Dissecting the Role of the Common Neurotrophin Receptor CD271 in the Skin: Generation and Characterization of a Novel Mouse Model with Keratinocyte-Specific Conditional Deletion
December 2022
in “
The journal of investigative dermatology/Journal of investigative dermatology
”
TLDR Deleting the CD271 gene in mouse skin cells leads to disorganized skin and increased hair growth, suggesting CD271 is important for skin health.
The study presents a novel mouse model with a conditional deletion of the CD271 gene in keratinocytes, created using Keratin14-Cre mediated excision. The CD271cKO mice showed significant epidermal disorganization, with basal keratinocytes losing their typical arrangement and an increase in epidermal thickness and hair follicle count in the dermis compared to wild-type (WT) mice. At postnatal day 1 (P1), cKO skin and keratinocytes exhibited higher activation of hyperproliferation and stemness markers, such as decreased Dlx3 expression and increased KRT6 levels. From 4 months of age, cKO mice spontaneously developed skin lesions with features of hyperproliferative skin diseases, including inflammatory cell accumulation. The study concludes that CD271 is a crucial regulator of differentiation and skin organization, and the CD271cKO model will be instrumental in studying the neurotrophin (NT) network in the development of skin pathologies.
