Open Access

Henning Schulze

• Human skin is perpetually exposed to a multitude of environmental stimuli, yet it maintains an effective barrier against harmful influences through specialized mechanisms and cells. In light of this, it is essential for many people to take care of their skin. Furthermore, cosmetics are used to realize various hedonic needs and aesthetic ideals. One branch of cosmetic research focuses on high-throughput screenings, which are used to identify new substances for product development. Utilizing molecular as well as cell biological methods, the murine melanocyte cell line B16-F1 was characterized, determining its suitability to be ultimately used within a ‘Melanin-Assay’. Therefore, comparative tests were conducted, which assessed B16-F1’s melanogenic stimulation as well as its inhibition in relation to the established melanocyte cell line B16V. It emerged that the melanogenesis of B16-F1 melanocytes was substantially higher. In addition, screenings of different melanogenesis inhibiting compounds revealed that B16-F1 appeared to be less affine than B16V. Especially low concentrations of melanogenesis inhibitors depicted small to no effect on B16-F1 melanocytes. Subsequent assays of expression analysis via immunofluorescence imaging and In-Cell Western were conducted to eluci-date critical protein expression throughout melanogenesis. Although the In-Cell Western did not provide robust data sets, certain aspects of the data provided room for interpretation of melanogenic processes. Whether a transition of cell lines from B16V to B16-F1 is justified would have to be confirmed by further experiments.