My Drawing of an Early Keratinocyte

In my time as an undergraduate, I worked in a lab with an advisor who studied the North American Porcupine (Erethizon dorsatum). I mostly looked into their ecology and focused on their preferred habitat and main predators. Most people know porcupines for their quills, which are made of keratinized cells. These cells have most of the organelles of a normal animal cell when they are in the basal layer of the epidermis (see drawing below). Ribosomes are especially important for their later role in the production of keratin. However, as these cells move through the epidermal layers, they lose some of their organelles, such as the nucleus, rough endoplasmic reticulum, and the golgi apparatus.