A new article published in Acta Dermato-Venereologica discussed that atopic dermatitis (AD) is a common inflammatory skin disease with a complex pathogenesis—involving imbalanced immune system signaling, impaired skin barrier function and enhanced Staphylococcus aureus skin colonization.

The authors elaborated that the skin bacterial communities are characterized by increasing abundance of S. aureus, leading to a reduced diversity compared to the bacterial communities on healthy skin and increasing disease severity. Whereas, fungal communities are richer and more diverse on the skin of patients with AD, although the distribution of the most common species is similar in patients and controls. In addition, the filaggrin deficiency of AD skin might be related to the enhanced skin colonization by S. aureus.

Moreover, S. aureus expresses different virulence factors, which have shown to elicit AD-like phenotypes, indicating that specific S. aureus strains can induce flare-ups.

Source: Acta Dermato-Venereologica. 2020 May 15. doi: 10.2340/00015555-3514.