RESEARCH ARTICLE
Corneodesmosin: Structure, Function and Involvement in Pathophysiology
Nathalie Jonca, Cecile Caubet, Marina Guerrin, Michel Simon, Guy Serre*
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2010Volume: 4
First Page: 36
Last Page: 45
Publisher ID: TODJ-4-36
DOI: 10.2174/1874372201004010036
Article History:
Received Date: 06/11/2009Revision Received Date: 17/12/2009
Acceptance Date: 21/12/2009
Electronic publication date: 23/4/2010
Collection year: 2010
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.
Abstract
Corneodesmosin (CDSN) was identified in the early 90th by raising monoclonal antibodies against human plantar stratum corneum. It is a protein specific to desmosomes that will undergo transformation into corneodesmosomes, i.e. in man, desmosomes of the epidermis, of the three epithelial layers of the inner root sheath of the hair follicles and of the hard palate epithelium. After its secretion by granular keratinocytes via the lamellar bodies, CDSN is incorporated into the desmoglea of the desmosomes shortly before their transformation into corneodesmosomes. CDSN displays adhesive properties, mostly attributable to its N-terminal glycine-rich domain, and is sequentially proteolyzed as corneocytes migrate towards the skin surface. The recent inactivation of Cdsn in mice induced a lethal epidermal barrier disruption and hair follicle degeneration related to desmosome dysfunction, confirming the essential role of the protein in epidermis and hair follicle integrity. CDSNCDSN is located on chromosome 6, in the major psoriasis susceptibility locus PSORS1. Intriguingly, the only monogenic disease identified so far associated with nonsense mutations in CDSN, leading to the formation of a truncated protein, is a rare autosomal dominant disease, hypotrichosis simplex of the scalp. In this review, we expose data from the discovery of the protein to the most recent findings related to the relationship between its structure and function. In particular, the important benefits of mouse models and human diseases for the comprehension of CDSN role in the epidermis and hair follicles are reported in details.