Itchy Skin

Got an itch you can’t scratch?

This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science.

We all get itchy, but if you’ve got a skin condition, that’s the worst.

The bacteria S. aureus is especially irritating. It produces an enzyme called V8 which sparks the pain. Is there a way to stop it?

Enter Liwen Deng and Harvard Medical School.

They exposed mice to S. aureus with OR without the itchy V8 enzyme. The group without V8 scratched less, with fifty percent less skin damage! When anti-V8 drugs were used, the mice had less lesions than untreated mice. Which suggests they were scratching less.

In short, this enzyme might be a new treatment target for itching!

Feel like scratching, should have had a V8… not!


Reference: Liwen Deng, Flavia Costa, Kimbria J. Blake, Samantha Choi, Arundhasa Chandrabalan, Muhammad Saad Yousuf, Stephanie Shiers, Daniel Dubreuil, Daniela Vega-Mendoza, Corinne Rolland, Celine Deraison, Tiphaine Voisin, Michelle D. Bagood, Lucia Wesemann, Abigail M Frey, Joseph S. Palumbo, Brian J. Wainger, Richard L. Gallo, Juan-Manuel Leyva-Castillo, Nathalie Vergnolle, Theodore J. Price, Rithwik Ramachandran, Alexander R. Horswill, Isaac M. Chiu, S. aureus drives itch and scratch-induced skin damage through a V8 protease-PAR1 axis,
Cell, Volume 186, Issue 24, 2023, Pages 5375-5393.e25, ISSN 0092-8674, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2023.10.019.