1. Objectives Methods Conclusions Results References Acknowledgments
Comparison of Skin Transcriptome between Cell Transplantation Responder and
Non-responder Vitiligo Patients
Hadis Abdollahzadeh1,2, Saeed Shafieyan1* , Nasser Aghdami1* , Parvaneh Mohammadi1, Ali Sharifi-Zarchi3
 1. Department of Regenerative Medicine, Cell Science Research Center, Royan Institute for Stem Cell Biology
and Technology, ACECR, Tehran, Iran.
2. Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Faculty of Basic Sciences and Advanced Technologies in Biology,
University of Science and Culture, ACECR, Tehran, Iran.
3. Department of Stem Cells and Developmental Biology, Cell Science Research Center, Royan Institute
for Stem Cell Biology and Technology, Tehran, , Iran.
Objectives
Vitiligo is a disease that appears as a mucocutaneous hypo or depigmented macules and/or patches.
So far, an autologous transplantation of epidermal cell suspension has been used in the three phases of clinical trial (Phases 1, 2 and 3) in Royan Institute to treat vitiligo patients, which is a simple, safe and relatively efficient method[1,2]. However, the response to treatment is still not complete.
In this study, we plan to identify potentially effective genes in the difference in response between responder and non–responders patients through comparing the transcriptome of these two groups of patients, in order to find probable indicators that could predict the response to treatment before this type of cell therapy.
Figure 2. PCA Plot
Figure 3. Heat map
Based on each of these genes literature review and pathways analysis conducted us five candidate genes, ATP6V0B, PAX8, THRA ,SRI and C9. Respectively, these genes are involved in melanogenesis, thyroid hormone signaling and synthesis, resistance to apoptosis, and complement/coagulation cascades where they may play role in several autoimmune diseases.
We found ATP6VOB, PAX8 and SRI up regulate and THRA and C9 down regulate in responders in comparison with non-responder patients.
Methods
9 vitiligo patients who had been treated with an autologous transplantation of epidermal cell suspension were included in the study. Before cell transfer, two 2.5 mm punch biopsy samples were attained from the treated vitiliginous areas. These patients were also clinically followed up for 6 months. The extracted RNAs of all these patients were sent for RNA sequencing.
Conclusions
Based on the finding of this study, these 5 genes are likely to be considered in prediction of response to cell therapy, although to generalized these results, it is necessary to investigate these genes in a large number of vitiligo patients.
Results
After 6 months of treatment, 5 patients responded to the treatment successfully, but four patients were left unanswered Fig 1.
References
[1] L. Khodadadi, S. Shafieyan, M. Sotoudeh, et al, Intraepidermal injection of dissociated epidermal cell suspension improvesvitiligo, Archives of dermatological research 302(8) (2010)
[2] Z. Orouji, A. Bajouri, M. Ghasemi, et al, A single-arm open-label clinical trial of autologous epidermal cell transplantation for stable vitiligo: A 30-month follow-up, Journal of dermatological science 89(1) (2018)
Before
After
Acknowledgments
Figure 1. Clinical result before and after the treatment
Sequencing results showed that the expression of 376 genes was different between responders and non-responders vitiligo patients. Furthermore, 213 genes were up-regulated and 163 were down-regulated Fig 2,3.
This work was supported by Royan Institute finance. We are grateful to members of the Department of Regenerative Medicine for their expertise and feedback.