The objective of this study was to establish a new method for reconstruction of a tissue-engineered skin containing melanocytes by employing tissue engineering. The keratinocytes, melanocytes and dermal fibroblasts were isolated and purified from human foreskin biopsies. Then the cells were used to construct a tissue-engineered skin containing melanocytes. The localization of melanocytes in the tissue-engineered skin was detected by DOPA staining, S-100 immunohistochemical staining and transmission electron microscope (TEM). The results showed that the melanocytes could be detected in the basal layer of the constructed skin and the melanocytes showed dendritic morphology. Moreover the constructed skins were used to repair the athymic mice skin defects. Animal experiment results indicated that the skin equivalents could successfully repair full thickness skin defects in athymic mice and generated black skins by 6 weeks after grafting. Melanocytes located in the basal layer of the athymic mice skin could also be detected by using the S-100 immunohistochemical staining. Our established method is useful to repair the full-thickness skin defects. (C) 2007 International Federation for Cell Biology. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.