Neurodermatitis: How a Skin Bacterium Can Strengthen the Skin Barrier

The harmless skin bacterium Staphylococcus hominis may play a key role in protecting the skin barrier in neurodermatitis (atopic dermatitis). Researchers from University Medicine Augsburg and Helmholtz Munich, together with colleagues from Freiburg, Munich and Dresden, as well as partners in Sweden and Switzerland, have discovered this. The study, recently published in the journal Allergy, is the first to decipher how the interaction between skin lipids and the microbiome influences the course of the disease.