Alopecia has emerged as one of the biggest interests in modern society. Many studies have focused on the treatment of alopecia, such as transplantation of hair follicles or inhibition of the androgen pathway. Hair growth is achieved through proper proliferation of the components such as keratinocytes and dermal papilla cells (DPCs), movement, and interaction between the two cells. The present study examined the effect of the hedgehog (Hh) signaling pathway, which is an important and fundamental signal in the cell, on the morphology and the viability of human keratinocytes and DPCs. Upregulation of Hh signaling caused a morphological change and an increase in epithelium-mesenchymal transition-related gene expression but reduced the viability of keratinocytes, while the alteration of Hh signaling did not cause any change in DPCs. The results show the possibility that the regulation of Hh signaling can be applied for the treatment of alopecia.

Introduction
Materials and Methods
    1. Cell culture
    2. Crystal violet and alkaline phosphatase staining
    3. Cell viability assay
    4. Senescence assay
    5. RNA isolation and polymerase chain reaction
    6. Statistics
Results and Discussion
    1. The up-regulation of Hh pathway makes theappearance of NHEK into fibroblast-like shape
    2. Hh regulators changed gene expression related toEMT in NHEK
    3. The morphology and the viability of HFDPC are notaffected by Hh regulators
    4. The ALP activity of HFDPC is maintainedconsistently despite the change of Hh pathway
References

• Jaehyun Park(Cellular Reprogramming and Embryo Biotechnology Laboratory, Dental Research Institute, School of Dentistry, Seoul National University)
• Sangkyu Park(Cellular Reprogramming and Embryo Biotechnology Laboratory, Dental Research Institute, School of Dentistry, Seoul National University/Biomedical Research Institute, NeoRegen Biotech Co. Ltd.)
• Jeongmin Seo(Biomedical Research Institute, NeoRegen Biotech Co. Ltd.)
• Sangho Roh(Cellular Reprogramming and Embryo Biotechnology Laboratory, Dental Research Institute, School of Dentistry, Seoul National University) Correspondence to