Gene Expression Profiles in Thermally Injured Human Skin: A Temporal Microarray Analysis

Thermal injury incites inflammatory responses that often transcend the local environment and lead to structural deficiencies in skin that give way to scar formation. We hypothesized that extensive perturbations within burned skin following thermal insult and during subsequent events of wound repair induce vast alterations in gene expression that likely serve as a wound and systemic healing deterrent. A high-throughput microarray experiment was designed to analyze genetic expression patterns and identify potential genes to target for therapeutic augmentation or silencing. The study compares gene expression from burn wound margins at various times following thermal injury to expression observed in normal skin. Utilizing this design, we report that the totality of gene expression alterations is indeed enormous. Further, we observed that the differential expression of many inflammatory and immune response genes appear to be continually up-regulated in burn wound margins seven days or more after initial thermal insult. As it is well established that the inflammatory process must abate for wound healing to proceed, the finding of ongoing local inflammation is cause for further investigation. To our knowledge, this is the first report of the gene expression alterations induced by thermal injury of human skin. As such, it provides a wealth of data to mine with the ultimate goal of better understanding the local pathophysiologic changes at the site of thermal injury that not only affect wound healing capacity, but may also contribute to systemic derangements within the burn patient.

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Greco JA 3rd, Pollins AC, Boone BE, Levy SE, Nanney LB