Dear Andi,
Melanocytes are the pigment-producing (such as melanin) cells of the skin.
Melanin is transferred from melanocytes to a pool of surrounding
keratinocytes. H&E staining can show a negative image of the melanocytes and
some histochemical methods can also identify active melanocytes. However it
is known that these methods of counting melanocytes are flawed. The normal
melanocytes can be immunohistochemically labelled. One recent paper (Applied
Immunohistochemictry and Molecular Morphology 10(3);199-204,2002) compared
several antibodies such as S100, Mel-5, Melan-A, NKI/beteb,c-kit, vimentin
and CK34BE12 for the demonstration of normal melanocytes in FFPE skin. They
concludeded that Mel-5(Signet) antibody was the most sensitive in staining
all the melanocytes present.
I hope this helps.






Young Kwun
Senior Hospital Scientist
Dept. of Anatomical Pathology
Concord Hospital
Concord NSW 2139 Australia
Tel)61-2-9767-6075
Fax)61-2-9767-8427
kwuny@email.cs.nsw.gov.au

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> -----Original Message-----
> From: Andrea Grantham [mailto:algranth@u.arizona.edu]
> Sent: Friday, 6 December 2002 08:22
> To: histonet@pathology.swmed.edu
> Subject: stain for Melanocytes
>
>
> Help! We need a stain to demonstrate melanocytes. We can find stains for
> melanin in all the reference books in the lab but not melanocytes - would
> this be the same stain? After staining they want to do image analysis on
> the sections.
> Andi
> .....................................................................
> : Andrea Grantham, HT(ASCP)     Dept. of Cell Biology & Anatomy     :
> : Sr. Research Specialist       University of Arizona               :
> : (office:  AHSC 4212)          P.O. Box 245044                     :
> : (voice:  520-626-4415)        Tucson, AZ  85724-5044    USA       :
> : (FAX:  520-626-2097)          (email:  algranth@u.arizona.edu)       :
> :...................................................................:
>            http://www.cba.arizona.edu/histology-lab.html
>
>
>