The protein encoded by this gene is a member of the keratin gene family. The type II cytokeratins consist of basic or neutral proteins which are arranged in pairs of heterotypic keratin chains coexpressed during differentiation of simple and stratified epithelial tissues. This type II cytokeratin is expressed largely in the upper spinous layer of epidermal keratinocytes and mutations in this gene have been associated with bullous congenital ichthyosiform erythroderma. The type II cytokeratins are clustered in a region of chromosome 12q12-q13. [provided by RefSeq, Jul 2008]
Forensic Context
A study in human skin wound healing using single-cell and spatial transcriptomics identified the KRT2 as a marker for suprabasal keratinocyte identification, where it was expressed in a suprabasal cell cluster in spatial transcriptomic analysis [Liu et al. DOI:10.1016/j.stem.2024.11.013]. A study in humans identified the KRT2 as a candidate mRNA marker for skin identification, ascertained from the GNF SymAtlas database [Visser et al. DOI:10.1007/s00414-010-0545-2].