melanophagy

English

Etymology

From melano- +‎ -phagy.

Noun

melanophagy (uncountable)

1. The loss (by "eating away") of melanin
   • 2004, V. Krishna, Textbook of Pathology, page 1055:

     Melanin-bearing keratinocytes are more in number in the epidermal type; phagocytes with melanophagy in the papillary dermis characterize the dermal type of melasma.

   • 2020, Johanna Escoubet et al, "ABHD11, a new diacylglycerol lipase involved in weight gain regulation" in PLOS 1

     Only some eye defects were reported, including iris synechiae, melanophagy in the iris or the ciliary body ...

   • 2020 October 15, Hyun Jun Park, Doo Sin Jo, Dong Sig Choi, Ji-Eun Bae, Na Yeon Park, Jun-Bum Kim, Jeong Ho Chang, Joong Jin Shin, Dong-Hyung Cho, “Ursolic acid inhibits pigmentation by increasing melanosomal autophagy in B16F1 cells”, in Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications, volume 531, number 2:

     In this study, we showed that ursolic acid inhibits skin pigmentation by promoting melanosomal autophagy, or melanophagy, in melanocytes.