Evaluation of Biological Effects and Transcriptome Changes Induced by LED-Based Narrow-Band UVB Phototherapy

Ultraviolet (UV), particularly UVB, is widely used in the treatment of skin diseases including psoriasis, atopic dermatitis, vitiligo, mycosis fungoides and pruritus. Recently, there has been a trend of replacing broad-band UVB (BB-UVB) units with narrow-band UVB (NB-UVB), as studies have demonstrated that NB-UVB is more efficacious in the treatment of psoriasis. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the biological effects and transcriptome changes induced by light-emitting diode-based NB-UVB (NB-UVB LED) phototherapy. Cell viability and the cell migration ability were significantly decreased posttreatment, as well as apoptosis and ROS levels were remarkably increased. NB-UVB-induced S phase arrest was observed 12 h postirradiation. Bioinformatics analysis of transcriptome sequencing data revealed that NB-UVB LED irradiation induced dose-depended changes in multiple key signaling pathways, such as PI3K and cytoskeletal-related pathways. The depolymerization of cytoskeleton induced by NB-UVB was observed 24 h posttreatment. In addition, the expression levels of cytoskeleton-related proteins FN1, ITGB4, ITGA1, RAC2 and DOCK1 decreased significantly 12 h after irradiation. Our results indicated that NB-UVB LED may serve as a novel option for the development of NB-UVB phototherapy devices.