Temporal and Spatial Variation of the Skin-Associated Bacteria from Healthy Participants and Atopic Dermatitis Patients
Christopher J. Barnes, Maja‐Lisa Clausen, Maria E. Asplund, L. Rasmussen, Caroline Meyer Olesen, Yasemin Topal Yüksel, Paal Skytt Andersen, Thomas Litman, Anders J. Hansen, Tove Agner
Abstract
The bacteria associated with human skin may influence skin barrier function and the immune response. Previous studies have attempted to understand the factors that regulate the skin bacteria, characterizing the spatial-temporal variation of the skin bacteria within unaffected skin. Here, we quantified the effect of AD on the skin bacteria on multiple spatial-temporal factors simultaneously. Although significant community variation between healthy controls and AD patients was observed, the effects of AD on the overall bacterial community were relatively low compared to other measured factors. Results here suggest that changes in specific taxa rather than wholesale changes in the skin bacteria are associated with mild to moderate AD. Further studies would benefit from incorporating the complexity of AD into models to better understand the condition, including AD severity and the host genome, alongside microbial composition.