Assessing Targeted Proteomics in Inflammatory Skin Diseases with the Tape-stripping Method.

Area of Science:

• Dermatology
• Biomarker Discovery
• Proteomics

Background:

• Inflammatory skin diseases like atopic dermatitis, psoriasis, and contact dermatitis pose significant health challenges.
• Non-invasive diagnostic methods are crucial for effective patient management and monitoring.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the detectability of 92 inflammatory biomarkers in skin tape strips from patients with inflammatory skin diseases.
• To determine if biomarker detectability is influenced by the number of tape strips collected.
• To compare biomarker levels between patients and healthy controls.

Main Methods:

• A cross-sectional study involving 8 atopic dermatitis, 8 contact dermatitis, and 8 psoriasis patients, plus 5 healthy controls.
• Collection of eight consecutive skin tape strips from two adjacent skin sites per participant.
• Analysis using the Olink® Target Inflammation panel on different tape strip combinations (1-8, 1-4, 5-8).

Main Results:

• Biomarkers were detectable in 65.7% of atopic dermatitis, 70.2% of psoriasis, and 45.1% of contact dermatitis samples.
• No significant differences in biomarker levels were found based on the number of tape strips (4 vs. 8) or their sequence (first vs. last 4).
• Atopic dermatitis and psoriasis patients showed distinct biomarker profiles compared to controls, unlike contact dermatitis patients.

Conclusions:

• Analyzing protein signatures in skin tape strips using targeted inflammatory panels is a feasible approach.
• This non-invasive method shows potential for distinguishing certain inflammatory skin conditions from healthy controls.