Swaney M H, Henriquez N, Campbell T, Handelsman J, Kalan L R
Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, School of Medicine and Public Health, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin, USA.
Microbiology Doctoral Training Program, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin, USA.
mSphere. 2025 Jan 28;10(1):e0060624. doi: 10.1128/msphere.00606-24. Epub 2024 Dec 18.
The underlying interactions that occur to maintain skin microbiome composition, function, and overall skin health are largely unknown. Often, these types of interactions are mediated by microbial metabolites. Cobamides, the vitamin B family of cofactors, are essential for metabolism in many bacteria but are only synthesized by a fraction of prokaryotes, including certain skin-associated species. Therefore, we hypothesize that cobamide sharing mediates skin community dynamics. Preliminary work predicts that several skin-associated species encode cobamide biosynthesis and that their abundance is associated with skin microbiome diversity. Here, we show that commensal produces cobamides and that this synthesis can be tuned by cobalt limitation. To demonstrate cobamide sharing by , we employed a co-culture assay using an cobamide auxotroph and showed that produces sufficient cobamides to support growth, both in liquid co-culture and when separated spatially on solid medium. We also generated a non-cobamide-producing strain (cob) using UV mutagenesis that contains mutated cobamide biosynthesis genes (precorrin-6X reductase) and (corrinoid adenosyltransferase) and confirm that disruption of cobamide biosynthesis abolishes the support of growth through cobamide sharing. Our study provides a unique model to study metabolite sharing by microorganisms, which will be critical for understanding the fundamental interactions that occur within complex microbiomes and for developing approaches to target the human microbiota for health advances.
The human skin serves as a crucial barrier for the body and hosts a diverse community of microbes known as the skin microbiome. The interactions that occur to maintain a healthy skin microbiome are largely unknown but are thought to be driven in part, by nutrient sharing between species in close association. Here we show that the skin-associated bacteria produces and shares cobalamin, a cofactor essential for survival in organisms across all domains of life. This study provides a unique model to study metabolite sharing by skin microorganisms, which will be critical for understanding the fundamental interactions that occur within the skin microbiome and for developing therapeutic approaches aiming to engineer and manipulate the skin microbiota.
维持皮肤微生物群组成、功能及整体皮肤健康的潜在相互作用在很大程度上尚不清楚。通常，这类相互作用是由微生物代谢产物介导的。钴胺素是维生素B族辅因子，对许多细菌的代谢至关重要，但仅由一小部分原核生物合成，包括某些与皮肤相关的物种。因此，我们假设钴胺素共享介导皮肤群落动态。初步研究预测，几种与皮肤相关的物种编码钴胺素生物合成，且它们的丰度与皮肤微生物群多样性相关。在此，我们表明共生菌产生钴胺素，且这种合成可通过钴限制进行调节。为证明共生菌的钴胺素共享，我们使用钴胺素营养缺陷型进行共培养试验，结果表明共生菌产生的钴胺素足以支持在液体共培养以及在固体培养基上空间分离时的生长。我们还利用紫外线诱变产生了一种不产生钴胺素的菌株（cob），该菌株包含突变的钴胺素生物合成基因（前咕啉-6X还原酶）和（类咕啉腺苷转移酶），并证实钴胺素生物合成的破坏消除了通过钴胺素共享对生长的支持。我们的研究提供了一个研究微生物代谢产物共享的独特模型，这对于理解复杂微生物群中发生的基本相互作用以及开发针对人类微生物群以促进健康的方法至关重要。
人类皮肤是身体的关键屏障，且寄居着一个多样化的微生物群落，即皮肤微生物群。维持健康皮肤微生物群的相互作用在很大程度上尚不清楚，但认为部分是由密切相关物种之间的营养物质共享驱动的。在此我们表明，与皮肤相关的细菌产生并共享钴胺素，这是生命各领域生物体生存所必需的一种辅因子。这项研究提供了一个研究皮肤微生物代谢产物共享的独特模型，这对于理解皮肤微生物群中发生的基本相互作用以及开发旨在设计和操纵皮肤微生物群的治疗方法至关重要。
