Basal cell Cytokeratin

Cytokeratin is a subfamily of intermediate filament proteins with significant biochemical diversity. There are at least 20 different polypeptides in human epithelial tissues. Their molecular weight is between 40 kDa and 68 kDa, and their isoelectric pH is between 4.9-7.8. Individual cytokeratins are designated as 1 to 20. Various epithelia in the human body usually express cytokeratin, which is not only a characteristic of epithelial types, but also related to the degree of intraepithelial maturation or differentiation. The expression patterns of cytokeratin subtypes are increasingly used to distinguish different types of epithelial malignancies. Cytokeratin antibodies are not only helpful for the differential diagnosis of tumors using immunohistochemistry of tissue sections, but also useful tools for cytopathology and flow cytometry.