ABSTRACT

The etiopathogenesis of lichen planopilaris is not known well and and it is thought that inflammatory infiltrate heads towards to the region adjacent to stem cells on bulge region of pilosebaceous unit. In this study, it was aimed to describe CK15, CD34, nestin and CD200 expression patterns in patients with lichen planopilaris in order to contribute describing which parts or cell types in the follicle were damaged.

In this study, affected and healthy scalp specimens of 10 lichen planopilaris patients and scalp specimens of 9 patients undergoing surgical excisions due to sebaceous cysts were included. Routine immunohistochemical analysis of CK15, CD34, nestin and CD200 primer antibodies were performed to all tissue samples. Stained slides were graded according to expression intensity from no expression (-) to strong expression (++).

CK15, CD34 and CD200 expression patterns were similar in controls and patient lesional samples. Nestin expression only decreased in the sub-bulge area in patient lesional samples.

The absence of apparent differences in the CK15, CD34, nestin and CD200 expressions of affected scalp samples of patients suggests that these markers may display different expressions at different stages of the hair follicle cycle and cell differentiation and further studies are necessary to figure out whether these expressions are changed with the activity of the disease.