The Role of Adenosine in Skin and Hair Care

What is Adenosine?

Adenosine is a nucleoside composed of an adenine moiety linked to ribofuranose sugar through a β-N9-glycosidic bond. Adenosine is both a degradation product and a precursor of ATP, plays a central role in cellular energy homeostasis, and regulates a variety of processes essential for skin health, including glucose uptake, induction of endogenous antioxidant enzymes, and inhibition of ROS production [1-2].

Sources of Adenosine

Extracellularly, adenosine is primarily generated through the sequential dephosphorylation of ATP. Intracellularly, it can be produced either by the dephosphorylation of adenosine 5′-monophosphate (AMP) by cytosolic 5′-nucleosidases or from the hydrolysis of S-adenosylhomocysteine (SAH) catalyzed by SAH hydrolase.

Mechanism of Action of Adenosine for Anti-aging

Adenosine is a well-established bioactive ingredient in cosmetic formulations and has been recognized as an anti-aging agent, including the stimulation of collagen synthesis, improving skin microcirculation, and reducing the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles. Adenosine exerts its anti-wrinkle effect by stimulating collagen synthesis and promoting fibroblast function, improving skin microcirculation and reducing fine lines and wrinkles. It also improves skin smoothness by providing energy to skin surface cells[1]. However, its cosmetic application is limited by poor water solubility and skin permeability. Free adenosine has poor water solubility and skin permeability, and is easily degraded into AMP by enzymes in the skin. By co-crystallizing with Ectoine to form a supramolecular complex, its water solubility is increased by 5.5 times and its skin permeability is increased by 3.1 times, while reducing enzymatic degradation and achieving better transdermal delivery effect.

The role of Adenosine in hair care

Adenosine is an active ingredient with the effects of promoting hair growth and preventing hair loss. Its mechanism of action is to directly promote hair growth and prolong the hair follicle growth phase by activating adenosine A_2α/A_2β receptors[3]. In addition, it can also reduce inflammation around hair follicles, inhibit 5α-reductase activity, reduce DHT production, thereby alleviating hair follicle atrophy and reducing sebum secretion, and improving the scalp environment from the source. At the level of hair fiber repair, it can promote keratin cross-linking and disulfide bond formation, repair damaged hair cuticles, and enhance the tensile strength and combing performance of hair.

References

[1] So-mi Kang, Minju Kim, Tae-Gyun Woo.(2025). Topical application of a skin serum with Progerin inhibitor helps alleviate human skin aging. medRxiv. https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.09.10.25335131

[2] Hu, J., Fan, Y., He, Z. (2026). Supramolecular Adenosine–Ectoine Complex for Enhanced Skin Delivery and Anti-Aging Efficacy. Cosmetics, 13(3), 153. https://doi.org/10.3390/cosmetics13030153

[3] Tang, Y., Gao, W., Fu, H. (2026). Supramolecular adenosine-based skin delivery system for hair regulation and restoration. Journal of Materials Chemistry B, 11, 3544–3559. https://doi.org/10.1039/D5TB02625C