Maturation of epidermal Langerhans cells: increased expression of beta- and gamma-actin isoforms as a basis of specialized cell functions.

Epidermal Langerhans cells (LC) represent immature dendritic cells. During in vitro culture in the presence of keratinocytes they mature into potent immunostimulatory cells for naive T cells. This process is thought to simulate in vivo maturation of LC following activation by antigen contact. Maturation of LC is accompanied by morphological alterations. Applying a differential screening procedure we isolated differentially expressed cDNAs involved in the maturation events including cDNAs of the cytoskeletal actin isoforms beta- and gamma-actin. Stronger signals with hybridization probes derived from cultured LC compared with probes derived from freshly isolated LC indicate upregulation of a…