Abstract
The immunological barrier of the healthy skin is considered to be unified on the whole body surface—however, recent indirect findings have challenged this dogma since microbial and chemical milieu (e.g., sebum, sweat, and pH) exhibit remarkable differences on topographically distinct skin areas. Therefore, in the present study, we performed whole transcriptomic and subsequent pathway analyses to assess differences between sebaceous gland rich (SGR) and sebaceous gland poor (SGP) regions. Here, we provide the first evidence that different skin regions exhibit a characteristic innate and adaptive immune and barrier milieu as we could detect significantly increased chemokine (CCL2, 3, 19, 20, 23, 24) and antimicrobial peptide (S100A7, A8, A9, lipocalin, β-defensin-2) expression, altered barrier (keratin 17, 79) functions, and a non-inflammatory Th17/IL-17 dominance in SGR skin compared to SGP. Regarding pro-inflammatory molecules (IL-1α, IL-6, IL-8, IL-33, TNF-α), similarly low levels were detected in both regions. Our data may explain the characteristic topographical localization of some immune-mediated and autoimmune skin disorders and we also propose that the term “healthy skin control sample,” widely used in experimental Dermatology, should only be accepted if researchers carefully specify the exact region of the healthy skin (along with the site of the diseased sample).
Highlights
The skin exhibits several essential functions, including its role in formation and maintenance of the barrier
RNA Sequencing In order to explore the in-depth differences between sebaceous gland rich (SGR) and sebaceous gland poor (SGP) skin, RNASeq analysis was performed on whole skin lysates of 6 SGR and 7 SGP patients
The heatmap, which was automatically generated by the software, aims to provide evidence on whether the two types of skin regions are distinguished based on the gene expression profiles of the samples derived from certain regions (SGP or SGR)
Summary
The skin exhibits several essential functions, including its role in formation and maintenance of the barrier. The skin has two major barrier elements, i.e., the stratum corneum and the tight junction layer Besides these, it is equipped with a complex network of cells and soluble mediators as part of the skin immune system (SIS) [1, 2]. Immunotopographical Differences of Human Skin sebaceous, eccrine, and apocrine glands at different body sites, resulting diverse chemical milieu on the skin surface. Parallel to this varied chemical milieu, the skin microbiota has been shown to exhibit remarkable differences on topographically distinct skin areas [3, 4]; specific commensal flora have been associated with moist, dry, or sebaceous microenvironments
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