Abstract:
Acne is an extremely common condition, experienced by approximately 80% of adolescents. Despite intense research efforts, the treatment of acne is often problematic, due to drugs with broad and multiple effects and undesired side effects. Main reason for this lack of suitable drugs is that the initiation and the precise chain of events in acne formation are still not fully understood. Although the gram-positive skin commensal Propionibacterium acnes has been identified as a pathophysiological factor in acne a long time ago, so far the importance and the precise role of this bacterium in disease formation could not be disclosed.
Since the decipherment of the genome of P. acnes, some bacterial factors have been investigated for their role in inducing tissue damage and in triggering host inflammatory responses. In addition, recent research results indicate that P. acnes can be divided into several types with distinct pathogenic properties, and that certain types might be more powerful than others to cause acne and a variety of other inflammatory diseases, including prostate inflammation.
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Brüggemann, H. (2010). Skin: Acne and Propionibacterium acnes Genomics. In: Timmis, K.N. (eds) Handbook of Hydrocarbon and Lipid Microbiology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-77587-4_244
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-77587-4_244
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
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