Microbial community profiling shows dysbiosis in the lesional skin of Vitiligo subjects

Abstract

Healthy human skin harbours a diverse array of microbes that comprise the skin microbiome. Commensal bacteria constitute an important component of resident microbiome and are intricately linked to skin health. Recent studies describe an association between altered skin microbial community and epidemiology of diseases, like psoriasis, atopic dermatitis etc. In this study, we compare the differences in bacterial community of lesional and non-lesional skin of vitiligo subjects. Our study reveals dysbiosis in the diversity of microbial community structure in lesional skin of vitiligo subjects. Although individual specific signature is dominant over the vitiligo-specific microbiota, a clear decrease in taxonomic richness and evenness can be noted in lesional patches. Investigation of community specific correlation networks reveals distinctive pattern of interactions between resident bacterial populations of the two sites (lesional and non-lesional). While Actinobacterial species constitute the central regulatory nodes (w.r.t. degree of interaction) in non-lesional skin, species belonging to Firmicutes dominate on lesional sites. We propose that the changes in taxonomic characteristics of vitiligo lesions, as revealed by our study, could play a crucial role in altering the maintenance and severity of disease. Future studies would elucidate mechanistic relevance of these microbial dynamics that can provide new avenues for therapeutic interventions.

Skin Microbiome Compositional Changes in Atopic Dermatitis Accompany Dead Sea Climatotherapy

“…Human skin is home to a milieu of microorganisms that are located throughout the dermis, epidermis and skin surface (7,8). The resident bacteria play a crucial role in immune training and show a degree of dysbiosis in various disease states, including psoriasis, AD, vitiligo and acne (9)(10)(11)(12)(13). Additionally, skin microbial communities have been shown to be shaped by biogeography, indicating site specificity as an important factor in designing skin microbiome studies (14)(15)(16).…”

Cutibacterium acnes phylotypes diversity loss: a trigger for skin inflammatory process

“…19 In parallel, increasing insights into skin microbiota shed the light on an interesting theory, in several cutaneous illnesses as atopic dermatitis, psoriasis and vitiligo: the loss of microbial diversity among the skin commensal communities (dysbiosis) would be associated with cutaneous inflammatory diseases. [20][21][22] Concerning acne vulgaris, some recent papers suggest that specific C. acnes subtypes could play a key role in the severity of inflammatory acne. [23][24][25] Moreover, we reported a clear loss of C. acnes phylotype diversity in severe back acne context.…”

Temporal Stability of the Healthy Human Skin Microbiome Following Dead Sea Climatotherapy

“…In addition, the degree of temporal stability of the human skin microbiome has been expounded through both 16S and metagenomics studies (4,5). With this knowledge in hand, many groups have moved on to elucidate cutaneous microbial community perturbations in a myriad of disease states, including atopic dermatitis (6,7), acne vulgaris (8,9), psoriasis (10), vitiligo (11) and Leishmaniasis (12).…”