Proteins of Mammalian Epidermis*

Dissecting the role of cadherin-catenin proteins in mammalian epidermis.

I ntercellular adhesion plays a central role in normal metazoan development and homeostasis (1, 2). Cadherin– catenin-mediated adhesion structures are composed of multiple core proteins that may have not only common but also distinct functions. In this issue of PNAS, two studies from the Fuchs laboratory (3, 4) provide interesting novel insights into differential roles of cadherin–catenin prote...

Fibrous proteins of epidermis.

The permeability barrier in mammalian epidermis

The structural basis of the permeability barrier in mammalian epidermis was examined by tracer and freeze-fracture techniques. Water-soluble tracers (horesradish peroxidase, lanthanum, ferritin) were injected into neonatal mice or into isolated upper epidermal sheets obtained with staphylococcal exfoliatin. Tracers percolated through the intercellular spaces to the upper stratum granulosum, whe...

Perinuclear sudanophil bodies in mammalian epidermis.

1. In the epidermis of laboratory mammals there are perinuclear lipid spherules which are demonstrated clearly with sudan black. The centre of the larger of these droplets is occupied by a sudanophobe core of varying dimensions. 2. The distribution of the bodies corresponds to the osmiophil elements in comparable tissues, and the structural pattern is similar to that of the Golgi elements in ot...

Localization of sites of lipid biosynthesis in mammalian epidermis.

The end-product of epidermal differentiation is a stratified layer of corneocytes whose extracellular lipid bilayers provide a permeability barrier. It is generally accepted that the epidermis synthesizes most if not all of the lipids found in this tissue and that extra-epidermal tissues contribute very little to this lipid content. Moreover, the individual epidermal strata in which epidermal l...