AUTHORS : Castiel Higounenc I Ferraris C Gaetani Q Lavalle A Philippe M Schmidt R 2000 Experimental dermatology 2000 ;18 (8):541-546 L'OREAL - Life Sciences Advances Research, Centre Charles Zviak - 90, rue du General Roguet, 92583 Clichy, France Print Augmentation du contenu en ceramides des epidermes humains reconstruits apres traitement avec un sphingolipide exogene a base sphinganine The study of mouse epidermal biology has been hampered by the lack of a good in vitro model for the culture of mouse keratinocytes which allowed the reconstruction of a fully differentiated epidermis. We adapted the Prunieras' model, also called the Dead de-Epidermized Dermis model (DED), to mouse keratinocytes and showed that a neo-epidermis can be reconstructed exhibiting a complete differentiation program. We also used this model to culture transgenic mouse keratinocytes. We observed that transgene expression occurred in the correct location and that the neo-epidermis mimed previous in vivo observations obtained with integrin skin-targeted transgenic mice. Therefore, this model will be a powerful tool to further investigate normal mouse and transgenic keratinocyte biology.