ABSTRACT
Stratum corneum (SC) is the outermost layer of skin and the skin barrier against chemicals, surfactants, UV irradiation, and environmental stresses.The SC has a heterogeneous structure composed of corneocytes embedded in the intercellar lipid lamellae, as illustrated in Figure 1. The morphology of the SC lipids is closely associated with the main epidermal barrier. Knowledge of the lipid structure is important in understanding the mechanism of irritant dermatitis and other SC diseases. The structural properties of the SC lipid are obtained by the analyses of aliphatic spin probes incorporated into intercellular lamella lipids using electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) (1-7). The EPR spin probe method measures nondistractively the ordering of the lipid bilayer of SC.
