1/11 Ever wondered why men have more S. aureus infections than women? Check out how testosterone stimulates S. aureus through activation of quorum sensing in our @harristryonlab
preprint. Led by M. Sindhura John PhD
@UTSWDerm
. A #microbiome #staph#mrsa🧵
t.co/Pvj7VtsL61

Exciting work from @siderm.bsky.social member and my colleague @utsw Dr. Jennifer Gill. The metabolites are telling us a lot!

We're just over a month out from our Annual Meeting. This year, thousands of #dermatology researchers, industry professionals and trainees are gathering in San Diego to learn + connect around breakthrough #skinscience. There's still time to register! Learn more at sidannualmeeting.org.

We’re honored to introduce Dr. David R. Bickers, recipient of the 2025 Stephen Rothman Memorial Award. Join us at #SIDSanDiego25 as we celebrate Dr. Bickers’ lifetime of transformative contributions to dermatology! sidannualmeeting.org/speakers/ste...

Want to Shape the Future of #Dermatology? SID Needs You. Whether you’re a postdoc, early-career investigator, or seasoned researcher, there’s a place for you at SID.

Join a committee, be an advocate, attend events, apply for grants & awards, and expand your network: sidnet.org

#skinscience

Worms shaped our immune system. Dr. Herbert is revealing what that means for asthma, allergies, and chronic inflammation. Hear his talk “Itchy Immunity via Myeloid IL-33” at #SIDSanDiego25 to explore how IL-33 drives type 2 immunity + tissue repair.
sidannualmeeting.org
#Immunology #SkinScience

11/11These findings, supported by
@BWFPATH, are even more fascinating in the context of our work @theJIDJournal led by @JPineider @HunterJPyle., Melissa Mauskar showing site-, disease-, and sex-dependent differences in the secretion of androgens at the skin surface. Links below.

10/11 In an exciting final twist, we can leverage this conversation between host hormones and bacteria for #therapeutics to decrease S. aureus virulence, with an enantiomer of testosterone, inhibiting expression of PSMs, red blood cell hemolysis and neutrophil killing.

9/11…testosterone cannot activate strains that lack AgrCA. Together, our findings illuminate a molecular conversation between S. aureus and the host through the sensing of testosterone and DHT.

8/11 … both in mouse models and in culture, testosterone is sufficient to activate quorum sensing without the need for the autoinducer, AIP-I. However…

7/11 …the impact of testosterone on S. aureus transcription is highly specific, narrowly activating transcripts in the agr signaling pathway.
@rebecca_keogh. Further, …

6/11 …further dissected this phenotype in culture and show that testosterone and dihydrotestosterone (DHT) activate the expression of agr quorum sensing pathways in S. aureus, including stimulation of virulence factors, such as the phenol soluble modulins (PSMs). In fact…

5/11 Next, with tools generated in the lab of Alex Horswill by @mohinibattharya, we…

4/11 …generated mice defective in hormone synthesis at the skin surface and show that without hormone secretion in the skin, mice are resistant to skin infection with S. aureus.

3/11...IL4 signaling regulates androgen production in sebaceous glands, leading @harristryonlab
to wonder whether testosterone might stimulate virulence in S. aureus, allowing it to colonize the skin in #atopicdermatitis. To test this we…

2/11 S. aureus is the most common cause of skin infections, yet it rarely colonizes healthy skin.
During inflammation, like #atopicdermatitis and #eczema S. aureus begins to dominate. Infections are also more common in men. Our lab showed in 2021@PNASNews that…

1/11 Ever wondered why men have more S. aureus infections than women? Check out how testosterone stimulates S. aureus through activation of quorum sensing in our @harristryonlab
preprint. Led by M. Sindhura John PhD
@UTSWDerm
. A #microbiome #staph#mrsa🧵
t.co/Pvj7VtsL61

First post on BlueSky! Excited to enter this new space!
www.utsouthwestern.edu/labs/harris-...