Melanocytes in the skin--comparative whole transcriptome analysis of main skin cell types

Paula Reemann; Ene Reimann; Sten Ilmjärv; Orm Porosaar; Helgi Silm; Viljar Jaks; Eero Vasar; Külli Kingo; Sulev Kõks

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0115717

Melanocytes in the skin--comparative whole transcriptome analysis of main skin cell types

PLoS One. 2014 Dec 29;9(12):e115717. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0115717. eCollection 2014.

Authors

Paula Reemann¹, Ene Reimann², Sten Ilmjärv³, Orm Porosaar⁴, Helgi Silm⁵, Viljar Jaks⁶, Eero Vasar⁷, Külli Kingo⁵, Sulev Kõks⁸

Affiliations

¹ Department of Physiology, Institute of Biomedicine and Translational Medicine, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia.
² Core Facility of Clinical Genomics, Department of Pathophysiology, Department of Biomedicine, Institute of Biomedicine and Translational Medicine, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia; The Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Sciences of the Estonian University of Life Sciences, Competence Centre on Reproductive Medicine and Biology, Tartu, Estonia.
³ Department of Physiology, Institute of Biomedicine and Translational Medicine, University of Tartu and Quretec Ltd (private limited company), Tartu, Estonia.
⁴ Department of Pediatric Surgery, Tallinn Children's Hospital, Tallinn, Estonia.
⁵ Clinic of Dermatology, Tartu University Hospital, Department of Dermatology, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia.
⁶ Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia.
⁷ Department of Physiology, Institute of Biomedicine and Translational Medicine, University of Tartu and Centre of Translational Medicine, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia.
⁸ The Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Sciences of the Estonian University of Life Sciences, Competence Centre on Reproductive Medicine and Biology, Tartu, Estonia; Department of Pathophysiology, Institute of Biomedicine and Translational Medicine, University of Tartu and Centre of Translational Medicine, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia.

Abstract

Melanocytes possess several functions besides a role in pigment synthesis, but detailed characteristics of the cells are still unclear. We used whole transcriptome sequencing (RNA-Seq) to assess differential gene expression of cultivated normal human melanocytes with respect to keratinocytes, fibroblasts and whole skin. The present results reveal cultivated melanocytes as highly proliferative cells with possible stem cell-like properties. The enhanced readiness to regenerate makes melanocytes the most vulnerable cells in the skin and explains their high risk of developing into malignant melanoma.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Adolescent
Carcinogenesis / metabolism
Cells, Cultured
Child
Child, Preschool
Fibroblasts / metabolism
Gene Expression Profiling
Histones / metabolism*
Humans
Infant
Inflammation / metabolism
Keratinocytes / metabolism
Melanocytes / cytology
Melanocytes / metabolism*
Protein Isoforms / metabolism
Sequence Analysis, RNA
Skin / cytology
Skin / metabolism*
Transcriptome / physiology*

Substances

Histones
Protein Isoforms

Grants and funding

This study was financially supported by the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund via project of Centre of Excellence for Translational Medicine (http://biomedicum.ut.ee/cetm/) (EV, PR); by the institutional research funding grant (IUT20-46) and by personal research funding grants (PUT177 (KK, HS, PR), PUT4, ETF8139 (VJ)) of the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research (http://www.etag.ee/en/); by the Centre of Translational Genomics of University of Tartu (http://www.ctg.ut.ee ) (SP1GVARENG) (SK, ER); by the European Molecular Biology Organization Integration Grant (http://www.embo.org) (VJ) and by the European Social Fund's Doctoral Studies Internationalization Programme DoRa carried out by Archimedes Foundation (http://adm.archimedes.ee/stipendiumid/en/programm-dora/t3/) (SI). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.