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Research Highlights
VA Researchers Explain Infections in Patients with Dermatitis
Taken from the Veterans Health Administration Highlights dated October 11, 2002
In a study published in the Oct. 10, New England Journal of Medicine, VA researchers showed that people with atopic dermatitis—the most common form of eczema—fail to produce germ-killing peptides that fight infections in other inflammatory skin diseases, such as psoriasis.
The finding may lead to a new type of antimicrobial cream—based on the body’s own chemicals—that stems infections and heals skin for millions of American children and adults with this distressing chronic illness.
"This may explain why people with atopic dermatitis get infections," said co-investigator Dr. Richard Gallo, a dermatologist with the VA San Diego Healthcare System and the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). Gallo, who in 1994 was the first to discover antimicrobial peptides in mammalian skin, worked on this study with investigators at the Denver-based National Jewish Medical and Research Center (NJMRC) and other sites.
Gallo noted other potential advantages of a peptide-based cream over existing treatments for inflammatory skin disease.
"It might be more potent and would act on the skin to help healing, so the damage in atopic dermatitis would repair more quickly," he said. "And our body normally makes these peptides to fight infection, so there might be fewer side effects than with conventional antibiotics."
He added that unlike conventional antibiotics, peptide-based antibiotics "have been around for tens of thousands of years, and still seem important to our body to fight infection." He also believes the peptides may be particularly useful as drugs. He cautions, however, that their use as a drug would have to be watched carefully for signs of eventual resistance among pathogens.
This new study was co-led by Dr. Donald Y. M. Leung of NJMRC and the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center (UCHSC). Other researchers on the study included lead authors Peck Y. Ong, NJMRC; Takaaki Ohtake, VA and UCSD; and Corinne Brandt, VA and UCSD; and co-investigators Ian Strickland, NJMRC; Mark Boguniewicz, NJMRC and UCHSC; and Tomas Ganz, University of California, Los Angeles. Funding for the research was provided by VA; the National Institutes of Health; the University of Colorado Cancer Center; the Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology; and the Stern Foundation.
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