads to inflammation. It restored hair growth in 25% to 35% of patients but also causes side effects.
In recent years, more and more research evidence has accumulated on the source of the autoimmune disease in an inflammatory process caused by cells that develop in patients with genetic predisposition, which attack the hair follicle at its growth stage and results in the collapse of the training that characterizes it.
However, a new study common to Rambam and the Technion has found evidence of another source, which can cause the outbreak of the disease among people who do not belong to the risk group.
The conventional hypothesis is that CD8 cells are responsible for the disease. But in a study conducted by a team led by Prof. Amos Gilhar and in collaboration with researcher Dr. Aviad Keren and Professor Dr. Rimma Laufer-Britva, another group of cells was found that was unknown to be involved in the disease.
ILC-1 constantly secretes a variety of proteins that usually attack external factors that invade the tissues they are in,” explained Gilhar. Thus, the classic lymphocyte cells, those that used to be regarded as solely responsible for the onset of the disease, are not alone.