Cytokeratins comprise a diverse group of intermediate filament proteins (IFPs) that are expressed as pairs in both keratinized and non-keratinized epithelial tissue. Cytokeratins play a critical role in differentiation and tissue specialization and function to maintain the overall structural integrity of epithelial cells. Cytokeratins have been found to be useful markers of tissue differentiation which is directly applicable to the characterization of malignant tumors. Cytokeratin 18 is a type I cytokeratin. It is, together with its filament partner Cytokeratin 8, perhaps the most commonly found products of the intermediate filament gene family. They are expressed in single layer epithelial tissues of the body. Mutations in this gene have been linked to cryptogenic cirrhosis. Two transcript variants encoding the same protein have been found for this gene.Keratin 18 is often used together with Cytokeratin 8 and Cytokeratin 19 to differentiate cells of epithelial origin from hematopoietic cells in tests that enumerate circulating tumor cells in blood.
Background References
1. Kuramoto G. et. al. Preventive effect of oral mucosal epithelial cell sheets on intrauterine adhesions. Hum Reprod 30:406-16 (2015).
2. Huang YS. et. al. RGD surface functionalization of the hydrophilic acrylic intraocular lens material to control posterior capsular opacification. PLoS One 9:e114973 (2014).
Immunofluorescence analysis of paraffin-embedded human liver tissue labeling Cytokeratin 18 (HA720151F) and Vimentin (EM0401).
The section was pre-treated using heat mediated antigen retrieval with Tris-EDTA buffer (pH 9.0) for 20 minutes. The tissues were blocked in 10% negative goat serum for 1 hour at room temperature, washed with PBS. And then probed with the primary antibodies Cytokeratin 18 (HA720151F, red) at 1/50 dilution and Vimentin (EM0401, green) at 1/1,000 dilution overnight at 4 ℃, washed with PBS.
iFluor™ 488 conjugate-Goat anti-Mouse IgG (HA1125) was used as the secondary antibody at 1/1,000 dilution. DAPI was used as nuclear counterstain.
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