Transcriptomic Analysis of Wound Healing and Skin Rejuvenation Following Ablative Fractional Laser Treatment of Human Skin

Ablative fractional laser treatment is considered the gold standard for skin rejuvenation. In order to understand how fractional laser works to rejuvenate skin, we performed microarray profiling on skin biopsies to identify temporal and dose-response changes in gene expression following fractional laser treatment. The backs of 14 women received ablative fractional laser (Fraxel) treatments and 4 mm punch biopsies were collected at baseline (day 0) and days 1, 3, 7, 14, 21 and 28 days after a single treatment (in addition to an untreated site). In addition, in order to understand the effect that multiple fractional laser treatments have on skin rejuvenation, several sites received either 1, 2, 3, or 4 treatments (with 28 days between treatments) and 4 mm punch biopsies were also collected from these sites. RNA was extracted from the biopsies and gene expression was analyzed using Affymetrix U219 gene chips and gene expression was compared between untreated and treated sites.