Loss of keratin 14 expression from immortalized keratinocytes by promoter methylation.
Rosita KohIldiko SzeverenyiDeclan Patrick LunnyGoi Hui EngE Birgitte LanePublished in: Experimental dermatology (2024)
Immortalized keratinocytes can offer a low-cost experimental platform for human skin research, with increased cell yield compared to primary cultures. However, the usefulness of these surrogate cell models is highly dependent on their ability to retain the phenotypic attributes of the parent cells. Keratins K14 and K5 are the hallmarks of undifferentiated, mitotically active basal keratinocytes. We observed occasional progressive loss of K14 expression in growing keratinocyte cell lines, with persistent retention of K5 and an epithelial phenotype, and investigated possible reasons for this. We show that K14 repression occurs by DNA promoter methylation of KRT14 gene and is compounded by histone deacetylation and by the presence of EGF. In vivo, keratinocytes shut down K14 synthesis as they commit to terminal differentiation and move from the basal to spinous layer, but by laser-capture microdissection of human epidermis we could detect no evidence of increased selective KRT14 methylation in this normal process. Loss of K14 expression suggests that epidermal identity of cultured keratinocytes can be compromised in certain tissue culture situations, possibly due to the immortalization method and persistent EGF supplementation.
Keyphrases
- dna methylation
- poor prognosis
- genome wide
- wound healing
- low cost
- endothelial cells
- single cell
- gene expression
- cell therapy
- multiple sclerosis
- binding protein
- transcription factor
- induced apoptosis
- growth factor
- high throughput
- stem cells
- cell proliferation
- mesenchymal stem cells
- cell cycle arrest
- circulating tumor
- circulating tumor cells
- bone marrow
- pi k akt
- genome wide identification