Metagenomic Study of the Skin Microbiome in Children with Atopic Dermatitis
Atopic dermatitis (AD) is an inflammatory skin disease in which the epidermal microbiota play a crucial role in disease pathogenesis. However, the precise relationship between microbial communities and the onset and progression of AD remains unclear. In this study, we investigated the differences in skin microbial community composition and abundance between AD patients and healthy controls across various body sites, as well as among AD patients with different disease severities. Skin samples were obtained from the lesional areas of 12 AD patients (including the face, antecubital fossa, and popliteal fossa) and from corresponding sites of 12 healthy controls. DNA was extracted for MiSeq high-throughput sequencing, and metagenomic analysis was performed using metrics such as alpha and beta diversity indices, species composition analysis, and differential abundance analysis. Functional analyses further explored the microbial roles in AD pathogenesis through the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG), evolutionary genealogy of genes: Non-supervised Orthologous Groups (eggNOG), Carbohydrate-Active Enzymes (CAZy), Gene Ontology (GO), virulence factor database (VFDB), and pathogen-host interactions database (PHl-base).