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Identification of keratins and analysis of their expression in carp and goldfish: comparison with the zebrafish and trout keratin catalog

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Abstract

With more than 50 genes in human, keratins make up a large gene family, but the evolutionary pressure leading to their diversity remains largely unclear. Nevertheless, this diversity offers a means to examine the evolutionary relationships among organisms that express keratins. Here, we report the analysis of keratins expressed in two cyprinid fishes, goldfish and carp, by two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, complementary keratin blot binding assay, and immunoblotting. We further explore the expression of keratins by immunofluorescence microscopy. Comparison is made with the keratin expression and catalogs of zebrafish and rainbow trout. The keratins among these fishes exhibit a similar range of molecular weights and isoelectric points, with a similar overall pattern on two-dimensional gels. In addition, immunofluorescence microscopy studies of goldfish and carp tissues have revealed the expression of keratins in both epithelial and mesenchymally derived tissues, as reported previously for zebrafish and trout. We conclude that keratin expression is qualitatively similar among these fishes, with goldfish and carp patterns being more similar to each other than to zebrafish, and the cyprinid fishes being more similar to each other than to the salmonid trout. Because of the detected similarity of keratin expression among the cyprinid fishes, we propose that, for certain experiments, they are interchangeable. Although the zebrafish distinguishes itself as being a developmental and genetic/genomic model organism, we have found that the goldfish, in particular, is a more suitable model for both biochemical and histological studies of the cytoskeleton, especially since goldfish cytoskeletal preparations seem to be more resistant to degradation than those from carp or zebrafish.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Harald Genrich for supplementary immunofluorescence experiments, Dr. Christian Hunzinger for MALDI-TOF analysis, and Prof. Dr. Werner W. Franke's group for providing several antibodies and recombinant human keratins 8 and 18.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, Texas State University-San Marcos, San Marcos, TX, 78666, USA

    Dana M. García

  2. Max-Planck-Institute for Molecular Genetics, Ihnestrasse 73, 14195, Berlin, Germany

    Hermann Bauer

  3. Institute of Zoology, Johannes Gutenberg University, Johannes-von-Müller-Weg 6, 55099, Mainz, Germany

    Thomas Dietz, Thomas Schubert, Jürgen Markl & Michael Schaffeld

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  1. Dana M. García
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  2. Hermann Bauer
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  3. Thomas Dietz
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  4. Thomas Schubert
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  5. Jürgen Markl
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  6. Michael Schaffeld
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Correspondence to Michael Schaffeld.

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This work was supported by grants to J.M. from the Stiftung Rheinland Pfalz für Innovation (836-386261/138) and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Ma 843/5-1) and a grant to D.G. from the National Science Foundation (INT-0078261).

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García, D.M., Bauer, H., Dietz, T. et al. Identification of keratins and analysis of their expression in carp and goldfish: comparison with the zebrafish and trout keratin catalog. Cell Tissue Res 322, 245–256 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00441-005-0031-1

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