Contributions of the epidermal growth factor receptor to keratinocyte motility

The epidermal growth factor (EGF) receptor plays a central role in numerous aspects of keratinocyte biology. In normal epidermis, the EGF receptor is important for autocrine growth of this renewing tissue, suppression of term inal differentiation, promotion of cell survival, and regulation of cell mi gration during epidermal morphogenesis and wound healing. In wounded skin, the EGF receptor is transiently up-regulated and is an important contributo r to the proliferative and migratory aspects of wound reepithelialization. In keratinocytic carcinomas, aberrant expression or activation of the EGF r eceptor is common and has been proposed to play a role in tumor progression . Many cellular processes such as altered cell adhesion, expression of matr ix degrading proteinases, and cell migration are common to keratinocytes du ring wound healing and in metastatic tumors. The EGF receptor is able to re gulate each of these cellular functions and we propose that transient and d ynamic elevation of EGF receptor during wound healing, or constitutive over expression in tumors, provides an important contribution to the migratory a nd invasive potential of keratinocytes. (C) 1998 Wiley-Liss, Inc.