Fatima Zorkot
Research Mentor: Hisham Bazzi
Mentor Department: Cell & Developmental Biology, Medicine
Author(s): Fatima Zorkot , Lisa Wirtz , Hisham Bazzi
Session: Session 7 (4:00 PM – 4:50 PM)
Presentation Type: Poster 29
Abstract
The skin epidermal barrier is essential for protecting the body from dehydration and environmental stress and gets established during late stages of embryonic development just before birth. Proper formation of this barrier is critical for postnatal survival, and disruptions in epidermal integrity have been linked to a range of developmental abnormalities. Understanding how and when this barrier forms is therefore an important focus in developmental biology and involves constant cellular rearrangement and junctional remodeling of the epidermal keratinocytes. However, the upstream cues underlying this cytoskeletal organization remain largely unknown. Previous work has shown that Striatin-Interacting Protein 1 (STRIP1), a core adapter of the Striatin-Interacting Phosphatases and Kinases (STRIPAK) complex that regulates PP2A phosphatase activity, is required for F-actin organization to govern cellular migration and convergent extension during mouse gastrulation. Here, we hypothesize that STRIP1 mediates the STRIPAK functions in cytoskeletal organization during epidermal morphogenesis. Epidermal loss of STRIP1 leads to a thinner epidermis with a leaky barrier, resulting in perinatal lethality of the mutant pups. In this study, a dye-based outside-in barrier assay was used to assess epidermal barrier function in late-stage mouse embryos and immunofluorescence stainings were performed to characterize the expression of epidermal differentiation markers in the absence of Strip1 compared to controls. Mouse embryos at different embryonic time points were collected and analyzed using a toluidine blue exclusion assay. Many steps like dissections, immunofluorescence staining, and permeabilization were performed before incubation with antibodies. These experiments provide reliable methods for evaluating STRIP1-dependent functions of skin epidermal development. The results generated using this assay contribute to a broader understanding of skin development and offer insight into how genetic or environmental factors may influence tissue integrity.
