Reviews and feature articleDefective killing of Staphylococcus aureus in atopic dermatitis is associated with reduced mobilization of human β-defensin-3
Section snippets
Skin biopsies
Subjects included 10 patients with AD diagnosed according to the Hanifin and Rajka14 criteria, and 10 healthy individuals with no history of skin disease. None of the patients had previously received oral corticosteroids or cyclosporin, and topical corticosteroids were not allowed for more than 1 week before enrollment. This study was approved by the institutional review board at National Jewish Medical and Research Center in Denver, and all patients gave written informed consent before
Epidermal keratinocytes in skin of patients with AD are defective in destruction of S aureus
In studies examining the interaction of fluorescently labeled S aureus with the epidermal keratinocytes in biopsies of normal skin, we noted that the bacterial structures rapidly became disorganized, the nuclei disappeared, and the cell envelopes became condensed. With increasing time, the covalently attached fluorescent label that was initially associated with the S aureus became diffuse and distributed throughout the cytoplasm of the keratinocytes.13 After 1 hour of exposure of S aureus to
Discussion
The skin of individuals with AD is frequently colonized and infected by S aureus, whereas these bacteria are rarely found on the skin of normal subjects.21, 22 In the current study, we have demonstrated directly that the epidermal keratinocytes in samples of AD skin are deficient in their ability to destroy S aureus that comes into contact with them. It is known that antimicrobial peptides play an important role in controlling colonization and growth of microbes at epithelial surfaces,23, 24
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Supported by AR41256 and N01-AI-40029 National Institutes of Health contract.
Disclosure of potential conflict of interest: D. Y. M. Leung has served as a consultant for Novartis and Genentech, and has received research grants from the National Institutes of Health, Novartis, and Genentech. M. Boguniewicz has received research grants from Novartis and Sinclair. The rest of the authors have declared that they have no conflict of interest.