Androgen receptors in cultured human skin fibroblasts.

Human skin may be considered as a target organ for androgens, since events characteristic of androgen action have been described in this tissue, as well as in cultured human skin fibroblasts. The culture of human skin fibroblasts gives the opportunity to work on living cells, under controlled conditions, in a renewable material from a single skin biopsy. Using this method, we showed the presence od DHT-receptors in the human fetus and we studied the ontogenesis of androgen receptors in relation to sexual differentiation. In the neonatal period, the physiological T rise was not concurrent with a variation in sex skin androgen receptors. The evolution of DHT binding during puberty is now under investigation. These data suggest that the androgen receptor is not modulated by plasma androgens. Androgen receptor determination is of value in defining the biochemical defects involved in partial and complete androgen insensitivity syndrome (twenty-six cases in our study). In idiopathic hirsutism, DHT binding is used to detect an eventual local hypersensitivity. Fibroblast cultures have also been shown to be an excellent model for the screening of compounds which might block the expression of androgen action by competing for the androgen receptors. Cultured skin fibroblasts are a valuable model for the study of androgen and antiandrogen action in human skin.