77 Augus 2017, Volume 14, Number 3 Review Paper: Application of Hair Follicle Bulge Stem Cells in Wound Healing Fatemeh Heidari 1 , Maliheh Nobakht 2 , Alireza Shams 3 , Abazar Yari 3* 1. Department of Anatomy, School of Medicine, Qom University of Medical Sciences, Qom, Iran. 2. Department of Anatomy, School of Medicine, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. 3. Department of Anatomy, School of Medicine, Alborz University of Medical Sciences, Karaj, Iran. * Corresponding Author: Abazar Yari, PhD Address: Department of Anatomy, School of Medicine, Alborz University of Medical Sciences, Karaj, Iran. Tel: +98 (26) 34349802 E-mail: yari@abzums.ac.ir A B S T R A C T Article info: Received: 10 December 2016 Accepted: 25 March 2017 Available Online: 01 Augus 2017 Keywords: Wound healing, Regenerative medicine, Hair Follicle Stem Cell (HFSC), Bulge Abazar Yari is assistant professor in the Department of Anatomy, Alborz University of Medical Sciences, Karaj. He re- ceived PhD of Anatomy from Iran University of Medical Sciences in 2015. His interest is working on wound healing and stem cell transplant. Despite the signifcant advances in regenerative medicine, wound healing has remained a challenging clinical problem. Skin is the larges human organ with many vital functions; therefore, any damage to its normal sructure should be treated as soon as possible. Easy access to skin sem cells has created a lot of excitement in therapeutic applications. “Cell therapy” is considered a novel method in regenerative medicine, especially when conventional treatments fail. Candidate cell populations for therapeutic applications include embryonic, induced pluripotent, adult mesenchymal, and hair follicle sem cells. It is possible to diferentiate sem cells separated from the bulge area of hair follicle into neurons, melanocytes, keratinocytes, glia and smooth muscle cells that are negative for the keratinocyte marker kr15. This review discusses the plasicity of skin sem cells, especially sem cells located in the hair follicle and their involvement in wound healing, gene expression profle in wound healing, hair follicle sem cells, and their surrounding epidermis. Moreover, the ability of hair follicle sem cells for treating wounds and regenerative medicine is going to be discussed. Eventually we sugges the hair follicle as an ideal source of sem cells for cell therapy and regenerative medicine because they are abundant with easy access and great diferentiation ability. Citation: Heidari F, Nobakht M, Shams A, Yari A. Application of Hair Follicle Bulge Stem Cells in Wound Healing. Anatomical Sciences. 2017; 14(3):77-88. Funding: See Page 84