Immunophenotyping of skin-infiltrating T-cell subsets in dogs with atopic dermatitis

Atopic dermatitis in dogs has many clinical features that are identical to those of the same disorder in man. To investigate the pathogenesis of this disease in dogs and the possibility of similarities to the pathogenesis in humans we compared the presence and ratio of CD4+ and CD8+ T-cells in the cutaneous infiltrate of lesional and non-lesional skin of atopic dogs with that in the skin of healthy dogs. In ten dogs with atopic dermatitis and ten healthy dogs the skin was biopsied at the predilection sites for atopic dermatitis and histological sections were immunohistochemically stained for CD4 and CD8. The staining showed an increase in CD4+ and CD8+ T-cells in canine lesional atopic skin, with a predominance of CD4+ T-cells in the epidermis. In non-lesional atopic skin there was also an infiltration with CD4+ and CD8+ T-cells, but without predominance of CD4+ T-cells. The results in the separate predilection sites did not differ substantially from the mean results. These observations indicate further similarities in the immunopathogenesis of atopic dermatitis in dogs and humans, which may have consequences for the control of atopic dermatitis in dogs and contributes to a possible role of the dog as a model for human atopic dermatitis.