Acne vulgaris, commonly known as acne, is the most common skin disorder and a multifactorial disease of the sebaceous gland. Although the pathophysiology of acne is still unclear, bacterial and fungal factors are known to be involved in. This study aimed to investigate whether the microbiomes and mycobiomes of acne patients are distinct from those of healthy subjects and to identify the structural signatures of microbiomes related to acne vulgaris. A total of 33 Korean female subjects were recruited (Acne group, n = 17; Healthy group, n = 16), and microbiome samples were collected swabbing the forehead and right cheek. To characterize the fungal and bacterial communities, 16S rRNA V4-V5 and ITS1 region, respectively, were sequenced and analysed using Qiime2. There were no significant differences in alpha and beta diversities of microbiomes between the Acne and Healthy groups. In comparison with the ratio of Cutibacterium to Staphylococcus, the acne patients had higher abundance of Staphylococcus compared to Cutibacterium than the healthy individuals. In network analysis with the dominant microorganism amplicon sequence variants (ASV) (Cutibacterium, Staphylococcus, Malassezia globosa, and Malassezia restricta) Cutibacterium acnes was identified to have hostile interactions with Staphylococcus and Malassezia globosa. Accordingly, this results suggest an insight into the differences in the skin microbiome and mycobiome between acne patients and healthy controls and provide possible microorganism candidates that modulate the microbiomes associated to acne vulgaris.
Keywords: 16S rRNA gene sequencing; ITS1 region sequencing; Staphylococcus; acne; microbiome; mycobiome; skin.