Fig. 3

Sources, research models and potential applications of melanocytes in regenerative medicine. Melanocytes are distributed not only in the skin and eye, but also in other organs/tissues such as the inner ear, heart, meninges of the brain and spinal cord, and mucosal tissues. The research models used to study their potential in regenerative medicine include tissue-engineered substitutes, spheroids, extracellular vesicles and patient-derived iPSCs. These models have promising clinical applications such as disease modeling, drug testing and therapy development which will enhance our understanding and treatment of pigmentation disorders and melanomas