Molecular consequences of Dlx3 deletion by tamoxifen inducible K14 Cre in adult mouse epidermis (P42-P46) as determined by RNASeq analysis

DLX3 is a homeodomain transcription factor involved in epidermal and hair follicle differentiation. Epidermal specific deletion of DLX3 leads to IL17 related inflammation. However, the downstream signals from DLX3-deficient keratinocytes that initiates IL17 associated inflammation is not well-characterized. Therefore we performed acute Dlx3 deletion to identify the initial molecular changes causing the skin inflammatory reponse and tried to rescue the immune phenotype by STAT3 inhibitor treatment (Cryptotanshinone). In this study, we compared the epidermal and dermal transcriptome from Dlx3 wild-type (WT) and K14CreERT;DLX3 fl/fl (icKO). Total RNA was extracted epidermis and dermis of WT and icKO mice. cDNA libraries were generated using NEBnext and NuGen kits. Sequencing was performed on the HiSeq 2500 and HiSeq 3000.