Simulative Evaluation of Taurine Against Alopecia Caused by Stress in Caenorhabditis elegans - Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology - page 258

treatment caused many physiological stress symptoms: decreased survivorship,
stunted movement, and reduced number of offsprings. When the worms were treated
with the commercial anti-alopecia agents and taurine, however, they showed posi-
tive responses against ER stress conditions. Although there is a variation among the
three agents, they showed positive rescue rates and increased mobility and progeny
number.
Although astressin-B and finasteride are two prominent drugs to treat alopecia, the
data in this study suggest that taurine may work better than the two anti-alopecia agents
against hair loss caused particularly by stresses. These results strongly implicate that
taurine might alleviate the chemical stress to help hair root cells to sustain their integrity.
Future study may be meaningful to characterize whether a synergistic effect may
exist among the agents used in this study. Also, a new study should employ a mouse
hair loss system to verify the results achieved from the present C . elegans model
study.

25.5 Conclusion

Considering hair loss causes adolescent to suffer devastating emotional stress, the
significance of safe, effective anti-alopecia agent cannot be overstated.
Development of screening systems for anti-alopecia agents is very important.
This study used C . elegans to evaluate astressin-B, finasteride, and taurine in
terms of anti-stress potential. All of them helped with restoring the affected vital
signs in C . elegans which was subjected to ER stress. Among the three agents,
taurine exerts better results and may be used as an anti-alopecia agent especially
against the one caused by stress.

Acknowledgements The authors appreciate JH Kim and SM Yeon for their efforts in preliminary
studies. This work was supported by a 2012 University of Seoul research grant.

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