Charlie Norwood VA Medical Center, Augusta, Georgia, USA; Departments of Physiology and Medicine (Dermatology), Georgia Health Sciences University, Augusta, Georgia, USA.
J Invest Dermatol. 2013 Mar;133(3):593-594. doi: 10.1038/jid.2012.423.
Previous studies using chicken ovalbumin upstream promoter transcription factor (COUP-TF)-interacting protein 2 (Ctip2) knockout mice have demonstrated the importance of this transcription factor for the formation of the epidermal permeability barrier. Because sphingolipids are crucial in generating the barrier, in this issue Indra and colleagues show, perhaps not surprisingly, that Ctip2 has a key role in sphingolipid metabolism. Thus, Ctip2 gene ablation alters sphingolipid levels and expression of genes encoding sphingolipid-metabolizing enzymes, in some cases by direct binding to their promoters. Abnormalities in Ctip2 could therefore underlie skin disorders characterized by an aberrant epidermal permeability barrier.
先前使用鸡卵清蛋白上游启动子转录因子（COUP-TF）-相互作用蛋白 2（Ctip2）敲除小鼠的研究表明，该转录因子对于表皮通透性屏障的形成非常重要。由于神经鞘脂在生成屏障方面至关重要，因此，Indra 及其同事在本期研究中表明，Ctip2 可能在神经鞘脂代谢中发挥关键作用，这或许并不令人惊讶。因此，Ctip2 基因缺失会改变神经鞘脂水平和编码神经鞘脂代谢酶的基因表达，在某些情况下，是通过直接结合其启动子。因此，Ctip2 的异常可能是具有异常表皮通透性屏障的皮肤疾病的基础。
