Identification progenitor Keratinocyte Subpopulations in HaCaT via high throughput sequencing

Epidermal progenitor cells rely on tightly regulated transcriptional and epigenetic programs to preserve cellular plasticity and prevent premature differentiation; however, these regulatory mechanisms remain incompletely characterized. In this study, we investigated the transcriptomic architecture of progenitor keratinocyte subpopulations isolated from HaCaT cells using fluorescence-activated cell sorting and bulk RNA sequencing. Differential expression analysis revealed distinct protein-coding and long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) profiles between subpopulations enriched for progenitor-associated markers and more differentiated cells. Enrichment analyses providing a transcriptomic framework for exploring epigenetic regulation of keratinocyte progenitor identity. Overall design: RNA-seq was performed on fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS)-defined keratinocyte subpopulations from HaCaT cells to characterize transcriptional differences associated with progenitor-associated cellular states.