Epidermal stem cells are of major importance for tissue homeostasis, wound repair, tumor initiation, and gene therapy. Here we describe an in vivo regeneration assay to test for the ability of keratinocyte progenitors to maintain an epidermis over the long-term in vivo. Limiting dilution an ...
Biological risk management is required in modern tissue engineering. Particular attention should be paid to the culture medium and the scaffold used. In this perspective, it is important to define minimal culture conditions which allow proper growth and differentiation of epitheli ...
The uppermost layer of our skin, the epidermis, is formed largely of keratinocytes which constitute the skin’s major barrier function and the first line of defence against environmental physical, chemical and biological agents. The subsequent layer, the dermis, which is mainly formed by f ...
A considerable number of transgenic or knockout mice in which epidermal keratinocytes have been targeted die shortly after birth due to barrier defects. In this case, recovery and cultivation of keratinocytes from these animals provide an opportunity for in vitro studies. Working with i ...
Human embryonic stem (hES) cells can differentiate into virtually all somatic cell types. In order to incorporate these derivatives into scientific or clinical applications, efficient methods of directing hES cell differentiation to pure subpopulations are required. Here we des ...
This chapter deals with protocols to set up human keratinocyte cultures in serum-free conditions and lead them to autocrine autonomously growing conditions. These conditions have proven adequate for studies of epidermal differentiation by measurements of the expression of typi ...
In this chapter we review protocols for transient transfection of primary keratinocytes. The ability to transfect primary epidermal cells regardless of their differentiation status allows the biochemical and molecular characterization of multiple proteins. We review meth ...
Compared to primary keratinocytes, HaCaT cells are easier to transfect and yet still maintain at least some features of normal epidermal proliferation and differentiation. This chapter describes methods used in our laboratory to maintain HaCaT cells in an undifferentiated state and ...
Many eukaryotic cells can elicit intracellular signaling relays to produce pseudopodia and move up to the chemoattractant gradient (chemotaxis) or move randomly in the absence of extracellular stimuli and nutrients (random movement). A precise spatiotemporal regulation of Ras ...
Invadopodia are hair-like membrane protrusions projecting from the ventral side of the plasma membrane of tumor cells invading into an extracellular matrix (ECM). Formation of invadopodia and phagocytosis of partially degraded ECM is correlated with invasiveness of cancer cells. ...
Intravital two-photon imaging allows the observation of immune cells in intact organs of live animals in real time. Recently, several studies using two-photon microscopy have detailed the motility of mouse B and T lymphocyte within lymph nodes and have shown a dependence upon chemokine rec ...
A broad array of biological responses ranging from cell polarization, movement, immune and inflammatory responses, as well as prevention of HIV-1 infection, are triggered by the chemokines, a family of structurally related chemoattractant proteins that bind to specific seven-tra ...
Asymmetric localization of intracellular proteins and signals directs movement during axon guidance, endothelial cell invasion, and immune cell migration. In these processes, cell movement is guided by external chemical cues in a process known as chemotaxis. In particular, leuko ...
Zebrafish have emerged as a powerful model organism to study neutrophil chemotaxis and inflammation in vivo. Studies of neutrophil chemotaxis in animal models have previously been hampered both by the limited number of specimens available for analysis and by the need for invasive proce ...
Quantitative studies of chemotactic signaling require experimental techniques that can expose single cells to chemical stimuli with high resolution in both space and time. Recently, we have introduced the method of flow photolysis (Anal. Chem. 79:3940–3944, 2007), which combines mi ...
The primary function of HIV-1 binding to its chemokine coreceptors is to mediate fusion and viral entry. However, it has been known that this interaction also triggers a variety of signaling cascades. It is likely that the virus-mediated signaling events may facilitate viral infection in var ...
The involvement of calcium signalling during chemotaxis in Dictyostelium discoideum is well documented. Spatiotemporal increases of intracellular calcium (i) have been observed within seconds of stimulation with the chemoattractants folic acid and cAMP. This rise in i locali ...
Anton van Leeuwenhoek first observed bacterial motility in the seventeenth century, and Wilhelm Pfeffer described bacterial chemotaxis in the late nineteenth century. A number of methods, briefly summarized here, have been developed over the years to quantify the motility and chemo ...
Phosphoinositide (PI) signalling is one of multiple signalling cascades involved in chemotaxis in Dictyostelium discoideum. PI signalling comprises a complex interaction of multiple enzymes, each with multiple phospholipid substrates and thus products, often relying upon ...
Dictyostelium discoideum is one of the most facile eukaryotic systems for the study of chemotactic response to secreted chemical ligands. Dictyostelium grow as individual cells, using bacteria and fungi as primary nutrient sources; during growth, Dictyostelium moves direction ...