Assessment of patient-to-patient and intra-individual human abdominal skin immune cell variability

Margaret Veitch; Craig Layt; Emma Raymond; Andrew J Croaker; James W Wells

doi:10.5114/aoms/155183

Assessment of patient-to-patient and intra-individual human abdominal skin immune cell variability

Arch Med Sci. 2022 Nov 7;18(6):1683-1688. doi: 10.5114/aoms/155183. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Margaret Veitch¹, Craig Layt^{2

2}, Emma Raymond³, Andrew J Croaker^{4

5

6}, James W Wells^{1

7}

Affiliations

¹ The University of Queensland Diamantina Institute, Faculty of Medicine, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.
² The Layt Clinic, Southport, Australia.
³ Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital, Herston, Australia.
⁴ Toormina Medical Centre, Toormina, Australia.
⁵ Skin Cancer College of Australasia, The Wesley Hospital, Brisbane, Australia.
⁶ Faculty of Health, Southern Cross University, Coffs Harbour, Australia.
⁷ Dermatology Research Centre, The University of Queensland, The University of Queensland Diamantina Institute, Brisbane, Australia.

Abstract

Introduction: The objective of the study was to characterize the baseline intra-individual and inter-individual variability of immune cell subsets within abdominoplasty skin specimens.

Methods: Abdominoplasty biopsies were taken from 5 patients and analysed using the Vectra 3 automated quantitative pathology imaging system with inForm software.

Results: Adjacent skin regions demonstrated intra-patient variability in immune subset counts ranging from 1- to 5-fold. Inter-variability between patients was approximately 2- to 7-fold for most subsets, except for HLA-DR⁺ antigen presenting cells, which varied 19-fold.

Conclusions: Our data highlight the importance of including multiple patients and multiple patient samples when designing dermatological studies that utilise abdominoplasty skin.

Keywords: abdominal; abdominoplasty; explants; immune subset; multiplex immunohistochemistry; skin.