STAT6 and skin microbiome

To analyze whether persistent STAT6 activity in keratinocytes impacts the skin microbiome, we performed 16S sequencing on swabs of K14cre+STAT6vt/vt mice (Hafner et al 2004, Schubart et al. 2019) or controls. In this system, a constitutively active STAT6 variant (STAT6vt, Mikita et al. 1998) is only expressed in cells that express or expressed cre. As cre recombinase is under the control of the K14 promoter, which is predominantly active in basal epidermal keratinocytes, there is a specific expression of STAT6vt in these cells and their later stages of development. Thus, the model provides the opportunity to selective study the impact of STAT6 activity in keratinocytes.