Molecular Analysis and Characteristics of Ethnic Skin

In this study, we used microarray analysis to investigate molecular differences underlying the determination of pigmentation in various skin types, and we used immunohistochemistry to validate the expression patterns of several interesting targets that were identified. Whole skin gene expression profile were investigated in three ethnic groups:1) Caucasian 2)Asian 3)African. In each group, 4 mm whole skin punch biopsies were taken from forearm of 10 subjects, and gene expression level were tested by agilent whole human genome microarray. Samples with mRNA degraded: African_skin_03, Asian_skin_02, Asian_skin_06, and Caucasian_skin_7.