Summary
Normal skin and uninvolved and involved psoriatic skin specimens were maintained in vitro in organ culture. The 3–4 mm punch-biopsied skin specimens were put freely into the culture medium with or without fetal calf serum, under an atmosphere of 95% O2 plus 5% CO2, and rotated at 60 rpm at 37‡C. In the serum-free culture medium (vitamin A-free) granular layers appeared in the involved psoriatic epidermis in culture. Addition of TGF-α caused normal skin and uninvolved and involved psoriatic skin specimens to become acanthotic and to degenerate easily almost to the full thickness of the epidermal layer in proportion to increasing concentrations of TGF-α as well as with the duration of the culture, but without disappearance of their granular layers. TGF-Β caused the normal skin and uninvolved psoriatic skin specimens to become thinned without disappearance of granular layers, but caused the involved psoriatic skin specimens to be thinned without appearance of granular layers in serumcontaining medium or with their disappearance in the serum-free medium. TGF-Β also antagonized the acanthotic and degenerative effect of TGF-α. The results suggest that TGF-α and TGF-Β may partially be related to the induction of psoriatic epidermal lesions.
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Kondo, S., Hozumi, Y., Maejima, H. et al. Organ culture of psoriatic skin: effect of TGF-α and TGF-Β on epidermal structure in vitro. Arch Dermatol Res 284, 150–153 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00372708
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00372708