A transgenic toolkit for visualizing and perturbing microtubules reveals unexpected functions in the epidermis

Abstract
Article and author information
Metrics

Abstract

The physiological functions of microtubules (MTs) are poorly understood in many differentiated cell types. We developed a genetic toolkit to study MT dynamics and function in diverse cells. Using TRE-EB1-GFP mice, we found that MT dynamics are strongly suppressed in differentiated keratinocytes in two distinct steps due to alterations in both growth rate and lifetime. To understand the functions of these MT populations, we developed TRE-spastin mice to disrupt MTs in specific cell types. MT perturbation in post-mitotic keratinocytes had profound consequences on epidermal morphogenesis. We uncoupled cell-autonomous roles in cell flattening from non-cell-autonomous requirements for MTs in regulating proliferation, differentiation, and tissue architecture. This work uncovers physiological roles for MTs in epidermal development, and the tools described here will be broadly useful to study MT dynamics and functions in mammals.

Article and author information

Author details

Andrew Muroyama

Department of Dermatology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, United States

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Terry Lechler

Department of Dermatology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, United States

For correspondence
terry.lechler@duke.edu

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-3901-7013

Funding

National Institute of General Medical Sciences (Research Grant)

Terry Lechler

National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (Research Grant)

Terry Lechler

National Science Foundation (Graduate Student Fellowship)

Andrew Muroyama

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Ethics

Animal experimentation: All mouse studies were performed in accordance with our protocol (A147-15-05) approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of Duke University.

Copyright

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.