Expression profiling of mechanical stretched interfollicular epidermal stem cells (IFESCs)

The renewing human epidermis constantly senses and adapts to a wide range of mechanical cues that are ubiquitous throughout life. The mechanisms of how mechanical forces are responded by interfollicular epidermal stem cells (IFESCs) and are transmitted directly into nucleus to modify gene expression remain incompletely defined. In vitro, human IFESCs were cultured on the collagen I coated silicon rubber membrane and then subjected to the mechanical stretched. Cyclic mechanical tension at 0.5 Hz sinusoidal curve at 10% elongation was applied using an FX-5000T™ Flexercell® Tension Plus™ unit (Flexcell International Corporation). In mechanical unloading groups, cells were cultured on the same plates in the same incubator with the mechanical stretched groups but not subjected to stretch. Combining genome-wide microarray and functional analyses, we made transcriptome analysis of samples from the mechanical unstretched or stretched isolated human IFESCs. We analyzed 6 samples (3 sampled of mechanical stretched and 3 samples of unstretched IFESCs) using the Affymetrix Human Exon 1.0 ST platform. Array data was processed by Affymetrix Exon Array Computational Tool. Three techinical replicates were performed (exon-level expression value was analysed. ).