Single cell expression profiling of human epidermal stem and transit amplifying cells

To explore which signaling pathways are of importance in maintenance of human epidermal keratinocytes we have established a protocol which allows single cell expression profiling. The protocol was applied to cultured human epidermal keratinocytes, and single cell cDNA libraries from stem and transit amplifying cells were identified based on the expression of known SC markers, MCSP and Dll1. We used microarrays to obtain expression profiles from single cells and identify common denominators that could be important for maintenance and signalling in epidermal stem cells. Keywords: Timecourse Single cultured epidermal keratinocytes at no later than passage 3 were picked and seeded in 1st strand buffer for generation of cDNA and amplification.