Acne  is a  follicular disease;  some follicles are acne prone, others  are not and  so  it is useful  to have techniques  which isolate individual  viable sebaceous glands. Kellum has described a method for the isolation of human  sebaceous  glands  but  this involves their unphysiological exposure to  1M CaCl2 for two hours. This technique has provided useful information on ductal bacteria; details are given in Chapter 11. Recently Lee and Kealey have developed a  technique  for  making  available  viable  healthy sebaceous glands.  This will prove to be a useful step forward in our further understanding of these glands.

  The skin can  then be dissected  with sharp  scissors  and the dissection placed in a plastic Petri dish under  an Olympus  binocular  dissecting microscope. Glands may be picked out using two pairs of stainless steel Dumont No. 5  microforceps. Unfortunately, this technique severs  the  unit at  various points  along the duct and makes studies of the duct less than perfect. After isolation the glands are  dissected  free of collagen bundles and transferred to 0.5 ml bicarbonate buffered medium. In this medium lipogenesis can be measured.

 

  The viability of sebaceous glands may be judged by their ability to synthesize lipid  at the rate of 39.7  ± 3.7pmol glucose incorporated into lipid/gland/hr. The rate  of  sebaceous  gland lipogenesis  in vivo  is not known.  However, Cooper et al have described a rate of skin plug lipogenesis of 1,810 ±  370 pmol/hr/4 mm punch  biopsy. The density of sebaceous  glands in human skin has been reported as ranging from 100 to 900 gland/cm2 31 and this provides a range of sebaceous gland lipogenesis in skin plugs at 16.0 ± 3.3 to 144.1 ± 29.4pmol/hr/sebaceous  gland.  The figure of  39.7 ± 3.7 pmol/hr/isolated gland falls within this range.