Keratin 18 is a type I cytokeratin. It is, together with its filament partner keratin 8, perhaps the most commonly found products of the intermediate filament gene family. They are expressed in single layer epithelial tissues of the body. Mutations in this gene have been linked to cryptogenic cirrhosis. Two transcript variants encoding the same protein have been found for this gene.[5]
Keratin 18 is often used together with keratin 8 and keratin 19 to differentiate cells of epithelial origin from hematopoietic cells in tests that enumerate circulating tumor cells in blood.[6]
- ^ a b c GRCh38: Ensembl release 89: ENSG00000111057 – Ensembl, May 2017
- ^ a b c GRCm38: Ensembl release 89: ENSMUSG00000023043 – Ensembl, May 2017
- ^ "Human PubMed Reference:". National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine.
- ^ "Mouse PubMed Reference:". National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine.
- ^ "Entrez Gene: KRT18 keratin 18".
- ^ W. Jeffrey Allard, Jeri Matera, M. Craig Miller, et al. (October 2004). "Tumor Cells Circulate in the Peripheral Blood of All Major Carcinomas but not in Healthy Subjects or Patients With Nonmalignant Diseases" (PDF). Clinical Cancer Research. 10 (20): 6897–6904. doi:10.1158/1078-0432.CCR-04-0378. PMID 15501967.