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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Cell Dev. Biol.

Sec. Cell Death and Survival

Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fcell.2025.1693637

A Single-Cell Transcriptomic Atlas Elucidates the Hair Cycle and Apoptosis Mechanisms in Goat Hair Follicles

Provisionally accepted
  • 1Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot, China
  • 2Beijing Academy of Food Sciences, Beijing, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

To explore the molecular mechanism of hair follicle apoptosis in the goat hair cycle, single-cell transcriptome sequencing was performed on 8214 hair follicle cells in the Anagen period, Catagen period, and Telogen period. We identified 9 cell types and found that Matrix cells ( MCs ) enriched the Wnt signaling pathway and apoptosis-related genes. Further studies revealed the key dynamic genes ( such as KRT19, API5 ) and regulatory factors ( such as MSX2, LEF1 ) that determine the fate of MCs. This study mapped a high-resolution cell map of goat hair follicle apoptosis, providing new insights and diagnostic biomarkers for programmed cell death.

Keywords: Goat, Hair Follicle, Single-cell transcriptomic, Apoptosis, API5, Matrix cells

Received: 27 Aug 2025; Accepted: 30 Sep 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Zhang, Yang and Liu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Zhihong Liu, liuzh7799@163.com

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