To determine whether the factor(s) responsible for the conservation of epidermal specificities in adult guinea pigs and hamsters resides in the germinal layer of the epidermis or in the dermis, thin grafts of skin, possessing qualitatively distinct regional characteristics, were separated into their superficial epidermal and dermal components with the aid of trypsin. Dermis of one type was comb...

BACKGROUND Proteomic approaches have identified cancer specific biomarker proteins in the nuclear matrix fraction of cancer cells. We wanted to determine whether a similar approach could be used to investigate melanoma biomarkers. OBJECTIVE Since it was not clear that a nuclear matrix fraction could be isolated from the intact human epidermis, we first wanted to determine whether a nuclear ma...

In the epidermis, p53 plays an important role in UV-B protection that led us to examine the role, if any, that p63, a p53 homologue highly expressed in the basal layer of the epidermis, might play in the epidermal UV-B response. One p63 isoform, deltaNp63alpha, decreased dramatically in normal keratinocytes or newborn epidermis at both the protein and RNA levels after UV-B irradiation. In an at...

Zebrafish epidermal ionocytes are analogous to mammalian kidney cells in terms of expression and function of ion transporters. In this review, we summarize current findings about the development of the zebrafish epidermis and demonstrate how the zebrafish regulate stress acclimation through induction of cell differentiation. In addition, cellular homologies between zebrafish epidermal ionocytes...

When the whole skin of embryonic chickens is grown in culture, epidermal differentiation quite closely resembles that in vivo (Miszurski, 1937; Fell, 1957; Wessells, 1961). Separated epidermis, however, lacking its connective tissue, develops less well; in hanging drop cultures it may be maintained occasionally as an epithelial sheet which does not differentiate (Champy, 1914; Drew, 1922; McLou...