Study of fibroblast gene expression in response to oxidative stress induced by hydrogen peroxide or UVA with skin aging

Abstract

The skin aging process, implying oxidative stress, is associated with specific gene expression. Ultraviolet A (UVA) and hydrogen peroxide (H(2)O(2)) both generate reactive oxygen species (ROS) making them relevant in the study of skin cell responses to oxidative stresses. To investigate transcript expression associated with chronological skin aging and its modulation by two oxidative stresses, cDNA micro-arrays, composed of a set of 81 expressed sequence tag (EST) clones, were used to probe the patterns of transcript expression in human fibroblasts of five young (< 21 years-old) and five older (> 50 years-old) healthy females at basal levels and 24 h after exposure to UVA (7 J/cm2) and H(2)O(2) (20 mM). At the basal state, 22% of total genes were up-regulated in the older group. Although both stresses led to the same cell mortality, H(2)O(2) induced a stronger modulation of gene expression than UVA, with 19.5% of transcripts up-regulated versus 4%. The aging process affected the response to H(2)O(2) and even though cells from old donors presented higher basal levels of transcripts they were not able to regulate them in response to the stress. Interestingly, UVA had a specific strong inhibitory effect on the expression of chemokine (C-C) motif ligand 2 (CCL2) transcript, suggesting a possible mechanism for its anti-inflammatory and immunoregulatory roles.