title: The hair follicle enigma.
abstract: The hair follicle is a mini-organ endowed with a unique structure and cyclic behaviour. Despite the intense research efforts which have been devoted at deciphering the hair follicle biology over the past 70 years, one must admit that hair follicle remains an enigma. In this brief review, various aspects of hair follicle biology will be addressed, and more importantly, unsolved questions and new possible research tracks will be highlighted, including hair follicle glycobiology and exosome-mediated cell-cell interactions. Even though bricks of knowledge are solidly being acquired, an integrative picture remains to emerge. One can predict that computer science, algorithms and bioinformatics will assist in fostering our understanding hair biology.
authors.affiliation: L'Oréal Research & Innovation, Asnières-sur-Seine, France.
authors.forename: Bruno A
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-4182-4802
authors.initials: BA
authors.lastname: Bernard
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D000505:Alopecia / Q000503:physiopathology; D000818:Animals; D002450:Cell Communication; D019295:Computational Biology; D055354:Exosomes / Q000378:metabolism; D055106:Genome-Wide Association Study; D054794:Glycomics; D006197:Hair / Q000502:physiology*; D006201:Hair Diseases / Q000235:genetics* / Q000503:physiopathology*; D018859:Hair Follicle / Q000503:physiopathology*; D006801:Humans; D008055:Lipids / Q000737:chemistry; D051379:Mice; D008954:Models, Biological; D057170:Translational Research, Biomedical
chemical_list: D008055:Lipids
keywords: hair follicle; perspectives