Epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT), the phenotypical change of cells from an epithelial to a mesenchymal type, is thought to be a key event in invasion and metastasis of adenocarcinomas. These changes involve loss of keratin expression as well as loss of cell polarity and adhesion. We here aimed to determine whether the loss of keratin expression itself drives increased invasion and met...

In studies of gene regulation of keratin 16, we reported previously that simian virus 40 promoter factor 1 shows a functional cooperation with c-Jun and coactivators p300/CBP in driving the transcriptional regulation of epidermal growth factor (EGF)-induced keratin 16 gene expression. In the present study, we found that the stimulated expression of keratin 16 by EGF was mediated mainly through ...

The aim of this study was to present a case of enteric duplication cyst and criteria for a proper differential diagnosis. A 51-year-old male was hospitalized for pancreatic tail neoplasm and distal pancreatectomy with splenectomy was performed. During surgery, a jejunal cystic lesion was incidentally detected and jejunectomy was performed. Microscopically, the cyst was observed to be covered by...

Keratin intermediate lament networks are part of the cytoskeleton in epithelial cells. They were found to regulate viscoelastic properties and motility of cancer cells. Due to unique biochemical properties of keratin polymers, the knowledge of the mechanisms controlling keratin network formation is incomplete. A combination of deterministic and stochastic modeling techniques can be a valuable s...

Immunocytochemical stains for three epithelial cell markers--keratin, epithelial membrane antigen (EMA) and carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA)--have been examined on paraffin-embedded material from 14 patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). Tumour cells staining positively for keratin were found in all cases and for EMA in eight; two tumours contained CEA-positive cells. Seven cases of Hodgki...

The keratin intermediate filament cytoskeleton protects epithelial cells against various types of stress and is involved in fundamental cellular processes such as signaling, differentiation and organelle trafficking. These functions rely on the cell type-specific arrangement and plasticity of the keratin system. It has been suggested that these properties are regulated by a complex cycle of ass...

We used developing human hair follicle cells for the isolation of hard alpha-keratin structural components. Intracellular dispersions examined by electron microscopy contained both individual alpha-keratin filaments and the tactoid-like filament assemblies observed in situ organized along subfibrillar arms of macrofibrils. The assemblies of average width 47 nm were composed of closely packed al...

The keratin filament network is an important part of the cytoskeleton. It is involved in the regulation of shape and viscoelasticity of epithelial cells. The morphology of keratin networks depends on post-translational modifications of keratin monomers. In-vitro studies indicated that network characteristics, such as filament crosslink density, determines the biophysical properties of the filam...

Human hair has an important and undeniable relevance in society due to its important role in visual appearance and social communication. Hair is mainly composed of structural proteins, mainly keratin and keratin associated proteins and lipids. Herein, we report a comprehensive study of the content and distribution of the lipids among ethnic hair, African, Asian and Caucasian hair. More interest...

Keratins are cytoskeletal filament-forming proteins found in skin and other epithelial (sheet) tissues (Table 1). Keratins (type I and II), and other highly related (types III–VI) intermediate filament or nanofilament proteins, used to be thought of as very inert because they form filament networks that are not easily disrupted, in contrast to actin and microtubule cytoskeleton systems, which c...