Genome of Malassezia arunalokei and Its Distribution on Facial Skin.

is a fungal genus found on the skin of humans and warm-blooded animals, with 18 species reported to date. In this study, we sequenced and annotated the genome of Malassezia arunalokei, which is the most recently identified species, and compared it with Malassezia restricta, the predominant isolate from human skin. Additionally, we reanalyzed previously reported mycobiome data sets with a species-level resolution to investigate distribution within the mycobiota of human facial skin. We discovered that the genome is 7.24 Mbp in size and encodes 4,117 protein-coding genes, all of which were clustered with M. restricta. We also found that the average nucleotide identity value of the genome was 93.5, compared with the genomes of three strains, including KCTC 27527. Our findings demonstrate that they indeed belong to different species and that may have experienced specific gene loss events during speciation. Furthermore, our study showed that was diverged from approximately 7.1 million years ago and indicated that is the most recently diverged species in the lineage to date. Finally, our analysis of the facial mycobiome of previously recruited cohorts revealed that abundance is not associated with seborrheic dermatitis/dandruff or acne, but was revealed to be more abundant on the forehead and cheek than on the scalp. is the fungus predominantly residing on the human skin and causes various skin diseases, including seborrheic dermatitis and dandruff. To date, 18 species have been reported, and among them, is the most predominant on human skin, especially on the scalp. In this study, we sequenced and analyzed the genome of , which is the most recently identified species, and compared it with . Moreover, we analyzed the fungal microbiome to investigate the distribution on human facial skin. We found that may have experienced specific gene loss events during speciation. Our study also showed that was diverged from approximately 7.1 million years ago and indicated that is the most recently diverged species in the lineage. Finally, our analysis of the facial mycobiome revealed that has higher relative abundance on the forehead and cheek than the scalp.