Gene expression in response to cyclic mechanical stretch in primary human dermal fibroblasts.

The human dermal skin is permanently exposed to mechanical stress, for instance during facial expression, which might cause wrinkles with age. Cyclic mechanical stretching of cells results in cellular and cytoskeleton alignment perpendicular to the stretch direction regulating cellular response. With gene expression profiling it was aimed to identify the differentially expressed genes associated with the regulation of the cytoskeleton to investigate the stretch-induced cell alignment mechanism. Here, the transcription activity of the genome in response to cyclic mechanical stress was measured using DNA microarray technology with Agilent SurePrint G3 Human GE 8x60k Microarrays, based on the overall measurement of the mRNA. Gene expression was measured at the beginning of the alignment process showing first reoriented cells after 5h stretching and at the end after 24h, where nearly all cells are aligned. Gene expression data of control vs. stretched primary human dermal fibroblasts after 5h and 24h demonstrated the regulation of differentially expressed genes associated with metabolism, differentiation and morphology and were deposited at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo with the accession number GSE58389.