031 Tape strips better capture epidermal barrier abnormalities of patients with atopic dermatitis compared to skin biopsies

Our knowledge of atopic dermatitis/AD is largely derived from whole skin biopsies, which may cause scarring and infection. Tape strips are a minimally invasive technique to collect samples. A study directly differentiating the two approaches unavailable. We thus compared transcriptomic profile lesional AD as captured by tape biopsies taken 20 moderate-to-severe patients healthy controls. performed RNA-sequencing, using criteria fold-change/FCH ≥2.0 false discovery rate/FDR ≤0.05 identify differentially expressed genes/DEGs. 4107 DEGs (2552 up; 1555 down) 1001 (534 467 were respectively detected in biopsies. Both techniques able capture upregulation key Th2- (IL13, IL4R, CCL17, CCR4, OX40/TNSFR4) Th22-related (IL22) genes well linked with epidermal barrier abnormalities (FLG2, FA2H, CLDN8). better or uniquely itch-related (IL31, TRPV2), primarily-epidermal-based immune markers (FCER1A, CCL24, IL23A/IL23p19, CXCL2/3, STAT3), related lipid metabolism differentiation (DGAT2, PSORS1C2). Biopsies hyperplasia (KRT16, COL6A5), Th1 Th17 (IFNg, IL12B, LCN2, DEFB4) pathways. results suggest that while features signature commonly depicted both techniques, abnormalities, represent dermal dysregulation AD.