Abstract
Skin surface lipid analyses of 28 acne vulgaris patients and 35 normal controls were performed by thin layer chromatography and gas chromatography (Table 1). Skin surface lipids were collected from forehead, right cheek, upper region of back, forearm, tibial region of leg and both palms by the swabbing method with acetone. Total lipid was separated by thin layer chromatography into five fractions: I, phospholipid; II, free cholesterol and diglyceride; III, free fatty acid; IV, triglyceride and V, cholesterol ester. Analytical procedure by thin layer chromatography was shown in Table 2. The results (Table 4) were summerised as follows:
1) Females showed a greater variation in their lipids, especially on the face and the palms, than males.
2) Lipids in female showed smaller regional differences than male.
3) The contents of fraction III (free fatty acid) of total lipids on the face and the back were higher in female than male, but there were no differences on the forearm, the leg and the both palms.
4) Fraction IV (triglyceride) was higher on the face than on the forearm, the leg and the palms, but fraction V (cholesterol ester) was lower.
5) There were no differences of the skin surface lipid contents between both palms.
6) There were no differences of the skin surface lipid contents between acne vulgaris and normal controls (Table 7).
The fatty acid composition of the skin surface lipids were examined by gas chromatography. The analytical condition was shown in Table 3 and their chromatograms were shown in Fig. 2. The results (Table 8) were summerised as follows:
1) Variation by sex. a) Variation by sex were remarkable on the forearm and the leg, there were small differences on the face and the back, b) Males gave higher values of palmitoleic acid (C16-1) on the face than females, but there were no differences on the back, c) Males gave higher values of palmitoleic acid and lower values of stearic acid (C18-0) and oleic acid (C18-1) on the forearm and the palms, d) Males gave higher values of only palmitoleic acid on the leg.
2) Regional differences, a) Fraction X4, X5 and X6 gave higher values on the face and the back, and gave the lower on the leg and the palms, b) Palmitoleic acid gave lower values, stearic acid and oleic acid gave the higher on the leg. c) C18 group acids such as stearic, oleic and linoleic acid (C18-2) gave a greater variance in females, especially on the face and the palms.
3) The fatty acid composition of fraction III, IV and V on the back were examined by gas chromatography. The results were summerised in Table 9. Fraction III gave the same fatty acid composition as that of the total lipid fraction, and fraction V gave lower values of myristic acid (C14-0). the higher of X4, the higher of X6, the lower of palmitic acid (C16-0), the higher of palmitoleic acid and the lower of C18 group acids.
4) There were no differences of the fatty acid composition of skin surface lipids between acne vulgaris and normal controls on the face and the back (Table 10).
