A switch in cytokeratin expression and intermediate filament organization associated with epithelial stratification

Low density gingival epithelial cells were cultured on the side of glass slides facing rat's tail collagen lattices. Under these conditions and in the presence of physiological level of calcium, colony formation was enhanced and stratification was slowed down. The strong attachment of the cells to glass slides permitted immunocytochemical examination of cytokeratin (CK) expression and their organization within individual cells during the different stages of epithelial maturation. The present results showed that during the stage of cell migration and colony formation, the cells express the same set of cytokeratins (basal cell marker 14, simple epithelial markers 8, 18 and 19, and marker of hyperproliferation 16) which forms a well-defined network of organized filaments. At the stratification stage, the filament network became dense by the additional expression of the markers of differentiation in non-keratinized stratified epithelia (CK 4 and 13). These appeared once individual cells started to overlap the basal cells, a period during which the cell-temporarily changed morphology. Whilst the suprabasal cells exhibited dense filament network labelled for CK 4 and 13, the density of labelled filaments for CK 14, 8 and 18 was much lower, indicating that these cells contained newly-formed filaments lacking the basal and simple epithelial keratins. The simple epithelial cytokeratins became weakly labelled in older cultures. The uncoupling of paired expression of cytokeratins 4 and 13 was observed in non-colony forming aged cells. This provides an example of altered program of cytokeratin expression during epithelial maturation.