Studies on the pigmentation of skin grafts: the ultrastructure of epidermal melanoxytes.

We carried out ultrastructural studies on the epidermal melanocytes in human skin autografts, before and after transplantation. On comparing the results with those described in our previous paper, the present findings are in accord with those light microscope findings. As we suggested earlier, the degree of pigmentation in a skin graft is probably due not only to quantitative changes in the transfer and formation of melanosomes, but also to the distribution, the degradation pattern, and the size of the melanosomes within the keratinocytes. Rupture of lysosomes, as a consequence of transplantation, may also contribute to the pigmentation of the skin graft.