title: Identification of striatin, a desmosomal protein, in the canine corneal epithelium.
abstract: Striatin is a scaffolding protein expressed in brain and cardiac tissues. In the heart, striatin has been localized to the region of the cardiac desmosome. A causal mutation within the gene encoding for this scaffolding protein has been described as the etiology for arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy, a disease of the cardiac desmosome, in a canine model. Hemidesmosomes are cell adhesion complexes located within the cornea where they anchor the corneal epithelium to the stroma at the basement membrane and participate in cell-signaling processes. Traditional cell adhesion desmosomes are also known to link the corneal epithelial cells together. We hypothesized that striatin may be found in the cornea localized to regions of either hemidesmosomes and/or desmosomes. Immunohistochemical evaluation was performed to evaluate for striatin labeling in normal canine cornea. Striatin was localized to the cytoplasmic region of corneal epithelial cells. The role of striatin in corneal disease warrants investigation.
authors.affiliation: University of California Davis, School of Veterinary Medicine, Davis, CA, USA. Electronic address: jstern@ucdavis.edu.
authors.forename: Joshua A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Stern
authors.affiliation: Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine, Blacksburg, VA, USA.
authors.forename: Sunshine
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lahmers
authors.affiliation: North Carolina State University College of Veterinary Medicine, Raleigh, NC, USA.
authors.forename: Kathryn M
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Meurs
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002148:Calmodulin-Binding Proteins / Q000378:metabolism*; D003896:Desmosomes / Q000378:metabolism*; D004285:Dogs / Q000378:metabolism*; D019573:Epithelium, Corneal / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D002148:Calmodulin-Binding Proteins
keywords: Adhesion; Cornea; Desmosome; Hemidesmosome; Striatin