Oral keratinocytes act as the major barrier to physical, microbial, and chemical agents that may cause local cell injury. They are involved in the proinflammatory process through the production of cytokines either constitutively or after a variety of stimuli, implying that they may potentially participate in controlling oral infections through an inflammatory process involving different interleukins, such as IL-1? and IL-18. Oral keratinocytes express a variety of differentiation markers, the expression of which is influenced by calcium-induced changes in the transcription of target genes. Oral keratinocytes share major structural and functional features with the well-characterized dermal keratinocyte and provide a good model to study basic keratinocyte biology as well as processes of immortalization and malignant transformation.HOK from AcceGen Research Laboratories are isolated from human oral mucosa. HOK are cryopreserved on passage one culture and delivered frozen. Each vial contains >5×10^5 cells in 1 ml volume. HOK are characterized by immunofluorescent method with antibodies to cytokeratine-8, -18 and -19. HOK are negative for HIV-1, HBV, HCV, mycoplasma, bacteria, yeast and fungi. HOK are guaranteed to further expand for 15 population doublings in the condition provided by AcceGen Research Laboratories.

For research use only