Proteomic Research Of The Effect Of α-MSH On Human Dermal And Hypertrophic Cicatrix Fibroblasts

BACKGRAND α-MSH (alpha-melanocyte-stimulating hormone) is a kind of neuroendocrine hormone. With the deeper understanding of regulation effect on human cutaneous pigmentation, melanoma, inflammation and immune reactions, people begin focusing on the relationship of α-MSH and fibrosis, cicatrix, for example. But no documents have been found about a-MSH and cicatrix fibroblasts up to this point. The upsurge of proteomics research in the post-genomic era offers a new platform for revealing the effects of protein expression changes of α-MSH on human cutaneous and hypertrophic cicatrix fibroblasts. Identification of differently expressed protein may lead to a better understanding of the mode of α-MSH to fibroblasts of human cutaneous and hypertrophic cicatrix. It may lead to α-MSH becoming a new therapy to cicatrix.OBJECTIVE The fibroblast of human cutaneous and hypertrophic cicatrix was treated with a-MSH in order to evaluate the effect of this neuroendocrine hormone on protein expression.METHODS The fibroblasts of human cutaneous and hypertrophic cicatrix were treated with α-MSH respectively, and the total protein of the control and α-MSH-treated fibroblasts were separated with immobilized pH gradient-based two-dimensional get electrophoresis (2-DE). After Coomassie bright blue staining, gel images were acquired by Imagescanner and then analyzed with the PDQuest software. 2-DE maps of control and α-MSH-treated fibroblasts were established. Partial differently expressed protein spots were incised from gels and digested by trypsin in-gel. Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF-MS) and MSDB database searching by Mascot^? software were used for protein identification.RESULTS (1) Well-resolved, reproducible 2-DE patterns of control and a-MSH-treated fibroblasts were obtained. In the cutaneous fibroblasts control group, average spots of 3 gels were 634±15 with an average matching rate of 81%.The average position deviation of matched spots was 0.73±0.29mm in IEF direction, and...