Fig. 1.

Different disruption methods cause abrasion of SC layers. Photomicrographs of frozen cross-sections of hairless mouse skin before (a), directly after disruption with acetone (b) and tape-stripping (c) are shown. The lipophilic fluorescent dye Nile Red stains for nonpolar lipids. The KOH expanded corneocytes can easily be distinguished. Alkali expanded safranin stained cross-sections of mouse epidermis are depicted in panelsd (untreated), e (acetone-treated) and f (tape-stripped). The corneocyte layers on 20 different locations were counted and the mean + SD is presented in panelg