Why Do Mice Turn Gray When a Tiny Engine in Their Hair Cells Breaks?
Mitochondrial deoxyguanosine kinase depletion induced ROS causes melanocyte stem cell exhaustion and hair greying
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Inside hair cells, there's a tiny engine (mitochondria) that needs special fuel made by a helper called DGUOK. If DGUOK is missing, the engine breaks, makes too much rust (ROS), and kills the color-making stem cells. Giving mice a rust cleaner (NAC) helps keep the cells alive and hair colored.
Surprising Findings
Hair stayed colored for two cycles before turning gray—even after gene deletion.
Most would expect graying to happen immediately after a critical gene is disabled. But here, pigment was normal in the second anagen and only failed in the third, suggesting stem cells can compensate for a while.
Practical Takeaways
Consider antioxidant-rich lifestyle choices (diet, supplements like NAC) as a potential way to support hair pigmentation health.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Inside hair cells, there's a tiny engine (mitochondria) that needs special fuel made by a helper called DGUOK. If DGUOK is missing, the engine breaks, makes too much rust (ROS), and kills the color-making stem cells. Giving mice a rust cleaner (NAC) helps keep the cells alive and hair colored.
Surprising Findings
Hair stayed colored for two cycles before turning gray—even after gene deletion.
Most would expect graying to happen immediately after a critical gene is disabled. But here, pigment was normal in the second anagen and only failed in the third, suggesting stem cells can compensate for a while.
Practical Takeaways
Consider antioxidant-rich lifestyle choices (diet, supplements like NAC) as a potential way to support hair pigmentation health.
Publication
Journal
Cell Regeneration
Year
2025
Authors
Kaiyao Zhou, Gangyun Wu, Rui Dong, Changhao Kan, Lin Xie, Lijuan Gao, Hua Li, Jianwei Sun, W. Ning
Related Content
Claims (7)
When the energy factories in our cells don't work right, they leak harmful particles that can damage hair color cells and cause gray hair to show up too early.
Your hair needs energy from tiny power plants in cells (called mitochondria) to keep making pigment — without healthy mitochondria, your hair can't stay colored over time.
In mice with a broken Dguok gene, their hair turns gray because the stem cells that give color to hair disappear early, even before the color actually fades.
Mice that are missing a certain gene have weaker energy production in their skin cells because their mitochondrial genes aren't working as well, especially as their fur starts growing again later in life.
Giving an antioxidant called NAC in drinking water helped slow down hair greying in mice that were genetically prone to it, possibly by reducing harmful molecules in their bodies.