The Bioscience Laboratory of Kao Corporation (Michitaka Sawada, President) has discovered the presence of human RNA (ribonucleic acid) in sebum and developed an original method called “RNA Monitoring” to enable the global analysis of RNA. Investigations by RNA Monitoring have shown for the first time that RNA expression information inside sebum reflects the disease state of skin affected by atopic dermatitis.
The results of this research were partially presented at the 118th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Dermatological Association to be held between the 6th and 9th of June, 2019.
Background to the research
DNA has a double-helix structure consisting of four bases: adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine. Differences in the sequence of these bases bring about the myriad distinctive features – in facial appearance and physique, for example – with which every human being is born. RNA, on the other hand, serves as a template for the synthesis of proteins that perform various functions inside the body, such as enzymes or hormones, on the base of DNA information.
Whereas DNA is unique to an individual and never changes throughout a lifetime, the profiles and quantities of RNA synthesized in the liver, skin, and other parts of the body differ in response to changes determined by a person’s physical condition and the external environment from moment to moment.
From a dermatological perspective, DNA is useful for determining the innate features of the skin while RNA is useful for revealing the day-to-day changes in the skin condition in response to various environmental factors. The analysis of information on RNA expression in the skin, however, has been inconvenient to perform, requiring the surgical removal of skin in a highly invasive biopsy.
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