title: Keith R. Porter Lecture, 1996. Of mice and men: genetic disorders of the cytoskeleton.
abstract: Since the time when I was a postdoctoral fellow under the supervision of Dr. Howard Green, then at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, I have been interested in understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying growth, differentiation, and development in the mammalian ectoderm. The ectoderm gives rise to epidermal keratinocytes and to neurons, which are the only two cell types of the body that devote most of their protein-synthesizing machinery to developing an elaborate cytoskeletal architecture composed of 10-nm intermediate filaments (IFs). Our interest is in understanding the architecture of the cytoskeleton in keratinocytes and in neurons, and in elucidating how perturbations in this architecture can lead to degenerative diseases of the skin and the nervous system. I will concentrate on the intermediate filament network of the skin and its associated genetic disorders, since this has been a long-standing interest of my laboratory at the University of Chicago.
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA.
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Fuchs
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003599:Cytoskeleton; D016110:Epidermolysis Bullosa Simplex / Q000235:genetics / Q000503:physiopathology; D030342:Genetic Diseases, Inborn; D006801:Humans; D007633:Keratins / Q000502:physiology; D051379:Mice; D009422:Nervous System Diseases / Q000235:genetics*; D012871:Skin Diseases / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D007633:Keratins