Co-expression of vimentin and cytokeratins in parietal endoderm cells of early mouse embryo

Abstract

Of the five classes of intermediate filaments found in vertebrate tissues, the cytokeratins are considered unique to epithelial tissues, while vimentin is expressed by endothelial and mesenchymal cells. In neither case is the precise function of the filament system known. Epithelial cells in culture often express vimentin as well as cytokeratins, but co-expression in vivo, as reported for pleomorphic adenomas of the parotid gland and metastatic carcinoma cells in ascites or pleural fluid, is still controversial. Here we report the co-expression of cytokeratins and vimentin in situ, in the parietal endoderm of the mouse embryo 8.5-13.5 days old. This population of individual, motile cells seems to be derived from a conventional epithelium by migration and differentiation. Our results support the idea that vimentin expression is specifically related to reduced cell-to-cell contact, and to the independent existence of a cell following detachment from an epithelial sheet.

Changes in nuclear morphology during apoptosis correlate with vimentin cleavage by different caspases located either upstream or downstream of Bcl‐2 action

“…Vimentin cleavage may be useful for detecting these multiple pathways, since at least two distinct caspases, either upstream or downstream of Bcl-2, are involved. Although vimentin is predominantly expressed in cells of mesodermal origin in adult bodies, the protein is found transiently at high levels in brain, heart, lung, skeletal muscle and eye lens during development, implying that this protein plays a significant role in development (Franke et al 1982;Lane et al 1983;Cochard & Paulin 1984). In addition to developmental regulation, vimentin expression can be growth-regulated, as up-regulation is seen in tumour cells and rapidly growing cells treated with growth factors (Ferrari et al 1986;Rittling & Baserga 1987).…”

A CK19CreERT knockin mouse line allows for conditional DNA recombination in epithelial cells in multiple endodermal organs

“…K19 encodes an intermediate filament protein (Moll et al, 1982) that is expressed in multiple cell types from the epiblast stage and is maintained in multiple epithelial cell types of later embryonic and postnatal stages (Bosch et al, 1988;Lane et al, 1983;Moll et al, 1982;Quinlan et al, 1985). For example, K19 is highly expressed in the pancreatic ducts of the adult pancreas (Deramaudt et al, 2006), but is absent or weak in acini and islets (Brembeck et al, 2001 We derived a K19 CreERT allele by replacing K19 ATG with a CreER T -cDNA followed by a SV40 polyadenylation signal (see Fig.…”

Contribution of proliferation and DNA damage repair to alveolar epithelial type 2 cell recovery from hyperoxia

“…To determine the identity of these cells, we fixed cultured isolates and then immunostained them to detect expression of cytokeratin, considered an epithelial cell-specific marker, or vimentin, considered a marker specific for fibroblasts (20). According to these differential expression markers, the majority of cells obtained were of epithelial origin (Fig.…”