About me
Immune Regulation of Chronic Skin Inflammation in Hidradenitis Suppurativa
Location: 69
Mentor: Dr. Natasa Strbo
Hidradenitis Suppurativa (HS) is linked to dysregulation in the hair follicle (HF) microbiome response. Butyrophilins (BTNLs) are an emerging immunomodulatory protein with hypothesized influences on gamma delta T cell activity, highlighting a potential role in chronic skin inflammation. This study aimed to analyze differences in butyrophilin-2 (BTNL2) expression between healthy skin and Hidradenitis Suppurativa (HS) lesional skin and HS induced skin models. Human skin samples were analyzed by flow cytometry and by immunofluorescence (IF) staining and fluorescence microscopy. We found differences in the phenotype of infiltrating cells between HS lesions (tunnel) vs non-lesional epidermis with neutrophils being predominant leukocytes in HS. The mean fluorescence intensity (MFI) of the BTNL2 expression was measured and compared between healthy and HS epidermis and Porphyromonas infected epidermis and media control epidermis. We found that BTNL2 MFI was significantly greater (p-value of 0.006) in HS epidermis compared to healthy skin and significantly higher in bacterially infected skin compared to media control skin (p-value
