Intrinsic differences between oral and skin keratinocytes

The morphology and the behavior of skin and oral tissue keratinocytes are different. One significant dissimilarity between the two sites is the response to injury. Oral and skin keratinocytes have intrinsic differences in the response to injury and such differences are reflected in gene expression profiles. We used microarrays to investigate differences in global gene expression patterns between baseline skin and oral epithelium sheets without their underlying connective tissue. Paired skin and oral epithelium was separated from the dermis for RNA extraction and hybridization on Affymetrix microarrays. Skin epidermal tissues were obtained from the tail of mice and oral epidermal tissues were obtained from the hard palate. Enzymatically isolated epithelium was used for analysis.