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Rosacea: skin innate immunity gone awry?

Nature Medicine volume 13, pages 904–906 (2007)Cite this article

Rosacea is a common skin disorder marked by chronic inflammation and vascular abnormalities. Two new features of the skin lesions have been identified: elevated levels of cathelicidin antimicrobial peptides and of a related serine protease. These molecules of innate immunity may represent key elements of pathogenesis, as well as new targets for effective therapies (pages 975–981).

Attractive new hypotheses about the pathogenesis of idiopathic clinical disorders provide exciting opportunities for the development of novel therapies and new hope for affected individuals. Rosacea is a common chronic skin disorder often characterized by persistent erythema (redness) accompanied by visible blood vessels across the central portion of the face. Called the 'curse of the Celts', rosacea typically affects those of northern European descent, but its etiology is unclear1. The most cited theory links this disorder to abnormal cutaneous vasculature2. Dilated blood vessels feature prominently in the affected skin, which explains the persistent erythema3. On the other hand, as in acne, microbes and their associated immune responses are often implicated in the possible pathogenesis of rosacea2,4. In this issue of Nature Medicine, Yamasaki et al. show that high levels of an antimicrobial peptide and its processing serine protease are features of rosacea lesions, which suggests that aberrant innate immunity is central to this disease5.

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Figure 1: Rosacea and proteolytic processing of cathelicidin peptides.

Katie Ris-Vicari

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Charles L. Bevins is in the Departments of Microbiology and Immunology, School of Medicine, and Graduate Group in Immunology, University of California, Davis, California 95616, USA. clbevins@ucdavis.edu,

    Charles L Bevins

  2. Fu-Tong Liu is in the Department of Dermatology, School of Medicine, and Graduate Group in Immunology, University of California, Sacramento, California 95817, USA. fliu@ucdavis.edu,

    Fu-Tong Liu

Authors
  1. Charles L Bevins
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  2. Fu-Tong Liu
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Bevins, C., Liu, FT. Rosacea: skin innate immunity gone awry?. Nat Med 13, 904–906 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nm0807-904

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