Acidic Cytokeratin Antibody [AE1]

Background:

Cytokeratins, also called keratins or simply CKs, are a family of fibrous structural proteins and a major structural component in the outer layer of human skin, as well as hair and nails.  There are 20 human epithelial keratins which can be divided into two subfamiles: acidic and basic (more recent human genone sequencing has identified an additional 20 members). The formation of cytokeratin intermediate filaments requires the pairing of at least one acidic and one basic subfamily member. Members of the same keratin subfamily share extended sequence homology while members of different subfamilies show only limited sequence homology.

This antibody is specific for the 56.5kDa (CK10), 50kDa (CK14), 50kDa (CK15), 48kDa (CK16), and 40kDa (CK19) keratins of the acidic (Type I or LMW) subfamily. Many studies have shown the usefulness of CKs as markers in cancer research and tumor diagnosis, as epithelial tumors generally maintain the same CK expression patterns as their counterpart normal tissue. Clone AE1 is commonly used with clone AE3 as a pan cytokeratin antibody cocktail (Cat No V2330).