516 Integrative analysis of the skin microbiome and metabolome in psoriasis

Abstract

Psoriasis is a common, chronic and recurrent inflammatory disease. Current theories have highlighted the role of the microbiome in the pathogenesis of psoriasis. Also, abnormal metabolisms can alter disease process in terms of occurrence, development and prognosis. In this study, we performed an integrated skin microbiome-metabolome analysis to gain an insight into the pathogenesis of psoriasis. A total of 22 patients with psoriasis and 22 age- and sex-matched healthy controls were recruited. Skin swabs were collected from the scalps. DNA extraction, amplicon sequencing of the ITS1 and V3V4 16S rRNA regions, the nontargeted LC-MS-based metabolomic profiling. Our results showed that psoriatic lesions were characterized by higher relative abundances of Corynebacterium and Staphylococcus than healthy controls, but no significant alteration in the fungal diversity or fungal taxonomies were detected. Nontargeted LC-MS-based metabolomics approach showed a total of 526 metabolites were differed significantly between psoriatic and healthy scalps. The prostaglandin-related metabolites, cysteine- and methionine-related metabolites and purine-related metabolites were significantly enriched on the skin surface of patients with psoriasis. Cutibacterium and Lawsonella, which are considered as skin commensals in healthy individuals, were found to be negatively correlated with several metabolites, such as the plasma metabolites of prostaglandin F. On the contrary, the psoriasis-associated bacteria, such as Staphylococcus, Corynebacterium and Streptococcus showed opposite correlation pattern with the metabolites. In conclusion, the disease-related bacteria Corynebacterium and Staphylococcus are shown to be enriched in psoriatic lesions, together with increased metabolites of prostaglandins, amino acids and purines, which are probably associated with the inflammatory response and higher cell proliferation in psoriasis. This study indicates that specific microbes and metabolites may provide new therapeutic strategies for the treatment of psoriasis.