SPINK5 and Netherton syndrome: To study the molecular mechanisms underlying Netherton syndrome, mouse models have been developed either by deletion of the entire Spink5 locus (Yang et al., 2004), by deletion of the 5′ end of the gene locus (Descargues et al., 2005) or by targeted gene disruption, mimicking mutations described in patients (Hewett et al., 2005).