Percutaneous absorption of topically applied mannitol and progesterone was compared in vivo with the hairless and hairy rat. Urinary excretion and skin concentration profiles after topical application of mannitol demonstrated that hairless rat skin was a "leakier" barrier to percutaneous absorption of polar compounds than was hairy rat skin, independent of formulation. Liposomal, but not aqueou...

Notch is the receptor for a conserved signaling pathway that regulates numerous cell fate decisions during development [1]. Signal transduction involves the presenilin-dependent intracellular processing of Notch and the nuclear translocation of the intracellular domain of Notch, NICD [2-6]. NICD associates with Suppressor of Hairless [Su(H)], a DNA binding protein, and Mastermind (Mam), a trans...

Viable mice homozygous for two recessive autosomal genes, hairless (hr) and obese (ob) were produced with an average life span of 538 +/- 34.1 days. On the average, hairless-obese mice weighed about 73 percent as much as obese mice. Since obese mice consumed approximately 73 percent as much oxygen per gram body weight per hour as hairless-obese mice at about 24 degree C, the weight averages app...

Repressors are frequently deployed to limit the transcriptional response to signalling pathways. For example, several co-repressors interact directly with the DNA-binding protein CSL and are proposed to keep target genes silenced in the absence of Notch activity. However, the scope of their contributions remains unclear. To investigate co-repressor activity in the context of this well defined s...

The role of the Arabidopsis homeobox gene, GLABRA 2 (GL2), in the development of the root epidermis has been investigated. The wild-type epidermis is composed of two cell types, root-hair cells and hairless cells, which are located at distinct positions within the root, implying that positional cues control cell-type differentiation. During the development of the root epidermis, the differentia...

Hairless plays an important role as the major antagonist in the Notch signalling pathway in Drosophila. It appears to be a direct inhibitor of the signal transducer Su(H). Hairless encodes a pioneer protein which was dissected in a structure-function analysis; a series of deletion constructs was tested for wild type and gain of function activity in the fly as well as for Su(H) binding. Thereby,...

ceous apparatus. Billingham et a!. (3), after painting mouse sldn with MCA, transplanted the epidermis onto an un treated area of dermis and grafted untreated epidermis onto the treated area of dermis. Invariably, epitheial carcinomas arose only from the areas in which the dermis had been treated, where the only epithelial structures present were the hair follicles. In 1968, Steinmuller (25), u...

Cold exposure of rats leads to ameliorated glucose and triglyceride utilization with females displaying better adaptation to a cold environment. In the current study, we used hairless rats as a model of increased thermogenesis and analyzed gender-related effects on parameters of lipid and glucose metabolism in the spontaneously hypertensive (SHR) rats. Specifically, we compared hairless coisoge...

Hairless mice have been widely applied in skin-related researches, while hairless pigs will be a useful model for skin-related study and other biomedical researches. Dickkopf-related protein 1 (DKK1) is inhibitor of Wnt signaling pathway. Transgenic mice expressing DKK1 transgene under control of a human keratin 14 (K14) promoter display hairless phenotype, which encouraged us to generate trans...