Canine atopic dermatitis (CAD) is an inflammatory and pruritic allergic skin disease with both genetic and environmental risk factors described. We performed mRNA sequencing of non-lesional axillary skin biopsies from nine German shepherd dogs. Obtained RNA sequences were mapped to the dog genome (CanFam3.1) and a high-quality skin transcriptome was generated with 23,510 expressed gene transcripts. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were defined by comparing three controls to five treated CAD cases. Using a leave-one-out analysis, we identified seven DEGs: five known to encode proteins with functions related to an activated immune system (CD209, CLEC4G, LOC102156842 (lipopolysaccharide-binding protein-like), LOC480601 (regakine-1-like), LOC479668 (haptoglobin-like)), one (OBP) encoding an odorant-binding protein potentially connected to rhinitis, and the last (LOC607095) encoding a novel long non-coding RNA. Furthermore, high mRNA expression of inflammatory genes was found in axillary skin from an untreated mild CAD case compared with healthy skin. In conclusion, we define genes with different expression patterns in CAD case skin helping us understand post-treatment atopic skin. Further studies in larger sample sets are warranted to confirm and to transfer these results into clinical practice.

犬特应性皮炎（CAD）是一种炎症性和瘙痒性过敏性皮肤病，同时描述了遗传和环境危险因素。我们对9只德国牧羊犬的非病变腋窝皮肤活检进行了mRNA测序。将获得的RNA序列定位到狗基因组（CanFam3.1），并使用23,510个表达的基因转录本生成了高质量的皮肤转录组。通过将三个对照与五个已治疗的CAD病例进行比较来定义差异表达基因（DEG）。使用留一法分析，我们确定了七个DEG：五个已知可编码具有激活的免疫系统功能的蛋白质（CD209，CLEC4G，LOC102156842（脂多糖结合蛋白样），LOC480601（regakine-1样），LOC479668（触珠蛋白样）），一个（OBP）编码可能与鼻炎相关的气味结合蛋白，最后一个（LOC607095）编码新的长非编码RNA。此外，与健康皮肤相比，未经治疗的轻度CAD病例在腋窝皮肤中发现了炎症基因的高表达。总之，我们在CAD案例皮肤中定义了具有不同表达模式的基因，从而有助于我们了解治疗后的特应性皮肤。有必要在更大的样本集中进行进一步的研究，以确认并将这些结果应用于临床。