Hidradenitis suppurativa/acne inversa (HS) is a chronic, recurrent skin disease of the hair follicle, which only occurs in humans. We have developed an ex vivo HS 3D-SeboSkin model to study the underlying pathophysiology of the disease and test potential therapeutic compounds in a preclinical setting. Adalimumab, a tumor necrosis factor-α inhibitor, is approved for treatment of moderate to severe HS. In this work, we investigated the anti-inflammatory effect of Adalimumab in the HS 3D-SeboSkin model and evaluated the regulation of HS biomarkers under Adalimumab treatment. Lesional and perilesional skin explants from 4 HS patients were applied in the HS 3D-SeboSkin model system cultured for 3 days. The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Brandenburg Medical School. Skin explants were divided into control and Adalimumab (30μg/ml)-treated specimens. Subsequently, histological specimens were obtained and stained by H&E. In addition, a series of cytokines were measured in culture supernatants using a human cytokine antibody array. Staining analysis was performed by Image J. GraphPad 9 was used for data analysis. All results are presented as mean ± SEM. Shapiro-Wilk test was used to test the distribution of the data. For statistical significance t-test was used and differences were considered significant at p<0.05. All specimens maintained the structural integrity of the epidermis in the HS 3D-SeboSkin model as our previous work has showen. The production of cytokines IL-1α (p<0.01)，IFN-γ1 (p<0.05)，TNF-α (p<0.01)，TNF-β (p<0.001)，MCP-2 (p<0.05), RANTES (p<0.01) and TGF-β (p<0.01) were significantly downregulated in the adalimumab-treated HS 3D-SeboSkin model compare to the control group. These data corroborate that adalimumab inhibit TNF-α and several other inflammatory cytokines and chemokines, which are upregulated in HS skin. Moreover, the adequacy of the human HS 3D-SeboSkin model for preclinical HS research was further demonstrated.

ESDR340 - The anti-inflammatory effect of Adalimumab assessed using the hidradenitis suppurativa 3D-SeboSkin model

50th Annual Meeting of the European Society for Dermatological Research. VIRTUAL MEETING