Glycolic acid is currently reported to have beneficial effects on the photoaged skin. These effects may be through the modulatory action of glycolic acid in the production of dermal extracellular matrix proteins of fibroblast.

The aim of this study was to investigate the specific effect of glycolic acid on the collagen and elastic fiber gene expression in vitro.

Human skin fibroblasts were cultured from normal skins of excised specimens and glycolic acid (75 µg/ml) was treated. After 24 hours of treatment, six each cell lines were processed for extraction of RNA and subjected to Northern analysis.

Type I collagen mRNA expression was significantly increased in the glycolic acid-treated fibroblasts. Elastin mRNA expression did not show any significant change.

These results suggested that glycolic acid induced the increase of type I collagen mRNA expression and had the specific biologic effect on fibroblast.