This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citation map  • Citing articles on ISI (15)  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in this journal

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

A recent study in Science¹ correlated the mouse hairless gene with a homologous gene in humans who have a rare form of generalized hair loss. A brief overview of this mutation that causes hair loss in mice and humans is provided to put this discovery into proper context.

The first description of mice that phenotypically appeared similar to mice homozygous for the currently most used hairless mutation (gene symbol: hr) was reported by Gaskoin in 1856.² These mice, called rhinoceros mice by the people who discovered them, lacked hair and had very wrinkled or corrugated skin. Gaskoin made reference to a similar preserved specimen in the Museum of the College of Surgeons, London, England, that was collected in 1820. The mutant mouse that we call the rhino today (gene symbol: hrrh), an allele of the hairless mutation, arose spontaneously in 1939 at McGill University, Montreal, Quebec.³ The hairless . . . [Full Text of this Article]