title: The Kollias legacy: Skin autofluorescence and beyond.
abstract: In a paper published at the J Invest Dermatol in 1998 Nik Kollias and coworkers described distinct changes in skin native fluorescence associated with skin aging and photoaging, using in vivo fluorescence excitation spectroscopy. The assignment of the 295 nm band to tryptophan fluorescence had a profound significance influencing many later studies from multiple groups. The reproducible changes in skin native fluorescence suggested that aging causes predictable alterations in both the epidermis and the dermis, whereas chronic UV exposure induces the appearance of new fluorophores. This seminal, but insufficiently widely appreciated work deserves re-examination as it points to important horizons in future experimental dermatology, such as cancer diagnostics, diabetes, wound healing, and understanding skin aging and photoaging mechanisms.
authors.affiliation: MTASS - Statistical & Decision Sciences, Janssen R&D, Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson, Spring House, PA, USA.
authors.forename: Paulo R
authors.initials: PR
authors.lastname: Bargo
authors.affiliation: Retired, Wellman Center for Photomedicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA.
authors.forename: Apostolos
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Doukas
authors.affiliation: Dermatology Service, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY, USA.|Dermatology Service, Medicine Department, Ramon y Cajal Hospital, Alcalá University, Madrid, Spain.
authors.forename: Salvador
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: González
authors.affiliation: California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Gopinathan
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Menon
authors.affiliation: Emerging Science & Innovation, Johnson & Johnson Consumer Inc., Skillman, NJ, USA.
authors.forename: Apostolos
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-7833-5204
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Pappas
authors.affiliation: Bayer Consumer Health, Whippany, NJ, USA.
authors.forename: Eduardo C
authors.initials: EC
authors.lastname: Ruvolo
authors.affiliation: Emerging Science & Innovation, Johnson & Johnson Santé Beauté France, Johnson & Johnson Group of Consumer Companies, Issy-les-Moulineaux, France.
authors.forename: Georgios N
authors.initials: GN
authors.lastname: Stamatas
mesh_terms: D003880:Dermatology / Q000266:history*; D005453:Fluorescence; D049673:History, 20th Century; D049674:History, 21st Century; D006801:Humans; D015595:Skin Aging / Q000502:physiology*; D013050:Spectrometry, Fluorescence / Q000266:history; D014364:Tryptophan / Q000032:analysis / Q000266:history*; D014481:United States
chemical_list: D014364:Tryptophan
keywords: aging; fluorescence; proliferation; skin; tryptophan