Melanin as a component of cerebral gliomas: the melanotic cerebral ependymoma.

Even though melanin is found in certain central nervous system neurons and leptomeningeal melanocytes, gliomas rarely possess melanin. A few rare lethal melanotic medulloblastomas found typically in the cerebellar vermis of children have been described, but neuroglial cells have not been observed to contain this pigment. Since glial elements and the melanotic pigmented layer of the retina are derived from the same ciliated epithelium of the embryonic neural tube, recognition of melanin in a cerebral glioma was predictable. Indeed, melanin was observed in a cystic cerebral ependymal glioma from a 30-year-old woman, supporting the potential of glial cells to produce melanin.