Fig. 4. Transcriptional profiling of the RHE tissue following biofilm stimulation.

Skin epidermis was exposed to treated and untreated biofilms for 24 h at 37°C, 5% CO₂. Appropriate negative and positive controls were used. Following stimulation, RNA was extracted, cDNA synthesized, and gene expression was profiled using a custom array containing primers for different pro-inflammatory genes and upregulated proteins from the Olink technology (Fig. 5). Panel a depicts the Log₂ fold change in RHE tissue stimulated with PMA (POS CON), untreated biofilms (UT), CHX-treated, PVP-I-treated, or H₂O₂-treated biofilms, all relative to unstimulated negative controls. Data presented as a n = 6, encompassing three technical replicates from two independent experiments. Each column represents these 6 replicates. Panel b shows a principal component analysis plot showing distinct clustering of the transcriptional profiles in the tissue following stimulation.