Genetic characterization of Cornifelin1 in early vertebrate development

Abstract

Cornifelin1(CNFN1) is known to be expressed in cervix and fetal skin. In previous study, it is over expressed in psoriatic skin and cornified cell envelope(CE). Because it interacts with involucrin(IVL) and loricin which critical factors of CE assembly, CNFN1 may contribute atopic skin disease and scaffolding CE structure. However, overexpressed CNFN1 did not affect keratinocyte differentiation and also did not caused psoriasis in mammal. CNFN belongs to Placenta specific protein 8(PLAC8) family which is expressed particularly in dendritic cells generated in vitro from myeloid pregenitor cells(Marie-Clotilde Rissoan et al., 2002). Plac8 is prominently expressed in blood cell lineage and immune organ such as bone marrow, lymph node, colon in human. We defined that Cornifelin1(CNFN1) can be used as a novel myeloid cell marker. CNFN1 is expressed in future dorsal neural tube, probably neural crest cell precursors in early stage and also Ventral Blood Island(VBI) from stage 17, and disperse at St. 28 in Xenopus Laevis. Morpholino(MO) mediated knockdown of CNFN1 did not seem to significantly affect neural crest marker sox9 patterns. However, knockdown of cornifelin1 seemed to slightly change the migration patterns of myeloid cells. In addition, the data suggest that CNFN1 localizes at the cell membrane and nuclei in developing embryonic tissues.