a complex connective tissue disorder. In addition, the patients had severe in- tellectual disability that cosegregated with the connective tissue phenotype. A combination of computational methods demonstrated the impact of the missense mutation on structural stability, multimeric assembly, and dy- namic behavior of the PYCR1 complex. We showed that Ala189 plays a pivotal role in maintaining the pentameric and decameric assembly of PYCR1, and that the p.Ala189Val mutation also leads to elimination of the critical inter- and intrasubunit interactions by affecting adjacent charged residues within the region in both pentameric and deca- meric conformations. These findings are predicted to result in loss of PYCR1 activity with severe phenotypic consequences. CONFLICT OF INTEREST The authors state no conflicts of interest. ACKNOWLEDGMENT Molecular dynamics simulation was performed using the Computing Cluster Facility of the University of Tehran, Iran. Carol Kelly assisted in manuscript preparation. Hassan Vahidnezhad 1,2,10 , Razieh Karamzadeh 3,4,10 , Amir Hossein Saeidian 1,10 , Leila Youssefian 1,9,10 , Soheila Sotoudeh 5 , Sirous Zeinali 2,6 , Mohammad Vasei 7 , Fatemeh Golnabi 6 , Taghi Baghdadi 8 and Jouni Uitto 1,* 1 Department of Dermatology and Cutaneous Biology, Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, USA; 2 Department of Molecular Medicine, Biotechnology Research Center, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Tehran, Iran; 3 Department of Biophysics, Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran; 4 Department of Molecular Systems Biology, Cell Science Research Center, Royan Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Technology, ACECR, Tehran, Iran; 5 Department of Dermatology, Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Pediatric Center of Excellence, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran; 6 Kawsar Human Genetics Research Center, Tehran, Iran; 7 Department of Pathology and Digestive Disease Research Institute, Shariati Hospital, Tehran University Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran; 8 Department of Orthopedic Surgery, Imam Khomeini Hospital, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran; and 9 Department of Medical Genetics, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran 10 These authors contributed equally to this work. * Corresponding author e-mail: Jouni.Uitto@ Jefferson.edu REFERENCES Byers PH, Murray ML. 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Effects of Depilation Methods on Imiquimod-Induced Skin Inflammation in Mice Journal of Investigative Dermatology (2017) 137, 528e531; doi:10.1016/j.jid.2016.09.018 TO THE EDITOR Imiquimod (IMQ) acts as a toll-like- receptor-7/8 agonist and its topical application is used as a model for psoriasiform skin inflammation. In mice and humans, skin inflammation is characterized by infiltration of several immune cells (Drobits et al., 2012; Kalb et al., 2012; Palamara et al., 2004) and activation of the IL-23/IL-17/IL-22 axis (Riol-Blanco et al., 2014; van der Fits et al., 2009). Major histocompatibility complex-II upregulation on keratino- cytes, hyperproliferation, parakeratosis, and increased vascularization are also observed recapitulating psoriatic hall- marks (Flutter and Nestle, 2013). Hair removal is essential before IMQ is applied to the murine skin. Different laboratories use various depilation strategies such as razor shaving, depi- lation cream, or wax stripping. Shaving SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL Supplementary material is linked to the online version of the paper at www.jidonline.org, and at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jid.2016.10.007. Abbreviations: HF, hair follicle; IF, infundibulum; IFE, interfollicular epidermis; IMQ, imiquimod Accepted manuscript published online 30 September 2016; corrected proof published online 30 November 2016 ª 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier, Inc. on behalf of the Society for Investigative Dermatology. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by- nc-nd/4.0/). N Amberg et al. Effects of Depilation Methods Journal of Investigative Dermatology (2017), Volume 137 528