Candidate Pigmentation Genes.

Our siRNA-based screening approach identified 98 siRNAs that significantly inhibited pigment production. 4 of these 98 genes did not retest, while two of the 98 genes were removed from the Refseq database. Gene Ontology databases were used to segregate the 92 remaining genes into function classes and identify conserved domains within the corresponding proteins. Gene ontology databases, OMIM, and Pubmed searching was utilized to identify associations between our genes and human diseases. Genes in our candidate list that are aberrantly expressed in MNT-1 cells as compared to normal melanocytes are shown in bold.

本研究采用基于小干扰RNA（siRNA）的筛选策略，共鉴定出98个可显著抑制色素生成的siRNA。上述98个靶基因中，有4个无法通过复筛验证，另有2个基因已从参考序列（RefSeq）数据库中移除。研究人员借助基因本体（Gene Ontology, GO）数据库，将剩余的92个基因划分为不同功能类别，并鉴定其编码蛋白的保守结构域。此外，本研究还通过基因本体数据库、在线人类孟德尔遗传（OMIM）数据库以及PubMed文献检索，分析了候选基因与人类疾病之间的关联。相较于正常黑素细胞，在MNT-1细胞中存在异常表达的候选列表基因均以粗体形式标注。