Intrapatient comparison of atopic dermatitis skin transcriptome shows differences between tape‐strips and biopsies

Background Our knowledge of etiopathogenesis of atopic dermatitis (AD) is largely derived from skin biopsies, which are associated with pain, scarring and infection. In contrast, tape‐stripping is a minimally invasive, nonscarring technique to collect skin samples. Methods To construct a global AD skin transcriptomic profile comparing tape‐strips to whole‐skin biopsies, we performed RNA‐seq on tape‐strips and biopsies taken from the lesional skin of 20 moderate‐to‐severe AD patients and the skin of 20 controls. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were defined by fold‐change (FCH) ≥2.0 and false discovery rate