الفهرس 
IntroductionOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Atopic dermatitis (AD) is a chronic, highly pruritic inflammatory skin disease accompanied by skin barrier damage and allergic skin inflammation with a dominant T helper-2 type immune response
Although the cause of AD is not fully understood, accumulating evidence has revealed that elements of both innate and adaptive immune responses, environmental factors and activation of keratinocytes, which produce various pro-inflammatory cytokines including thymic stromal lymphopoietin (TSLP) and interleukin-18 (IL-18)are involved in the pathogenesis of AD
Severe and chronic skin inflammation induces refractory skin lesions with various clinical phenotypes of AD including erythroderma-type, widespread-type, prurigo-type, limbs type or head/face/neck/chest/back-type
Periostin is a recently characterized matricellular protein that belongs to the fasciclin family. It is highly induced by the Th2-related cytokines IL-4 and IL-13 and interacts with several integrin molecules on cell surfaces providing signals for tissue development and remodeling
Periostin plays a role in various pathophysiological conditions, such as cardiac development, tumorigenesis, wound repair and fibrosis (Yamaguchi et al., 2013).
Periostin is widely expressed in various organs. from a gene expression comparison analysis using normal human tissues, periostin has been shown to be highly expressed in the skin as compared to that in other organs probably due to the skin being an environment rich in fibroblasts, which is a major source of periostin
Since the skin consists of rich ECM produced by fibroblasts and the immune response occurs there, the involvement of periostin in skin remodeling and certain skin-related pathologies has been hypothesized
Periostin has a unique role as an intrinsic mediator in amplifying and maintaining allergic skin inflammation by linking (Th-2) inflammatory response and keratinocyte activation.