Biological Pathway
Melanogenesis
Last updated
The making of melanin, the pigment that colours skin, hair and eyes. Melanocytes convert the amino acid tyrosine into melanin through a chain of steps controlled by the enzyme tyrosinase, driven partly by ultraviolet light and partly by hormonal signalling through the melanocortin 1 receptor. The finished pigment is packaged and passed to the surrounding skin cells.
Why it matters here
It explains why several melanocortin compounds on this site carry pigment darkening, new moles and freckling among their recorded effects: those follow directly from the pathway they act on.
What it is not
More melanin is not sun protection, and the two are freely conflated in product copy. Pigment change is also not a cosmetic footnote: new or changing pigmented lesions are something a clinician assesses, and this site records such reports without assessing them.
Also called
- melanogenesis
- pigmentation
- melanin synthesis
Pigmentation is the broader everyday word and covers colour changes that have nothing to do with melanin, so it is wider than this pathway.
Compounds carrying this term
None on file yet. This term is in the controlled vocabulary but no compound record currently uses it — which is a statement about our coverage, not about the term.