the hunt for natural skin whitening agents寻找自然的皮肤美白剂.pdfVIP

Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2009, 10, 5326-5349; doi:10.3390/ijm OPEN ACCESS International Journal of Molecular Sciences ISSN 1422-0067 /journal/ijms Review The Hunt for Natural Skin Whitening Agents Nico Smit 1,*, Jana Vicanova 2 and Stan Pavel 3 1 Department of Clinical Chemistry, room L02-56, Leiden University Medical Center, P.O. Box 9600, 2300 RC Leiden, The Netherlands 2 DermData, Prague, Czech Republic; E-Mail: JV@ (J.V.) 3 Department of Dermatology, Leiden University Medical Center, P.O. Box 9600, 2300 RC Leiden, The Netherlands; E-Mail: S.Pavel@lumc.nl (S.P.) * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; E-Mail: N.Smit@lumc.nl; Tel.: +31-71-5264870; Fax: +31-71-5266753. Received: 5 November 2009; in revised form: 24 November 2009 / Accepted: 9 December 2009 / Published: 10 December 2009 Abstract: Skin whitening products are commercially available for cosmetic purposes in order to obtain a lighter skin appearance. They are also utilized for clinical treatment of pigmentary disorders such as melasma or postinflammatory hyperpigmentation. Whitening agents act at various levels of melanin production in the skin. Many of them are known as competitive inhibitors of tyrosinase, the key enzyme in melanogenesis. Others inhibit the maturation of this enzyme or the transport of pigment granules (melanosomes) from melanocytes to surrounding keratinocytes. In this review we present an