The continuous increase in daily exposure to ultraviolet radiation, which influence on the redox state of skin cells, may contribute to the damage to the structure and function of cellular macromolecules, which favors the search for protective and healing compounds. One promising compound is the phytocannabinoid, cannabidiol (CBD) found in Cannabis sativa L., which has antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. Therefore, the main objective of this study was to compare the effect of CBD introduced into keratinocyte cultures in two ways: before and after UVB irradiation (pretreatment + treatment) and only after UVB irradiation (treatment) on the proteomic profile of the keratinocyte cell membrane proteins, which is the most exposed to environmental factors.

The data obtained from SDS-Page/nanoHPLC/QExactiveOrbiTrap showed that both UVB radiation and CBD treatments significantly induced changes in the proteomic profile of keratinocyte membranes. UVB has been shown to dramatically increase the expression of proteins involved in the regulation of translation/binding of RNA (40S S3a ribosomal protein), calcium ion homeostasis, differentiation, inflammatory response (S100-A6 and S100 proteins) and cellular redox status (Rho GDP 1 dissociation inhibitor). CBD when applied to cells 24h before and after UVB irradiation was found to reduce these UVB-induced changes more significant comparing to the cells treated with CBD only after irradiation. In contrast, treating keratinocytes only with CBD did not induce any significant changes for these proteins.

The results of this study showed that CBD significantly prevents UVB-induced changes in the proteomic profile of cell membranes. Moreover, the strong effect of CBD pretreatment suggests that this phytocannabinoid is meaningfully effective for protection of skin cells against the UVB-induced stress.

SA is supported by the project European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 754432.