Abstract
For years, clinical studies involving human volunteers and several known pre-clinical in vivo models (i.e., mice, guinea pigs) have demonstrated their reliability in evaluating the effectiveness of a number of depigmenting agents. Although these models have great advantages, they also suffer from several drawbacks, especially involving ethical issues regarding experimentation. At present, a new depigmenting model using zebrafish has been proposed and demonstrated. The application of this model for screening and studying the depigmenting activity of many bioactive compounds has been given great attention in genetics, medicinal chemistry and even the cosmetic industry. Depigmenting studies using this model have been recognized as noteworthy approaches to investigating the antimelanogenic activity of bioactive compounds in vivo. This article details the current knowledge of zebrafish pigmentation and its reliability as a model for the screening and development of depigmenting agents. Several methods to quantify the antimelanogenic activity of bioactive compounds in this model, such as phenotype-based screening, melanin content, tyrosinase inhibitory activity, other related proteins and transcription genes, are reviewed. Depigmenting activity of several bioactive compounds which have been reported towards this model are compared in terms of their molecular structure and possible mode of actions. This includes patented materials with regard to the application of zebrafish as a depigmenting model, in order to give an insight of its intellectual value. At the end of this article, some limitations are highlighted and several recommendations are suggested for improvement of future studies.
Highlights
Melanin, a pigment secreted by melanocytes in the basal layer of the epidermis, serves to protect human skin from ultraviolet radiation, free radicals and reactive oxygen species [1]
It has been demonstrated that pigmentation in zebrafish embryos could be stimulated via α-melanocyte stimulating hormone (α-MSH) but little is known about the effect of other stimulating hormones and compounds [11,40,46]
Early marker for neural crest (NeC)-derived melanocytes and other melanin-synthesizing cells in and detailed protocol related to temperature, time, chemicals
Summary
A pigment secreted by melanocytes in the basal layer of the epidermis, serves to protect human skin from ultraviolet radiation, free radicals and reactive oxygen species [1]. Clinical trials using human volunteers and several known preclinical trials using in vivo models (i.e., mice, guinea pigs) have demonstrated their reliability in evaluating the effectiveness of a number of depigmenting agents [3,4,5,6,7,8]. This new model serves as a reliable model and tool to study various depigmenting agents. The present article discusses several haveand beentool employed using this model to date, such agents This new model serves as a methods reliable that model to study various depigmenting phenotype-based screening,several melanin content, that. The applications of this model towards several known and newly discovered relationship between in vitro models and the molecular structure of bioactive compounds are depigmenting agents are compared and demonstrated. At the end of this article, some limitations regarding this model are discussed and several
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