Flow cytometry of keratinocytes

A prerequisite for using flow cytometry (FCM) is the availability of isolated single cells. Procedures for separation and isolation of keratinocytes from animals and man are available, and the resulting single cell suspensions have been subjected to FCM measurements. The major advantage of the method is the accuracy and speed with which a variety of cellular constituents can be quantified. FCM of keratinocytes has, hitherto, been mainly confined to measurements of nuclear DNA for estimation of cell-cycle distributions and for ploidy studies. In mouse epidermis, cell-cycle distributions were estimated from sequentially obtained DNA histograms and evaluated with other cell kinetic measurements, resulting in new information about epidermal cell-cycle progression, not achievable by any of the methods alone. The best way, therefore, to increase our knowledge of keratinocyte proliferation, is the combined use of DNA FCM and other cell kinetic methods. DNA FCM has also been applied to healthy and diseased human epidermis, and may add valuable information to the classification of skin disease in selected cases. It is believed that further progress in the characterization of keratinocyte growth and development will depend on parameters other than DNA alone.