RESEARCH ARTICLE


Adherens Junctions, Desmosomes and Tight Junctions in Epidermal Barrier Function



Johanna M. Brandner1, §, Marek Haftek*, 2, §, Carien M. Niessen3, §
1 Department of Dermatology and Venerology, University Hospital Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany
2 University of Lyon, EA4169 Normal and Pathological Functions of Skin Barrier, E. Herriot Hospital, Lyon, France
3 Department of Dermatology, Center for Molecular Medicine, Cologne Excellence Cluster on Cellular Stress Responses in Aging-Associated Diseases (CECAD), University of Cologne, Germany


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Creative Commons License
© 2010 Brandner et al.

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

* Address correspondence to this author at the University of Lyon, EA4169 Normal and pathological functions of skin barrier, E. Herriot Hospital, Lyon, France; Tel: +33 472110292; Fax: 33 472110290; E-mail: haftek@univ-lyon1.fr
# All authors contributed equally to the manuscript, are corresponding authors and are named alphabetically


Abstract

The skin is an indispensable barrier which protects the body from the uncontrolled loss of water and solutes as well as from chemical and physical assaults and the invasion of pathogens. In recent years several studies have suggested an important role of intercellular junctions for the barrier function of the epidermis. In this review we summarize our knowledge of the impact of adherens junctions, (corneo)-desmosomes and tight junctions on barrier function of the skin.

Keywords: Cadherins, catenins, claudins, cell polarity, stratum corneum, skin diseases.