COMPARISON BETWEEN THE L-DOPA HISTOFLUORESCENCE PROCEDURE AND THE INDIRECT IMMUNOFLUORESCENCE WITH ANTI-T6 AND ANTI-HLA-DR MONOCLONAL-ANTIBODIES IN VISUALIZING LANGERHANS CELLS OF HUMAN EPIDERMIS

In order to assess the reliability of the L-DOPA histofluorescence (HF) procedure in visualizing the Langerhanscells (LC) of human epidermis, serial sections of human normal skin samples have been incubated with L-DOPA and alternatively processed for the L-DOPA HF and the indirect IF with anti-T6 and anti-HLA-DR monoclonal antibodies. Results demonstrated a good correlation of LC labelling; comparison between the number of L-DOPA positive (T6 positive and L-DOPA positive) HLA-DR positive dendritic cells did not show statistically significant differences. Therefore, the L-DOPA HF represents a valuable method for detecting LC in the human normal epidermis. © 1990, VEB Gustav Fischer Verlag Jena. All rights reserved.