Early-age-dependent selective decrease of differentiation potential of hair-follicle-associated pluripotent (HAP) stem cells to beating cardiac-muscle cells.

We have previously discovered nestin-expressing hair-follicle-associated pluripotent (HAP) stem cells and have shown that they can differentiate to neurons, glia, and many other cell types. HAP stem cells can be used for nerve and spinal cord repair. We have recently shown the HAP stem cells can differentiate to beating heart-muscle cells and tissue sheets of beating heart-muscle cells. In the present study, we determined the efficiency of HAP stem cells from mouse vibrissa hair follicles of various ages to differentiate to beating heart-muscle cells. We observed that the whiskers located near the ear were more efficient to differentiate to cardiac-muscle cells compared to whiskers located near the nose. Differentiation to cardiac-muscle cells from HAP stem cells in cultured whiskers in 4-week-old mice was significantly greater than in 10-, 20-, and 40-week-old mice. There was a strong decrease in differentiation potential of HAP stem cells to cardiac-muscle cells by 10 weeks of age. In contrast, the differentiation potential of HAP stem cells to other cell types did not decrease with age. The possibility of rejuvenation of HAP stem cells to differentiate at high efficiency to cardiac-muscle cells is discussed.