The human cutaneous microbiota composition during therapeutical treatment of atopic dermatitis with coal tar

The aim of this study was to investigate the role of bacterial involvement on the skin of human volunteers with atopic dermatitis (AD) and healthy controls (HC) during therapeutical treatment of AD with coal tar and with a control vehicle cream. During two weeks of treatment, we collected the microbiome by swabbing the antecubital fossa (inner elbow) area, and determined on both arms (paired) the bacterial composition, i.e. one arm treated with coal tar, the other with vehicle control. Multiplex Illumina MiSeq marker gene sequencing of (i) V3 and V4 hyper-variable regions of bacterial 16S rRNA, and (ii) Staphylococcus (sub)species profiling by Single Locus Sequence Typing (SLST), was used to define skin microbial communities.