title: Full-thickness skin grafts from flaky skin mice to nude mice: maintenance of the psoriasiform phenotype.
abstract: Flaky skin (fsn) is an autosomal recessive mouse mutation with papulosquamous disease features similar to human psoriasis. In fsn/fsn skin, one sees marked acanthosis and hyperkeratosis with focal parakeratosis, subcorneal pustules, dermal capillary dilation, and a marked diffuse dermal infiltration of mixed inflammatory cells, predominantly lymphocytes. To determine if these pathologic features are a characteristic of the skin or a chronic autoimmune attack, we placed full-thickness skin grafts from affected homozygous (fsn/fsn) and normal littermate control (+/?) mice on the dorsal skin of genetically athymic nude (nu/nu) mice. After 10 weeks of observation, the grafts maintained the histologic phenotype of the donor animal. In the fsn/fsn grafts, there was persistence of both epidermal proliferation and dermal inflammation, characteristics of the mutation. The fsn/fsn phenotype was also confirmed by immunohistochemical evaluation for specific mouse keratinocyte marker expression. Based on tritiated thymidine uptake, we found DNA synthesis rates elevated threefold or more in fsn/fsn epidermis compared to littermate control mouse skin. Elevated rates of DNA synthesis remained a feature of the fsn/fsn grafts but not that of littermate control skin grafts. This study demonstrates that the psoriasiform phenotype of this mouse mutation can persist independent of the host thymic-derived immune system.
authors.affiliation: Jackson Laboratory, Bar Harbor, Maine 04609.
authors.forename: J P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Sundberg
authors.forename: R W
authors.initials: RW
authors.lastname: Dunstan
authors.forename: D R
authors.initials: DR
authors.lastname: Roop
authors.forename: W G
authors.initials: WG
authors.lastname: Beamer
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002470:Cell Survival / Q000235:genetics; D004817:Epidermis / Q000378:metabolism; D005260:Female; D005838:Genotype; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D007700:Kinetics; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D008817:Mice, Mutant Strains / Q000235:genetics*; D008819:Mice, Nude; D010641:Phenotype; D011565:Psoriasis / Q000235:genetics; D016038:Skin Transplantation / Q000473:pathology / Q000502:physiology*; D013936:Thymidine / Q000378:metabolism; D014316:Tritium
chemical_list: D014316:Tritium; D013936:Thymidine