Open Access

ARTICLE

Data-independent acquisition mass spectrometry quantitative proteomic analysis reveals that skin aging-related proteins differ between men and women

by Hui Zhang^1,3,#, Shirui Chen^1,3,#, Mengting Liu^1,2, Yaochi Wang^1,2, Cong Xin^1,2, Jing Ma^1,3, Xiaodong Zheng^1,2, Yuandi Huang^1,2, Bo Zhang^3,4, Xuejun Zhang^1,2, Liangdan Sun^1,2,*, Sen Yang^1,3,*

1 Department of Dermatology, No. 1 Hospital, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, 230022, China
2 Institute of Dermatology, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, 230032, China
3 Anhui Ferry Dermotological Institute, Hefei, 230031, China
4 Department of Oncology, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, 230601, China

* Address correspondence to: Liangdan Sun, ; Sen Yang,
# These authors contributed equally to this work

BIOCELL 2021, 45(5), 1321-1335. https://doi.org/10.32604/biocell.2021.016524

Received 15 November 2020; Accepted 15 March 2021; Issue published 12 July 2021

Abstract

The skin is the largest organ of the human body, and its aging is visible to the naked eye. The aging rate of men and women is slightly different. This study compared the protein expression of skin samples on the curved forearms of 11 healthy women and 9 healthy men. Quantitative proteomics analysis found that the expression of epidermal proteins in men and women of the same age group was different. Compared with female skin, in male skin, 20 proteins were upregulated, and 7 proteins were downregulated. These data suggest that men and women have differences in the speed of skin aging. For the first time in this experiment, a non-invasive mass spectrometer was used to detect 27 different-related epidermal proteins between men and women. Compared with women, among the 20 epidermal proteins upregulated in men, their functions can be classified into antioxidants, epidermal lipid metabolism, signal transduction, membrane transport, and cell biological processes; the 7 downregulated proteins are involved in a variety of biological processes and inflammatory reactions. Our experiments have discovered epidermal proteins related to the differences between men and women, enriching the library of epidermal differential proteins between men and women and enriching the mechanism of skin aging between men and women from the perspective of epidermal differential proteins.

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