Food allergy, anaphylaxis, dermatology, and drug allergyEnhanced expression levels of IL-31 correlate with IL-4 and IL-13 in atopic and allergic contact dermatitis
Section snippets
Patients
Punch biopsy specimens from lesional skin of patients with psoriasis (n = 60), AD (n = 33), or ACD (n = 56), as well as from control individuals without any history of atopic diseases (n = 13), were collected after obtaining informed consent in the Departments of Dermatology of the Universities of Aachen, Bonn, and Cologne, Germany, for Miltenyi Biotec GmbH as part of a study supported by the Technologie- und Innovationsprogramm NRW, Germany. In all cases the diagnosis was not only based on the
IL-31 expression in the skin of patients with AD does not correlate with serum IgE levels or severity of the disease
Quantitative real-time PCR analyses were performed of IL-31 mRNA in comparison with IL-4 and IL-13 (as classical TH2-type cytokines) and IFN-γ (as a TH1-type cytokine) to evaluate the role of IL-31 in the process of TH1/TH2-mediated inflammatory skin diseases.
AD is described as a biphasic inflammatory disease, in which antigen-specific activated T cells produce large amounts of TH2 cytokines (IL-4 and IL-13) shortly after manifestation. After 48 to 72 hours, however, the initial TH2 response
Discussion
IL-31 was recently identified as a novel 4-helix-bundle cytokine, and overexpression in transgenic mice led to a phenotype closely resembling AD in human patients.7 Analyzing 33 skin biopsy specimens taken from human AD lesions, we could demonstrate a statistically significant increase in IL-31 mRNA in comparison with that seen in healthy skin. This finding is in line with the recent publication by Sonkoly et al,21 in which the authors analyzed lesional and nonlesional skin of patients with AD,
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Cited by (0)
Disclosure of potential conflict of interest: J. M. Baron, H. F. Merk, C. Mauch, T. Krieg, T. Bieber, J. Wenzel, and M. M. Neis have all received grant support from Forschungs-und Innovationsprogramm NRW. A. Bosio and B. Peters are both employed by Miltenyi Biotec. The rest of the authors have declared that they have no conflict of interest.
Supported by the Technologie- und Innovationsprogramm NRW (to the dermatology departments of Aachen, Cologne, and Bonn and Miltenyi Biotec GmbH) and by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Bonn, Germany; SFB 542, TP C11 to H.F.M., J.M.B., and H.M.H.).
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These authors contributed equally to this work.