Skinomics: past, present and future for diagnostic microarray studies in dermatology

Abstract

Easily accessible, skin was among the first targets analyzed using ‘omics’ and dermatology embraced the approaches very early. Microarrays have been used to define disease markers, identify transcriptional changes and even trace the course of treatment. Melanoma and psoriasis have been explored using microarrays. Particularly noteworthy is the multinational mapping of psoriasis susceptibility loci. The transcriptional changes in psoriasis have been identified using hundreds of biopsies. Epidermal keratinocytes have been studied because they respond to UV light, infections, inflammatory and immunomodulating cytokines, toxins and so on. Epidermal differentiation genes are being characterized and are expressed in human epidermal stem cells. Exciting discoveries defining human skin microbiomes have opened a new field of research with great medical potential. Specific to dermatology, the non-invasive skin sampling for microarray studies, using tape stripping, has been developed; it promises to advance dermatology toward ‘omics’ techniques directly applicable to the personalized medicine of the future.

Keywords::

• bioinformatics
• disease markers
• epidermal differentiation
• melanoma
• non-invasive
• psoriasis
• stem cells
• UV damage

Financial & competing interests disclosure

The author was supported by the Ronald O. Perelman Department of Dermatology, NYU Langone Medical Center, New York, USA. The author has no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.

Key issues

• • Skin biology and dermatology were among the first areas to use microarrays, perhaps due to easy access to the tissue samples.

• • Melanoma, the most deadly of skin cancers, has been extensively studied using microarrays, which yielded essential understanding of its biology and specific markers for its diagnosis.

• • Psoriasis, a highly prevalent hyperproliferative skin disease, has been the target of a vast multinational GWAS study which identified over 35 susceptibility loci. Moreover, very extensive transcriptional studies involving over 300 patient samples described the aberrant gene expression in this disease.

• • Epidermal differentiation is still an unsolved and enigmatic process which is a target of extensive microarray studies.

• • Epidermal stem cells are an easily accessible model for stem cell research; microarrays have been used to study stem cell interactions with their niche, as well as the signals and molecular mechanisms that govern their quiescence or recruitment to differentiate.

• • Because keratinocytes respond to many extracellular agents, these cells were a model for studies of signal transduction.

• • Exciting new area of skin biology addresses its microbiome and the interactions between the epidermis as a host and the microorganisms that inhabit it.

• • Specifically in dermatology, noninvasive sampling using tape stripping provides adequate biological material for microarray analyses.

• • Future visits to a dermatologist will likely include a noninvasive skin sampling, followed by microarray identification of the skin lesions, resident microorganisms and perhaps even diagnosis of systemic diseases.

Notes

* The countries participating in the psoriasis GWAS studies are: Australia, Austria, Canada, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, P.R. of China, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, UK, USA.