miR-195-5p Regulates Hair Follicle Inductivity of Dermal Papilla Cells by Suppressing Wnt/β-Catenin Activation

Dermal papilla (DP) cells play a vital role in hair follicle (HF) development and postnatal hair cycling. However, the abilities are lost on further culture. Recent studies have demonstrated significant influences of posttranscriptional regulation by microRNA (miRNA) on HF development. The current study aims to investigate how miRNAs regulate Wnt/β-catenin to control HF inductivity of DP cells by performing microarray analysis in early- and late-passage DP cells and transfecting with miRNAs inhibitor or mimic. Results showed early-passage DP cells strongly expressed miRNAs related to inhibition of noncanonical Wnt pathways. In late-passage DP cells, miRNAs capable of inhibiting the canonical Wnt/β-catenin pathway were upregulated, in addition to the miRNAs targeting the noncanonical Wnt pathway. Moreover, we verified that β-catenin expression was downregulated by miR-195-5p overexpression in dose manner. Meanwhile LRP6 expression was downregulated in both protein and mRNA as well as the genes involved in the hair inductivity of DP cells. These results suggest that the appearance of miRNAs that suppress the Wnt/β-catenin pathway may be responsible for the loss of ability of DP cells in culture and miR-195-5p is the potential key factor involved in regulating HF inductivity of DP cells.