Water permeation of reaggregated stratum corneum with model lipids.

Corneocytes were prepared from stratum corneum after extraction of the lipids and then were reaggregated with model lipids to form a membrane. The transport of water through the membrane was found to be similar to earlier published values for reaggregated stratum corneum formed with the indigenous lipids. Similar values were also obtained when only partially saponified free fatty acids were present as lipids. These results support an earlier hypothesis, that the lipid barrier to water penetration of the stratum corneum is determined by the structural organization of the lipids, not by the exact chemical structure of individual species.