Abstract
We evaluated the inhibitory effect of water‐soluble fullerene on UV‐induced and the hydroperoxide t‐BuOOH‐induced apoptosis‐like cell death against HaCaT cells. Pretreatment with polymer wrapped water‐soluble fullerene, Radical Sponge (Vitamin C60 BioResearch Corp., Tokyo, Japan), prevented the cell death, exhibiting anti‐oxidant activity. We also assessed the effect of Radical Sponge in HMV‐II human melanoma cells and NHEM normal human epidermal melanocytes. The results indicated that Radical Sponge affected melanogenesis in both human skin cells, displaying without any detectable cytotoxicity. We have found that Radical Sponge is endowed with a series of factors such as anti‐oxidant ability and anti‐melanogenesis effect for juvenile skin protection.