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Intercellular adhering junctions with an asymmetric molecular composition: desmosomes connecting Merkel cells and keratinocytes

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Abstract

Merkel cells (MCs) are special neuroendocrine epithelial cells that occur as individual cells or as cell groups within the confinements of a major epithelium formed and dominated by other epithelial cells. In the epidermis and some of its appendages MCs are mostly located in the basal cell layer, occasionally also in suprabasal layers and generally occur in linear arrays in outer root sheath cell layers of hair follicles. As MCs are connected to the adjacent keratinocytes by a series of adhering junctions (AJs), of which the desmosomes are the most prominent, these junctions represent heterotypic cell–cell connections, i.e. a kind of structure not yet elucidated in molecular terms. Therefore, we have studied these AJs in order to examine the molecular composition of the desmosomal halves. Using light- and electron-microscopic immunolocalization and keratin 20 as the MC-specific cell type marker we show that the plaques of the MC half of the desmosomes specifically and constitutively contain plakophilin Pkp2. This protein, however, is absent in the keratinocyte half of such heterotypic desmosomes which instead contains Pkp1 and/or Pkp3. We discuss the developmental, tissue-architectonic and functional importance of such asymmetric junctions in normal physiology as well as in diseases, in particular in the formation of distant tumor cell metastasis.

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Abbreviations

AJ:

Adherens junction

Dsg:

Desmoglein

IF:

Intermediate-sized filament

mAbs:

Monoclonal antibodies

MC:

Merkel cell

ORS:

Outer root sheath

Pkp:

Plakophilin

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Acknowledgements

We thank Caecilia Kuhn and Ewa Wladykowski for excellent technical assistance as well as Prof. Heiner Nieman (Institute of Farm Animal Genetics; Friedrich-Loeffler-Institute, Mariensee; Neustadt am Ruebenberge; Germany) for providing several porcine embryonic tissue samples. This work was supported by the Federal Ministry for Research and Technology (BMBF; to W.W.F.; START-MSC; grant: 01GN0942).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Helmholtz Group for Cell Biology, German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), Im Neuenheimer Feld 581, Building TP4, D-69120, Heidelberg, Germany

    Steffen Rickelt & Werner Wilhelm Franke

  2. Department of Dermatology and Venerology, University Hospital Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany

    Ingrid Moll

  3. Progen Biotechnik, Heidelberg, Germany

    Steffen Rickelt & Werner Wilhelm Franke

Authors
  1. Steffen Rickelt
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  2. Ingrid Moll
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  3. Werner Wilhelm Franke
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Correspondence to Werner Wilhelm Franke.

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This paper is dedicated to the memory of our colleague and friend, Hanswalter Zentgraf (Heidelberg), who died July 18, 2011 and is credited with creating many of the diagnostic antibodies used.

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Rickelt, S., Moll, I. & Franke, W.W. Intercellular adhering junctions with an asymmetric molecular composition: desmosomes connecting Merkel cells and keratinocytes. Cell Tissue Res 346, 65–77 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00441-011-1260-0

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