H. ducreyi (green) surrounded by human fibrinogen (red) from a pustule biopsy MARGARET BAUER, INDIANA UNIVERSITYTo understand whether the human skin microbiome can affect the ability of a bacterial pathogen to cause an infection, researchers have had to rely on observational studies. Now, taking advantage of a unique human skin infection model, Stanley Spinola of Indiana University and his colleagues, have found evidence to suggest that the makeup of the skin microbiome plays a role in whether an individual can clear a certain bacterial infection without intervention. The results, published this week (September 15) in mBio, provide another example of how the ecology of human skin can influence health and disease.
“The [authors] took advantage of a very clean system—human volunteer inoculation,” said microbiologist Martin Blaser of the New York University Langone Medical Center who was not involved in the study. “We have a paper of the same idea, but this study is better. We had asked whether the [skin] microbiota could predict who would get a [Staphylococcus] bacterial skin infection and who wouldn’t. But our system was based on emergency room samples and had a lot of heterogeneity because we were doing an observational study.”
“This is an interesting report, and most important, because it takes yet another step toward seeking evidence of a clear function of the microbiome,” Richard Gallo, chief of dermatology at the University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine, who ...
