ArticleThe Journal of experimental medicine1996
Innervation of melanocytes in human skin.
Article in The Journal of experimental medicine, 1996. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 21 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
21 citing papers in PubMed, 105 citations in OpenAlex.
- Staurosporine Drives Non-Canonical Melanocyte Maturation by Coupling β-Catenin Signaling to Actin-Dependent Dendrite Remodeling.Pigment cell & melanoma research · 2026Article
- Skin innervation and itsFrontiers in cellular neuroscience · 2026Review
- Cellular and molecular changes in the skin driving increased nociception and pain during burn injury and repair.Frontiers in pain research (Lausanne, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Late stage melanoma is hallmarked by low NLGN4X expression leading to HIF1A accumulation.British journal of cancer · 2024Article
- Biology of melanocytes in mammals.Frontiers in cell and developmental biology · 2023Review
- Vitiligo: A Narrative Review.Cureus · 2022Review
- Roles of calcitonin gene-related peptide in the skin, and other physiological and pathophysiological functions.Brain, behavior, & immunity - health · 2021Review
- Article
- Updates and new medical treatments for vitiligo (Review).Experimental and therapeutic medicine · 2021Review
- Novel immunological and genetic factors associated with vitiligo: A review.Experimental and therapeutic medicine · 2021Review
- Insights into Differentiation of Melanocytes from Human Stem Cells and Their Relevance for Melanoma Treatment.Cancers · 2020Review
- Neural innervation as a potential trigger of morphological color change and sexual dimorphism in cichlid fish.Scientific reports · 2020Article
- Neuropeptides Profile and Increased Innervation in Becker's Nevus.Annals of dermatology · 2019Article
- Review
- Cutaneous pigmentation modulates skin sensitivity via tyrosinase-dependent dopaminergic signalling.Scientific reports · 2017Article
- Progenitors of the protochordate ocellus as an evolutionary origin of the neural crest.EvoDevo · 2013Article
- Skin melanocytes: biology and development.Postepy dermatologii i alergologii · 2013Review
- Evaluating dermal myelinated nerve fibers in skin biopsy.Muscle & nerve · 2013Review
- An in vivo model of melanoma: treatment with ATP.Purinergic signalling · 2009Article
- Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Communication between the nervous system and epidermal melanocytes has been suspected on the basis of their common embryologic origin and apparent parallel involvement in several disease processes, but never proven. In this study, confocal microscopic analysis of human skin sections stained with antibodies specific for melanocytes and nerve fibers showed intraepidermal nerve endings in contact with melanocytes. This intimate contact was confirmed by electron microscopy, which further demonstrated thickening of apposing plasma membranes between melanocytes and nerve fibers, similar to synaptic contacts seen in nervous tissue. Since many intraepidermal nerve fibers are afferent nerves that act in a "neurosecretory" fashion through their terminals, cultured human melanocytes were stimulated with calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP), substance P, or vasoactive intestinal peptide, neuropeptides known to be present in cutaneous nerves, to examine their possible functions in the epidermal melanin unit. CGRP increased DNA synthesis rate of melanocytes in a concentration- and time-dependent manner. Cell yields after 5 d were increased 25% compared with controls maintained in an otherwise optimized medium. Furthermore, stimulation by CGRP induced rapid and dose-dependent accumulation of intracellular cAMP, suggesting that the mitogenic effect is mediated by the cAMP pathway. These studies confirm and expand a single earlier report in an animal model of physical contact between melanocytes and cutaneous nerves and for the first time strongly suggest that the nervous system may exert a tonic effect on melanocytes in normal or diseased human skin.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.