Transcriptional profiling of irritant contact dermatitis (ICD) in a mouse model identifies specific patterns of gene expression and immune-regulation. Mus musculus

Irritant contact dermatitis (ICD) is a non-immunological, cutaneous inflammatory response to a variety of triggers that requires no sensitization and accounts for up to 80% of occupational dermatitis cases. Numerous inflammatory cytokines play critical roles in the mechanism and severity of ICD, one being interleukin-6 (IL-6). Therefore, to investigate the influence of this pleotropic cytokine transcriptome analysis (MiSeq) was employed examining irritant-exposed and control skin samples from C57 and IL-6KO mice to gain a better understanding of the immunological mediators of ICD and what role IL-6 plays. Overall, this study offers new insight into the pathogenesis of ICD, indicates new mediators/markers that may influence the variability of responses to irritants and potential targets for therapeutic manipulation. Overall design: Examination of non-treated skin (C57 and IL-6KO, control samples), and 7 day BKC treated skin (C57-BKC and KO-BKC) in C57 and IL-6KO mouse skin. There are 3 replicates per group for a total of 12 samples and MiSeq analysis was performed.