¹Bioengineering Laboratory, Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, University at Buffalo, State University of New York, Amherst, New York, USA

Correspondence: Dr Stelios T. Andreadis, Bioengineering Laboratory, Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, University at Buffalo, State University of New York, 908 Furnas Hall, Amherst, New York 14260, USA. E-mail: sandread@eng.buffalo.edu

Received 4 November 2005; Revised 17 February 2006; Accepted 7 March 2006; Published online 27 April 2006.

Abstract

The epidermis serves to protect the body against environmental assaults and at the same time is able to survive and replenish itself under harsh conditions. The epidermis accomplishes this feat via a well-orchestrated program of stratification and terminal differentiation that provides barrier against infection, radiation, and water loss. Despite significant progress in skin biology, many molecules and pathways that are involved in stratification and barrier formation remain unknown. Here, we employed tissue-engineered models of complete versus impaired epidermal stratification to discover the genes that may be important in this process. Transcriptional profiling at different stages of development showed significant differences in transcription, signaling, and most important metabolism-associated genes between fully stratified and poorly stratified epithelia. These transcriptional changes correlated well with functional data on cell proliferation, expression of adhesion molecules, and utilization of metabolic pathways, ultimately leading to different phenotypes. Our data identified genes that were not previously known to play a role in epidermis and established a link between metabolism and morphogenesis in skin epithelium.