Chemical characterization of hair melanins in various coat-color mutants of mice.
Mammalian melanins exist in two chemically distinct forms: the brown to black eumelanins and the yellow to reddish pheomelanins. Melanogenesis is influenced by a number of genes, the levels of whose products determine the quantity and quality of the melanins produced. To examine the effects of various coat-color genes on the chemical properties of melanins synthesized in the follicular melanocytes of mice, we have introduced new methods to solubilize differentially pheomelanins and brown-type eumelanins. We applied these and previously developed high-performance liquid chromatography and spectrophotometric methods for assaying eu- and pheomelanins to characterize melanins in various mutant mice: black, lethal yellow, viable yellow, agouti, brown, light, albino, dilute, recessive yellow, pink-eyed dilution, slaty, and silver. It was demonstrated that 1) complete solubilization of melanins in Soluene-350 is a convenient method to estimate the total amount of eu- and pheomelanins, 2) lethal yellow, viable yellow, and recessive yellow hairs contain almost pure pheomelanins, and 3) melanins from brown, light, silver, and pink-eyed black hairs share chemical properties in common that are characterized by partial solubility in strong alkali. We suggest that 1) the brown-type eumelanins have lower degrees of polymerization than the black-type eumelanins, and 2) slaty hair melanin contains a greatly reduced ratio of 5,6-dihydroxyindole-2-carboxylic acid-derived units as compared with black and other eumelanic hair melanins. These results indicate that our methodology, high-performance liquid chromatography and spectrophotometric methods combined, may be useful in chemically characterizing melanin pigments produced in follicular melanocytes.
Ozeki
H
H
Fujita Health University School of Health Sciences, Aichi, Japan.
Ito
S
S
Wakamatsu
K
K
Hirobe
T
T
D000818:Animals; D002851:Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid; D006197:Hair / Q000378:metabolism*; D006200:Hair Color / Q000235:genetics*; D008543:Melanins / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000378:metabolism; D051379:Mice / Q000235:genetics*; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D008817:Mice, Mutant Strains; D009154:Mutation; D013053:Spectrophotometry
D008543:Melanins; C018362:pheomelanin; C041877:eumelanin