A kind of condition that affects the person’s ability to produce hair, so he/she suffers from severe hair loss that does not grow back for a while or for a longer period of time, sometimes even permanent is called Alopecia Areata. It can cause enormous stress for the patient, even though it’s benign. There are many types that affect the patients: diffuse alopecia areata, alopecia areata monolocularis, alopecia areata multilocularis, alopecia areata barbae, alopecia totalis and alopecia universalis. Forunately, alopecia totalis and alopecia universalis are not frequently seen cases.
When a person loses hair more than usual, it is more than just an esthetic problem. There are many health consequences too. Patients suffering from alopecia universalis may cause you to lose eyelashes, eyebrows and nose hair, which all have protective purpose, so not having them means clear path for bacteria to come and harm your immune system. A patient may suffer from the condition for various periods of time. It’s always possible that the hair will grow back, even for those with total hair loss over many years, but it is not possible to predict when regrowth will occur.
Generally, patients affected with the condition do not suffer from other deceases, but are prone to develop certain conditions more than other people such as thyroid disease or vitilogo. Most of the patients with Alopecia Universalis are born with some hair but begin losing it very quickly. The disorder is genetically predetermined an autosomal recessive trait that is caused by mutation in a gene dubbed HR in chromosome band 8p21.2 — the human version of the gene that is responsible for hairlessness in mice. It is very likely the disease is genetically predetermined but there were no enough studies to confirm it.
Scientists conducted a research with a family with three consecutive generations affected with alopecia universalis, in order to find out more about the condition. Children with the disease were otherwise healthy, without any inflammatory processes that could inhibit hair growth. They discovered very few hair follicles, the children were born without eyebrows or eyelashes, without any hair in general and never developed them. The research also contained analysis of the chromosomes of seven affected family members in order to detect any genetic similarities that would show that the disease is genetically predetermined. They found a marker at the location 8p12, persistent in all seven family members, but they were not able to determine the exact gene that was at this location.
Scientists experimented with mice to determine if there is genetic similarity in hairless mice with the ones they found in human. They found multiple examples of alopecia in mice and identified a cDNA sequence that gave them the coding sequence of the human “hairless” gene. This gene is expressed in the skin and brain in humans and mice. It seems to encode a zinc-finger transcription factor. The results of the research showed that there is mutation in the “hairless” genes of all the affected individuals in the family that was studied.
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