Genome-wide Transcriptome Analysis of Human Edpidermal Melanocyctes

Because human epidermal melanocytes (HEMs) provide critical protection against skin cancer, sunburn, and photoaging, a genome-wide perspective of gene expression in these cells is critical to understanding human skin physiology. In this study we performed high throughput sequencing of HEMs to obtain a complete data set of transcript sizes, abundances, and splicing. As expected, we found that melanocyte specific genes that function in pigmentation were among the highest expressed genes. We analyzed the receptor, ion channel and transcription factor gene families to get a better understanding of the cell signalling pathways used by melanocytes. We also performed a comparative transcriptomic analysis of lightly versus darkly pigmented HEMs and found 16 genes differentially expressed in the two pigmentation phenotypes; of those, only one putative melanosomal transporter (SLC45A2) has known function in pigmentation. Our melanocyte transcriptome study provides a comprehensive view and may help identify novel pigmentation genes and potential pharmacological targets.