FIG 8.

A universal scale to quantitatively assess and compare skin-health state via skin microbiota. (a) The scale of MiSH, ranging from 0 to 100, represents the probability of being healthy (i.e., from 0% to 100%). Color-shaded triangular areas represent the interquartile range (IQR) of the MiSH score. Notably, the MiSH of nonlesional sites are harbored within those of lesional sites, suggesting a diseased microbiota and a risk-prone state (i.e., the “suboptimal health”) of skin at the nonlesional sites. After the treatments, the MiSH of both lesional and nonlesional sites, despite significant improvement, stayed at a state that can be considered the suboptimal health, since its MiSH is still much lower than that of healthy children. (b) Changed patterns of MiSH for the two patient types, which indicate distinct baseline disease severity and different sensitivity to treatment. (c) Characteristic change pattern of skin microbiota between type I and type II under corticosteroids. (d) Comparing the performance of MiSH, S. aureus, Chao1, and Shannon index for AD diagnosis. The occurrence rate of S. aureus is shown in the inset.