Norreticuline and reticuline as possible new agents for hair growth acceleration.

(S)-Norreticuline and (S)-reticuline have been shown to stimulate the proliferation of cultured cells from the murine hair apparatus significantly. Furthermore, these activities were found on cultured hair cells, but not on cultured keratinocytes or fibroblasts from murine skin. In addition, (S)-norreticuline significantly stimulated mouse hair regrowth. These results suggest that (S)-norreticuline and (S)-reticuline could have specific activities on hair apparatus cells and might be useful as active compounds for accelerating hair growth.