The Transplantation of Individual Rat and Guinea-pig Whisker Papillae

Abstract

Previous work on the pigmentation and transplantation of hair and skin has been performed mainly on gross skin areas (e.g. Billingham & Medawar, 1950; Ebling & Johnson, 1959; Rawles, 1955) and several studies have been concerned with the histological appearances of various stages in hair development, sometimes correlated with the effects of chemical or physical agents (e.g. Chase, 1955; Chase, Rauch & Smith, 1951). So far there have been no reports of successful transplantation of individual hair papillae, although several authors have considered this to be a possibility (e.g. Billingham, 1958). Lillie & Wang (1941, 1944) showed that a feather papilla may produce generations of feathers after transplantation to another follicle, and that the feathers produced from a transplanted papilla containing both dermal and epidermal components (‘whole papilla’) are of donor tract structure and colour; feathers produced from local ectoderm under the influence of a transplanted dermal papilla are of host tract structure and colour.