Eczema is a chronic inflammatory disease characterized by pruritus and dry skin. Increasingly frequent, it also begins earlier and earlier, sometimes from the age of 1 month. The skin then becomes covered with red patches and sometimes small blisters which ooze before forming scabs and healing. The origin of this disease, which develops in flare-ups, remains unclear, but allergic factors are common. The number of October of the magazine Nature sheds new light.
Scientists at the American University of Michigan have found that more than 90% of people with eczema wear staphylococci aureus, bacteria at the origin of many infections or food poisonings, at the level of the skin. The delta toxin, produced by this bacterium, induces release of mast cellscells that secrete chemical substances participating in the body’s defense reactions, and would therefore be the cause of allergic eczema flare-ups.
In mice, the researchers observed that the disease does not manifest itself when the bacteria are devoid of the delta toxin gene. Predisposing genetic factors must also be taken into account, but this study gives hope to researchers who hope to identify blockers of the mast cell receptor and thus work on an effective treatment.
