REVIEW - A review and a new hypothesis for non-immunological pathogenetic mechanisms in vitiligo

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Pigment Cell Res. 2006 Oct;19(5):406-11.

A review and a new hypothesis for non-immunological pathogenetic mechanisms

in vitiligo.

San Gallicano Dermatological Institute, via San Gallicano 25/A, Rome, Italy.

Vitiligo is an acquired depigmenting disorder characterized by the loss of

functioning epidermal melanocytes because of multifactorial and overlapping

pathogenetic mechanisms. Besides the immunological approach, the study of

the metabolic deregulations leading to toxic damage of the melanocytes

appears to be more and more relevant. It was only last year that the first

in vitro evidence supporting the link and the temporal sequence between the

immune response and the cellular oxidative stress was provided, suggesting

that the intrinsic damage of the melanocytes is primitive. What can be the

guide line of the multiple altered metabolisms? A compromised membrane could

render the cell sensitive to the external and internal agents differently,

usually ineffective on the cell activity and survival. The primitive altered

arrangement of the lipids may affect the transmembrane housing of proteins

with enzymatic or receptorial activities, also conferring on them antigenic

properties.

PMID: 16965269

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed & cmd=Retrieve & dopt=Abstra\

ctPlus & list_uids=16965269

Not an MD

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Mayo Clinic in Rochester

http://www.mayoclinic.org/rochester

s Hopkins Medicine

http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org