P47 DIFFERENTIAL GENE EXPRESSION IN HUMAN DERMAL PAPILLA CELLS VERSUS DERMAL SHEATH FIBROBLASTS.

McElwee KJ., Huth A., Wenzel E., Hoffmann R. Dept. Dermatology, Philipp University, Marburg, Germany.

Hair follicle dermal papilla (DP) cells regulate epithelial down growth and differentiation in the mature hair follicle cycle and have the ability to induce new hair follicle development from undifferentiated epidermis. In contrast, it is believed that dermal sheath (DS) cells, derived from the same common fibroblast-like progenitor as DP cells, do not have hair follicle regulatory role. Here we examine the potential for identifying gene expression patterns unique to the DP as compared to the DS.

Human scalp biopsies were obtained with informed consent. DS and DP were dissected from human hair follicles and cultured in a medium selective for fibroblast and fibroblast-like cell growth. Third passage cells were processed using commercially available kits to extract total RNA for reverse transcriptase PCR using random and tailing primers. cDNA was gel electrophoresed, and distinct bands selected for re-amplification and gel electrophoresis. The PCR product was ligated into a lacZ containing plasmid vector, competent E. Coli cells transformed and cultured. LacZ containing colonies were selected and plasmids isolated for sequencing.

Of successfully sequenced plasmids, a BLASTn and BLASTx database search showed one DP derived PCR product of 209 bases contained a 146 base sequence with continuous plus/minus alignment to GenBank Human EST cDNA entries AI827650, AA281907, and AA714217, sequences similar to GenBank accession number S74221, an IK cytokine factor, down-regulator of HLA class II (NCBI RefSeq: NM_004511; Protein: NP_004502; OMIM: 600549; Map location 2p15-p14).

Results suggest that with human genome sequencing and improved mRNA expression analysis techniques it may be possible to identify products unique to DP cells and their associated hair follicle regulatory capacity.