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Rodent of the Week: These self-tanners are ready for beach volleyball

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Who needs sunless tanning products? Researchers reported this week that, in mice, they have learned how to increase melanin production. Melanin is the substance produced in the body that gives skin pigment and helps block ultraviolet radiation that causes sunburn and skin cancer.

Scientists at Massachusetts General Hospital discovered a molecular switch that helps control the natural process that produces skin pigmentation. Researchers were able to block an enzyme, called PDE-4D3, that limits melanin production. Using mice with red hair and melanin-producing cells in their skin (normal mice do not have these cells) the researchers found that blocking the enzyme caused the animals’ skin to darken significantly. Sort of like tanning from the inside out.

“Not only would increased melanin directly block UV radiation, but an alternative way to activate the tanning response could help dissuade people from sun tanning or indoor tanning, both of which are known to raise skin cancer risk,” the lead author of the study, Dr. David Fisher, said in a news release.

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Researchers envision a type of drug applied to the skin that could block the enzyme to allow an increase in melanin production. Fisher said his team is on the hunt for something that could work. The study was published Thursday in the journal Genes & Development.

-- Shari Roan / Los Angeles Times

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