Separation of epidermal cells by density centrifugation: a new technique for studies on normal and pathological differentiation.

Murine keratinocytes, isolated by flotation trypsinization of skin, can be separated into five groups by centrifugation through Percoll, a colloidal silica gradient. Within each group a good correlation was found between density, plating efficiency, morphological appearance, DNA synthesis, and degree of keratinization/cornification. This method can be applied equally well to fetal, newborn, or adult keratinocytes and should be useful in a variety of studies including isolation of subpopulations of pathological cell types, work on chalones and hyperplastic diseases such as psoriasis, and in vitro transformation studies.