Cream Makes Skin Produce Sunless Tan

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Main Category: Dermatology
Also Included In: Cosmetic Medicine / Plastic Surgery;  Public Health;  Cancer / Oncology
Article Date: 21 Sep 2006 - 8:00 PDT

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A cream which has been shown to trigger the skin to produce a tan without direct exposure to sunlight has been developed by scientists at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Children's Hospital Boston, USA. Studies on genetically engineered, fair-skinned, red-haired mice, were successful.

You can read about this experiment in the journal Nature.

The mice were genetically engineered to have a disorder called xeroderma pigmentosum, their skin behaves in a similar way to skin of fair-skinned and/or red-haired people who do not tan, but burn when exposed to UV radiation (sunlight). The cells in their skin can't repair DNA damage caused by radiation.

The cream makes the skin behave as if it were hit by the sun's ultraviolet light. Fair-skinned people, as well as people with red hair, do not tan properly. They have a MC1R defect, a receptor which when triggered produces pigmentation. This defect means lower production of cAMP, a chemical which stimulates the melanocytes to produce pigmentation. In simple terms, this means that these people do not tan - they burn when exposed to sunlight. Many people with this rare genetic disorder have to stay in indoors while the sun is shining.

The more your skin is burned when exposed to sunlight the higher your chances are of developing skin cancer.

The scientists applied a cream, which contained Forskolin, a chemical from the Forskohli plant, a tropical mint plant from India, to the skin of the mice. Forskolin is known to raise cAMP levels. The mice's skin got darker as a result - they developed a tan. The scientists found that the tan looked virtually identical to the tan achieved from exposure to the sun.

If human skin reacts in the same way to this cream, it will mean that fair-skinned and/or red haired people can be triggered to produce the same pigmentation.

Apart from developing a sunless sun tan, the cream also seems to protect the skin better from exposure to UV light, meaning better protection from skin cancer.

Whether or not this cream can benefit humans in the same way as the genetically-engineered mice remains to be seen. Human skin is much thicker than the skin of mice. The cream needs to penetrate deeply enough to trigger the production of pigments.

Dr David Fisher, team leader, said "These studies suggest that a drug-induced rescue of the tanning mechanism may correspondingly rescue at least some aspect of skin cancer protection. Such sunless tanning may also dissuade sun-seeking behaviours, which undoubtedly contribute significantly to high skin cancer incidence."

Topical drug rescue strategy and skin protection based on the role of Mc1r in UV-induced tanning
John A. D'Orazio, Tetsuji Nobuhisa, Rutao Cui, Michelle Arya, Malinda Spry, Kazumasa Wakamatsu, Vivien Igras, Takahiro Kunisada, Scott R. Granter, Emi K. Nishimura, Shosuke Ito, David E. Fisher
Nature 443, 340 - 344 (21 Sep 2006)
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Written by: Christian Nordqvist
Editor: Medical News Today
Copyright: Medical News Today
Not to be reproduced without permission of Medical News Today

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