Infectious Disease Research Center, KRIBB, Daejeon, 34141, South Korea.
Department of Interdisciplinary Program in Biocosmetics, College of Biotechnology and Bioengineering, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon, 16419, South Korea.
NPJ Biofilms Microbiomes. 2024 Jun 20;10(1):50. doi: 10.1038/s41522-024-00512-w.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, facemasks played a pivotal role in preventing person-person droplet transmission of viral particles. However, prolonged facemask wearing causes skin irritations colloquially referred to as 'maskne' (mask + acne), which manifests as acne and contact dermatitis and is mostly caused by pathogenic skin microbes. Previous studies revealed that the putative causal microbes were anaerobic bacteria, but the pathogenesis of facemask-associated skin conditions remains poorly defined. We therefore characterized the role of the facemask-associated skin microbiota in the development of maskne using culture-dependent and -independent methodologies. Metagenomic analysis revealed that the majority of the facemask microbiota were anaerobic bacteria that originated from the skin rather than saliva. Previous work demonstrated direct interaction between pathogenic bacteria and antagonistic strains in the microbiome. We expanded this analysis to include indirect interaction between pathogenic bacteria and other indigenous bacteria classified as either 'pathogen helper (PH)' or 'pathogen inhibitor (PIn)' strains. In vitro screening of bacteria isolated from facemasks identified both strains that antagonized and promoted pathogen growth. These data were validated using a mouse skin infection model, where we observed attenuation of symptoms following pathogen infection. Moreover, the inhibitor of pathogen helper (IPH) strain, which did not directly attenuate pathogen growth in vitro and in vivo, functioned to suppress symptom development and pathogen growth indirectly through PH inhibitory antibacterial products such as phenyl lactic acid. Taken together, our study is the first to define a mechanism by which indirect microbiota interactions under facemasks can control symptoms of maskne by suppressing a skin pathogen.
在 COVID-19 大流行期间，口罩在防止病毒颗粒通过人与人之间飞沫传播方面发挥了关键作用。然而，长时间佩戴口罩会导致皮肤刺激，俗称“口罩痘”（mask + acne），表现为痤疮和接触性皮炎，主要由致病皮肤微生物引起。先前的研究表明，所谓的致病微生物是厌氧菌，但口罩相关皮肤状况的发病机制仍未明确。因此，我们使用依赖和不依赖培养的方法来描述口罩相关皮肤微生物群在口罩痘发展中的作用。宏基因组分析显示，口罩微生物群的大多数是来自皮肤而不是唾液的厌氧菌。先前的工作表明，致病菌与微生物组中的拮抗菌株之间存在直接相互作用。我们将这一分析扩展到包括致病菌与其他被归类为“病原体辅助（PH）”或“病原体抑制剂（PIn）”菌株的土著细菌之间的间接相互作用。从口罩中分离出的细菌的体外筛选鉴定了拮抗和促进病原体生长的菌株。使用小鼠皮肤感染模型验证了这些数据，我们观察到在病原体感染后症状减轻。此外，病原体辅助抑制剂（IPH）菌株虽然在体外和体内均不能直接减弱病原体的生长，但通过 PH 抑制抗菌产物（如苯乳酸）间接抑制症状发展和病原体生长。总之，我们的研究首次定义了一个机制，即口罩下间接微生物群相互作用可以通过抑制皮肤病原体来控制口罩痘的症状。
