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To characterize how structural properties are related to the morphological differentiation of melanosomes, two forms of melanosomes, commonly seen in mammals, were isolated from B16 and Harding Passey (HP) mouse melanomas. From these morphologically different melanosomes, tyrosinase was solubilized by BRIJ-35 and purified by affinity chromatographies substituted with tyrosinase substrates. We found that tyrosine ethyl ester (TEE) and dopa are effective and specific in retaining tyrosinase as an affinity media and that enzyme retrieval with approximately 100% recovery is possible by a substrate, TEE, or a competitive inhibitor, N-acetyl L-tyrosine. The purified tyrosinase of B16 and HP melanosomes possessed a common antigenic site and revealed little difference in size and the Mikaelis constant for dopa utilization. It is likely that tyrosinase is involved in melanosome morphogenesis only through melanization, and that it is not directly related to the architecture, i.e., lamellar and granular patterns, of the inner matrix.

Three out of fifteen cases of disseminated malignant melanoma with complete or partial responses to our combined chemoimmunotherapy, DTIC, ACNU, VCR and OK432, are reported. Case 1 responded completely with disappearance of skin and brain lesions. Case 2 responded partially to a lung metastasis. Case 3 responded totally with the complete disappearance of lung and brain metastatic lesions. None of these cases suffered any significant side effects during the trial.

An 85-year-old woman developed complete esophageal obstruction from benign mucous membrane pemphigoid. Electron microscopic examination of nonscarring cutaneous lesions revealed two patterns. The first pattern showed early degenerative changes of epidermal cells with loss of tonofilaments and hemidesmosomes; the second showed frank dermoepidermal cleavage within the intermembranous space in the presence of polymorphonuclear leukocytes and without any epidermal degeneration.