THE GENE EXPRESSION PROFILE CHANGES OF HUMAN MEIBOMIAN GLAND EPITHELIAL CELLS UNDER DIFFERENTIATION

Analysis of gene expression profile changes of immortalized human meibomian gland epithelial cells under differentiation. Results provide important information of the response of human meibomian gland epithelial cells to different differentiation media, such as serum containing medium, serum-free medium, serum-free medium with 1.2mM Ca2+. Primary cultured human meibomian gland epithelial cells and hTERT immortalized human meibomian gland epithelial cells (3 cells/condition/experiment) were grown in keratinocyte serum-free medium (SFM, Invitrogen-Gibco, Grand Island, NY) on 75cm2 to reach confluence, then change to SFM, SFM with 1.2mM Calcium, or serum containing medium (10% fetal bovine serum in an equal volume of DMEM and Ham’s F12 with 10ng/ml EGF) for 14 days. Total RNA was extracted from the above cultures. Gene expression was analyzed using Illumina HumanHT-12 v3 Expression Beadchips (San Diego, CA).