A multi-study analysis enables identification of potential microbial features associated with skin aging signs

Abstract

Introduction: During adulthood, the skin microbiota can be relatively stable if environmental conditions are also stable, yet physiological changes of the skin with age may affect the skin microbiome and its function. The microbiome is an important factor to consider in aging since it constitutes most of the genes that are expressed on the human body. However, severity of specific aging signs (one of the parameters used to measure “apparent” age) and skin surface quality (e.g., texture, hydration, pH, sebum, etc.) may not be indicative of chronological age. For example, older individuals can have young looking skin (young apparent age) and young individuals can be of older apparent age.Methods: Here we aim to identify microbial taxa of interest associated to skin quality/aging signs using a multi-study analysis of 13 microbiome datasets consisting of 16S rRNA amplicon sequence data and paired skin clinical data from the face.Results: We show that there is a negative relationship between microbiome diversity and transepidermal water loss, and a positive association between microbiome diversity and age. Aligned with a tight link between age and wrinkles, we report a global positive association between microbiome diversity and Crow’s feet wrinkles, but with this relationship varying significantly by sub-study. Finally, we identify taxa potentially associated with wrinkles, TEWL and corneometer measures.Discussion: These findings represent a key step towards understanding the implication of the skin microbiota in skin aging signs.

Facial Skin Microbiome Composition and Functional Shift with Aging

“…The results of this study confirmed some observations previously made using 16S rRNA sequencing studies [24][25][26]28,30,33,42] or using more recent whole-genome sequencing (WGS) studies [27,31,32]. The study results first confirmed that microbial diversity increases during aging [24][25][26][27][28][29]41], largely contributed by shifting Proteobacteria populations and Actinobacteria [24,[28][29][30] or Lactobacillales [43]. As reported previously on forehead and/or cheeks, we also observed that in older facial wrinkled skin, there is a decrease in Cutibacterium, formerly Propionibacterium [24][25][26][27]29,31,32] and an increase in Corynebacteria [24,29,33], namely a decrease in C. acnes [24,25,27,31,32] and an increase in C. kroppenstedtii [32,33].…”

“…The results of this study confirmed some observations previously made using 16S rRNA sequencing studies [24][25][26]28,30,33,42] or using more recent whole-genome sequencing (WGS) studies [27,31,32]. The study results first confirmed that microbial diversity increases during aging [24][25][26][27][28][29]41], largely contributed by shifting Proteobacteria populations and Actinobacteria [24,[28][29][30] or Lactobacillales [43].…”

“…Studies on the cutaneous microbiome, including both microbial and genomic components, across different age groups have highlighted the dynamic nature of skin microbial communities: beginning at the early stage of life following the initial exposure to the maternal microbiome and continuing with shifts in community structure throughout puberty through to old age [23]. Thus, it has been shown that skin microbiome diversity increases with skin aging [24][25][26][27][28] and that this change in diversity is largely contributed by shifting Actinobacteria an Proteobacteria populations [24,29,30] with the Cutibacterium population decreasing on aged skin [26] and more particularly the C. acnes population [24,25,27,31,32], while Corynebacteria populations increase [24,26,29,32,33].…”

“…In that category, interest increased for products addressing skin microbiota supported by studies on differences by age, ethnicity, gender or environmental stress exposure. Consequently, correlations between the age-related changes in the skin microbiome and host metadata (physiology, medication, lifestyle, health or clinical skin features) were broadly investigated [24][25][26][27][28][30][31][32][33]. Interestingly, those correlations highlighted the link between specific taxa or even more precisely specific clades (for S. epidermidis or C. acnes), and clinical skin characteristics such as high or low levels of skin moisture, transepidermal water loss (TEWL), porphyrin, sebum production, dullness, dark spots, wrinkle grade and dermal collagen quantity/quality.…”

A Hylocereus undatus Extract Enhances Skin Microbiota Balance and Delivers In-Vivo Improvements in Skin Health and Beauty

“…Of special interest was the observation that this enhancement was greater in older volunteers. While the correlations between aging and microbiota diversity and balance are not fully understood, recent research shows, perhaps counterintuitively, higher diversity in older age [18,45,46]. This could be due to accumulated exposure (seeding) to a consequentially accumulating variety of different microbial species over a lifetime.…”