Neonatal sebaceous glands: fine structure of sebaceous and dendritic cells

Ultrastructural features of sebaceous glands in newborns were examined in adnexal polyp lesions of neonatal skin. Material for electron microscopy was obtained from the nipple areola of 10 Japanese newborn babies of both sexes, less than 8 days of age. The cell organization of the neonatal sebaceous acini consisted of undifferentiated, differentiating, and mature sebaceous cells, and the sequence of sebaceous transformation seemed to be consistent with that described in the postnatal acini. The sheet of continuous basal lamina covering the sebaceous acini was neither distorted nor convoluted. This configuration in the basal lamina revealed no convincing evidence for physiological involution of the neonatal sebaceous cells were identified at the outer periphery of the sebaceous glnads. Melanocytes in symbiosis with the sebaceous acini in concurrent presence of Langerhans cells.