Molecular effects of different TRPV3 Mutations

To understand the impact of dysfunctional TRPV3 on keratinocyte proliferation and differentiation, we conducted transcriptomic analysis on cells that express cloned different TRPV3 mutations identified in focal palmoplantar keratoderma (FPPK) patients and identified a number of perturbed pathways associated with epidermal cells construction and development. We also analyzed the molecular changes of skin biopsy samples from patients. Our data suggests that TRPV3 dysfunction inhibits keratinocyte differentiation, actives apoptosis pathway resulted in cell death, and disturbs the balance between keratinocyte proliferation and differentiation processes in the skin. To explore the functional impact of the different TRPV3 mutations on cells, we cloned the wild type and mutant TRPV3 clones into expression vector. The wild-type human TRPV3 gene was amplified from cDNA made from a mixture of human tissue total RNA and cloned into pcDNA3.1 (Life Technologies, Carlsbad, CA). The accuracy of the cloned sequence was checked with Sanger sequencing. Quick Change II XL site-directed mutagenesis kit (Agilent, Santa Clara, CA) was used to introduce sequence changes corresponding to mutations observed in patients. The HEK293T cells were transfected using Lipofectamine 2000 (Life Technologies, Carlsbad, CA) according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Cells were also transfected with the same plasmid without insert as control.