Human skin grafts on nude athymic mice: A light microscopic stereological study

Abstract

A morphometric procedure is presented, which allows quantitative information to be obtained from the epidermis at the light microscope level. The application of this procedure to human skin grafted to the nude mouse revealed acanthosis of the grafted epidermis compared to the original donor skin. All epidermal layers were thicker, but the increase in the granular layer was especially marked. The ratio of the basement membrane surface to the epithelial surface showed no significant change. A possible explanation for the acanthosis of the graft might be the higher mechanical stress on the nude mouse compared to the original site on the abdomen. This adaptation of the grafted epidermis does not limit the usefulness of this animal model for dermatological research, when it is assessed by objective methods, allowing statistical comparison as described here.

Lipid Composition and Barrier Function of Human Skin after Grafting onto Athymic Nude Mice

“…Hence, in the present study, despite the observed hyperproliferation and increase in pigmentation of the graft which had also been reported by other authors [25], we found no change in the structure and composition of epidermal lipids.…”

Human Skin Grafts on Athymic Nude Rats

“…3) with the exception of a slight de crease of the graft size and an increase of the epidermal thickness. The last observation has recently been verified by quantitative mor phometric analyses in human skin grafts on nude mice [3]. The results were, therefore, nearly identical to those, obtained in the nude mouse.…”

Application of stereology to dermatological research

“…Another feature that is easily estimated by stereological techniques is mean epidermal thickness. Human skin grafted onto nude mice was shown to exhibit acanthosis over time following transplantation and the magnitude of acanthosis and the degree to which each separate epidermal layer contributed to this was determined using line intercepts and point counting (37). The pilosebaceous unit was studied in patients with senile sebaceous gland hyperplasia and both the relative volume (with regards to the dermal volume) of the pilosebaceous unit, the sebaceous gland and differentiated sebaceous epithelium were found to have a higher relative volume compared with healthy controls using simple point counting and light microscopy on haematoxylin-eosin stained sections (38).…”