Abstract
Although the diversity and abundance of skin microbiome are mainly determined by intrinsic factors, including gender, age, anatomical site, and ethnicity, we question whether facial microbiome could be affected by long-term exposure to airborne pollution. Using 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) gene amplicon sequencing, we analyzed the facial bacterial microbiome of healthy and young Chinese women (25–35 years old) between two districts with different air quality indices (AQIs) in Zhejiang Province. The overall microbiome structure was obviously different between these two districts. It revealed an increase in both the abundance and diversity of facial bacterial microbiome in Hangzhou (HZ) with higher AQI compared with those in Yunhe (YH) with lower AQI. Linear discriminant analysis (LDA) and Lefse analysis identified a total of 45 genera showing significant overrepresentation in the HZ group. Furthermore, PICRUSt analysis showed that functional pathways associated with metabolism of saturated fatty acid were relatively more predominant in the HZ group, whereas those with DNA repair or mitochondrial DNA replication were more predominant in the YH group. Our present data can provide useful information for further researches on the composition and function of the skin microbiome related to air pollution factors as well as for the development of therapeutic agents targeting the microbes and their metabolites to resist damages of airborne pollutants.
Highlights
Human skin is the largest organ and acts as the first line of defense against environmental stressors
Skin microbiome is thought to remain stable over months to years once intrinsic factors stabilize (Oh et al, 2016), and the stability of healthy skin microbiome established in early period might extend into adulthood (Capone et al, 2011)
A study conducted in four cities with different urbanization in China reported that skin microbiome in cities with better environmental standards and higher socioeconomic status had higher overall and phylogenetic diversities, which would be beneficial to human skin health (Kim et al, 2018)
Summary
Human skin is the largest organ and acts as the first line of defense against environmental stressors It harbors hundreds and thousands of resident microbes and maintains a delicate equilibrium, the microbiome, which is necessary for a healthy skin (Grice et al, 2009; Dréno et al, 2016). This balance is constantly influenced by both internal (host) and external (environmental) factors. Whether airborne pollutants, especially long-term exposure to them, can affect the equilibrium of skin microbiome of healthy individuals has not directly been evaluated and needs to be further investigated
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