Journal: mSphere
Article Title: Unique dermal bacterial signature differentiates atopic dermatitis skin from healthy
doi: 10.1128/msphere.00156-25
Figure Lengend Snippet: Schematic of participants, locations, samples, and analysis and metadata of participants in dot plots. Samples (a) were collected at three different habitats—dry (d), moist (m), and sebaceous (s) from the cheek, elbow pit, and back of hand, respectively. Fifteen consecutive tape strips (b) were collected for confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) (tapes 1, 6, and 15), cultivation, and MALDI-TOF (pools 2–5, 7–10, and 11–14). Additionally (c), four biopsies, two from each elbow pit and back of hand, were collected for CLSM and metagenomics, respectively. The latter were divided into epidermal and dermal compartments before DNA extraction. (d) The distribution of age and sex is shown for the two groups of participants, atopic dermatitis (AD) and healthy (HC). Each dot represents one participant. The healthy participants were sex- and age-matched to the included AD patients. The average age of the participants was 34 years. (e) The total severity score (TSS) of eczema based on lichenification, excoriation, erythema, crusting/oozing, dryness/scaling, and edema (score of 0–3) is shown. Each dot represents the total TSS of the sampled area. Eczema categories: non-lesional = 0–1; mild = 2–5; moderate = 6–9; and severe = 10–18. TSS is shown with dotted lines.
Article Snippet: Representative images were taken using the software ZEN black (Zeiss) and deconvoluted using the interactive microscopy image analysis (Imaris) version 9 (Bitplane, Zurich, Switzerland) ( ).
Techniques: Confocal Laser Scanning Microscopy, DNA Extraction