Melanin production
Melanogenesis (MITF/TYR)
Also searched as Melanogenesis (MITF/TYR).
You want it maintained: healthy melanogenesis sustains natural pigmentation.
In depth
Tyrosinase-driven melanogenesis — the pigment-production machinery behind hair and skin color.
What drives it
Pigment stem cells increases it.
Nishimura 2005, Science 307:720 — melanocyte stem-cell maintenance in the follicle niche sustains the melanocyte reservoir for hair pigmentation; McSC loss causes graying. PMID 15618488 Verbatim: “McSCs are forced to exit their quiescent state and differentiate into pigment producing melanocytes within the niche”. doi 10.1007/s12015-026-11056-1 · PMID 15618488 · PMC12960322
Tissue renewal signaling increases it.
WNT signaling regulates hair pigmentation by controlling the transcription of the tyrosinase gene, which encodes the rate-limiting enzyme in melanin synthesis — both directly and through microphthalmia-associated transcription factor, the master regulator of melanogenesis. Why it matters structurally: the Wnt → Hair Growth link is the anagen-initiating edge on the hair node. This says the same switch that starts the growth phase also sets the pigment program — which is why graying and hair loss share drivers without being the same outcome. doi 10.1016/j.jid.2023.06.024 · PMC12846973
UV radiation increases it.
UV exposure drives keratinocyte p53 and POMC signaling to melanocyte MC1R, inducing eumelanin synthesis. doi 10.3389/fvets.2026.1826884
What it drives
It reduces Hair pigment loss.
'Stem cells run out, hair turns gray' is the usual reading. The authoritative review states the opposite ordering: human graying invariably begins with the gradual decline in melanogenesis — reduced tyrosinase activity, defective melanosome transfer and apoptosis of hair-follicle pigmentary unit melanocytes — and is thus a primary event of the anagen hair bulb, not the bulge. Only eventually does the bulge stem-cell pool deplete, at which stage graying becomes largely irreversible. The commercial implication is exact: the reversible window is the bulb phase, before stem-cell depletion. Any claim about reversing gray is bounded by which stage the follicle is in. And there is still NO universally accepted model of human hair graying, with the extent of genetic contribution unclear. doi 10.1111/brv.12648
Blends that modulate it
Each blend page names this pathway and carries the study behind its claim.
See it on the map
Open the causal map to follow this pathway upstream and downstream, arrow by arrow, each with its study.