Dr. Matthias Reiger
Head of Research ManagementProfessional Career
10/2022 - currently
Head of Research Management
09/2016 - currently
Lecturer in microbiology at the vocational school for midwives and maternity nurses in Augsburg
01/2021 - 09/2022
Group Leader Functional Microbiomics
03/2018 - 12/2020
Junior Group Leader Functional Microbiomics
07/2014 - 12/2020
Research Associate (Post Doc) IEM
06/2011 - 06/2014
PhD Thesis at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich „Center for Integrated Protein Science Munich“
Honors and Awards
2018
Nachwuchsförderpreis, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Allergologie und klinische Immunologie (DGAKI)
Publications
See all2023 Journal of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology (JEADV)
Skin microbiome and its association with host cofactors in determining atopic dermatitis severity
Abstract Background Atopic dermatitis (AD) is a heterogeneous, chronic inflammatory skin disease linked to skin microbiome dysbiosis with reduced bacterial diversity and elevated relative abundance of Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus). Objectives We aimed to characterize the yet incompletely understood association between the skin microbiome and patients' demographic and clinical cofactors in relation to AD severity. Methods The skin microbiome in 48 adult moderate-to-severe AD patients was investigated using next-generation deep sequencing (16S rRNA gene, V1–V3 region) followed by denoising (DADA2) to obtain amplicon sequence variant (ASV) composition. Results In lesional skin, AD severity was associated with S. aureus relative abundance (rS = 0.53, p < 0.001) and slightly better with the microbiome diversity measure Evenness (rS = −0.58, p < 0.001), but not with Richness. Multiple regression confirmed the association of AD severity with microbiome diversity, including Shannon (in lesional skin, p < 0.001), Evenness (in non-lesional skin, p = 0.015) or S. aureus relative abundance (p < 0.012), and with patient's IgE levels (p < 0.001), race (p < 0.032), age (p < 0.034) and sex (p = 0.012). The lesional model explained 62% of the variation in AD severity, and the non-lesional model 50% of the variation. Conclusions Our results specify the frequently reported “reduced diversity” of the AD-related skin microbiome to reduced Evenness, which was in turn mainly driven by S. aureus relative abundance, rather than to a reduced microbiome Richness. Finding associations between AD severity, the skin microbiome and patient's cofactors is a key aspect in developing new personalized AD treatments, particularly those targeting the AD microbiome.
2022 Journal of Clinical Immunology (JCI)
Molecular Assessment of Staphylococcus Aureus Strains in STAT3 Hyper-IgE Syndrome Patients
Hyper-IgE syndromes (HIES) are a group of inborn errors of immunity (IEI) caused by monogenic defects such as in the gene STAT3 (STAT3-HIES). Patients suffering from HIES show an increased susceptibility to Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) including skin abscesses and pulmonary infections. To assess if the underlying immune defect of STAT3-HIES patients influences the resistance patterns, pathogenicity factors or strain types of S. aureus. We characterized eleven S. aureus strains isolated from STAT3-HIES patients (n = 4) by whole genome sequencing (WGS) to determine presence of resistance and virulence genes. Additionally, we used multi-locus sequence typing (MLST) and protein A (spa) typing to classify these isolates. Bacterial isolates collected from this cohort of STAT3-HIES patients were identified as common spa types in Germany. Only one of the isolates was classified as methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA). For one STAT3 patient WGS illustrated that infection and colonization occurred with different S. aureus isolates rather than one particular clone. The identified S. aureus carriage profile on a molecular level suggests that S. aureus strain type in STAT3-HIES patients is determined by local epidemiology rather than the underlying immune defect highlighting the importance of microbiological assessment prior to antibiotic treatment.
2022 International Journal of Molecular Sciences
Seroma development after breast cancer surgery is the most common postoperative complication seen after mastectomy but neither its origin nor its cellular composition is known. To investigate the assumption of immunological significance, one of the first aims of this pilot study is to describe the cellular content of collected seroma fluids and its corresponding serum in patients with simple mastectomy after needle aspiration, as well as the serum of healthy controls. The content of red blood cells (RBC) was measured by haemato-counter analyses, and the lymphocyte identification/quantification was conducted by flow cytometry analyses in seroma fluid (SFl) and the sera of patients (PBp) as well as controls (PBc). Significantly lower numbers of RBCs were measured in SFl. Cytotoxic T cells are significantly reduced in SFl, whereas T helper (Th) cells are significantly enriched compared to PBp. Significantly higher numbers of Th2 cells were found in SFl and PBp compared to PBc. The exact same pattern is seen when analyzing the Th17 subgroup. In conclusion, in contrast to healthy controls, significantly higher Th2 and Th17 cell subgroup-mediated immune responses were measured in seroma formations and were further confirmed in the peripheral blood of breast cancer (including DCIS) patients after simple mastectomy. This could lead to the assumption of a possible immunological cause for the origin of a seroma.
2022 ASM Microbiology Resource Announcements
Staphylococcus aureus is a widely distributed, opportunistic pathogen and has been linked to the human skin disease atopic dermatitis (AD). Here, we present 44 complete and 4 draft genome sequences of S. aureus strains isolated from the nose and skin of AD patients and healthy controls from a German study cohort.
2021 Allergy
A new era of atopic eczema research: Advances and highlights
Atopic eczema (AE) is an inflammatory skin disease with involvement of genetic, immunological and environmental factors. One hallmark of AE is a skin barrier disruption on multiple, highly interconnected levels: filaggrin mutations, increased skin pH and a microbiome dysbiosis towards Staphylococcus aureus overgrowth are observed in addition to an abnormal type 2 immune response. Extrinsic factors seem to play a major role in the development of AE. As AE is a first step in the atopic march, its prevention and appropriate treatment are essential. Although standard therapy remains topical treatment, powerful systemic treatment options emerged in the last years. However, thorough endotyping of the individual patients is still required for ideal precision medicine approaches in future. Therefore, novel microbial and immunological biomarkers were described recently for the prediction of disease development and treatment response. This review summarizes the current state of the art in AE research.