New technique may help people with skin pigmentation disorders
The female sex hormones estrogen and progesterone can change skin color, and this process can be controlled. This is the conclusion reached by American experts, who also managed to find analogues of these hormones that can change skin color without "side effects"
According to the researchers, estrogen makes the skin darker, while progesterone, on the contrary, brightens it. Previously, this was known in very general terms, but in a new study, specialists were able to find two cellular receptors of skin cells called melanocytes, due to which such an effect is observed, livescience.com reports.
In experiments with cell cultures, a group of scientists led by Todd Ridka from the University of Pennsylvania was able to prove that under the influence of estrogen, melanin production decreases, while progesterone, on the contrary, provokes an increase in its production. This is due to the interaction with two proteins - GPER and PAQR7.
In the future, experts noticed that to regulate skin tone, instead of estrogen and progesterone, you can use compounds G-1 and Org OD-02, and in this case, it is possible to avoid other possible effects on the body of female sex hormones.
Scientists expect that based on the result they have obtained, a new technique for changing skin tone may appear in the future, which can become an alternative to modern methods. Moreover, this technology could be used not only to create artificial tanning, but also for more complex and important purposes: for example, it would help people with skin pigmentation disorders, including those suffering from an autoimmune disease called vitiligo, which provokes disappearance in some areas of the skin melanin.
Experts published their research in the journal eLife.
Dmitry Istrov
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