摘要
Current treatment of vitiligo is still a great challenge,since most cases of vitiligo have variable re-pigmentation outcomes due to their unpredictable responses to existing therapeutic regimens.There is an urgent need to identify this re-pigmentation process and to develop novel therapies.This review illustrates the most current research and latest understanding of vitiligo skin re-pigmentation and related regulatory mechanisms.Literature was collected from PubMed until January 2020,using the search terms including"vitiligo,""re-pigmentation,""phototherapy,""narrow-band ultraviolet B,""excimer,""fractional carbon dioxide laser,"and"melanocyte stem cells."Literature was mainly derived from English articles.Article type was not limited.Emerging evidence suggests that patients with vitiligo present various re-pigmentation patterns following ultraviolet B phototherapy,which relies on different cell reservoirs from the perilesional margins and/or from uninvolved hair follicles to replenish functional melanocytes that are lost in vitiliginous skin.The following events are likely to be involved in this re-pigmentation process,including:1)changes in the paracrine secretion and distribution of transforming growth factor-β1 in the bulge area and in the epidermis;2)the enhanced transfer of dermal pro-melanogenic growth factors to the epidermis;and 3)the induction of a C-X-C motif chemokine ligand(CXCL)12-enriched micro-environment that efficiently recruits CXCR4-or CXCR7-positive melanocytes.Ongoing studies on the cellular and molecular events underlying vitiligo re-pigmentation will help design new therapeutic strategies to improve treatment outcomes.
基金
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(No.81972919).
