RNAseq profiling of neonatal mouse Merkel cells and basal keratinocytes

Merkel cells (MCs), specialized neuroendocrine touch sensors within the epidermis, play a crucial role in tactile sensation. To gain deeper insignts into their molecular characteristics, we employed RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) to explore the transcriptome of MCs in comparsion to basal keratinocytes in neonatal mouse skin. Overall design: GFP-expression Merkel cells (GFP-positive) and control basal keratinocytes (GFP-negative, SCA1 and CD49F double positve) were isolated from the epidermis of Sox2-GFP reporter mice through Fluorescence-activated cell sorting. RNA extraction was conducted using the RNeasy® Plus Micro Kit from Qiagen. Library preparation was accomlished using the TruSeq Stranded Total RNA Library Prep – RS-122-2201 kit from Illumina. Subsequently, sequencing was performed on the HiSeq2500 platform, employing paired-end reads with a length of 125 base pairs.