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Endogenous Protection by Melanin

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Light-Based Therapies for Skin of Color

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Abstract

Melanin is the dominant skin pigment, and the intensity of pigmentation is a conspicuous component of distinction between racially different human populations. Humans evolved in sub tropical Africa and constitutive pigmentation was likely dark to protect from damage by intense sun exposure, a persistent feature of highly melanized skin.1,2 When descendants of these early humans moved north, dark skinned people were at a disadvantage for vitamin D (ViD) conversion and thus paler skinned descendants had a selective advantage in moderate climates and far northern latitudes. At the same time, the loss of dark pigment made these fair skinned people more prone to acute and chronic adverse effects of sun exposure, such as sunburn and skin cancer.3 This chapter discusses the endogenous protection that epidermal pigment provides to humans. The sole source of cutaneous melanin are melanocytes that reside in the epidermis. They provide the surrounding keratinocytes with melanosomes, specialized organelles that contain melanins. Darkness and hue of constitutive pigmentation are not due to different densities of melanocytes but rather caused by differences in size and distribution of melanosomes, the overall melanin content of the epidermis and the relative amounts of eumelanin and pheomelanin. Although there is no doubt that melanin is protective from environmental ultraviolet (UV) exposure, the mechanisms by which this happens are not completely clarified. In addition to constitutive differences, multiple exogenous and endogenous agents modulate melanin pigmentation. This chapter will focus primarily on those changes that are induced by UV radiation (UVR). However, as will become evident, this approach does not lead to exclusion but rather to the inclusion of other factors that regulate epidermal melanization.

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Acknowledgment

Financial support was provided by a grant from the Dermatology Foundation (PI: Christopher R. Shea, MD). We thank Diana Bolotin, MD, PhD for critical review of the manuscript.

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  1. Dermatology, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

    Bernhard Ortel, Mark Racz, Deborah Lang & Pier G. Calzavara-Pinton

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  1. Bernhard Ortel
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  2. Mark Racz
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  4. Pier G. Calzavara-Pinton
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Correspondence to Bernhard Ortel .

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    Ortel, B., Racz, M., Lang, D., Calzavara-Pinton, P.G. (2009). Endogenous Protection by Melanin. In: Baron, E. (eds) Light-Based Therapies for Skin of Color. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84882-328-0_3

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