RNASeq of juvenile keratinocytes, melanocytes, fibroblasts and whole skin. Homo sapiens

We used whole transcriptome sequencing (RNA-Seq) to assess differential gene expression of normal human melanocytes with respect to keratinocytes, fibroblasts and whole skin. We have identified a number of genes and pathways, which are characteristic or unique for MC compared to KC and FB. We also demonstrated the extent of the difference between genes detectable in MC culture and the whole skin. The present results reveal melanocytes as highly proliferative cells with stem cell-like properties. Overall design: From each of the healthy juvnile skin tissue samples a whole skin sample was taken and three skin cell types (keratinocytes, melanocytes and fibroblasts) were harvested and cultivated. We chose 12 total RNA samples, extracted from 4 keratinocytes (Kc), 4 melanocytes (Mc), 2 fibroblasts (FB) and 2 whole skin samples for library preparation.