The Influence of Age and Gender on Skin-Associated Microbial Communities in Urban and Rural Human Populations.
Differences in the bacterial community structure associated with 7 skin sites in 71 healthy people over five days showed significant correlations with age, gender, physical skin parameters, and whether participants lived in urban or rural locations in the same city. While body site explained the majority of the variance in bacterial community structure, the composition of the skin-associated bacterial communities were predominantly influenced by whether the participants were living in an urban or rural environment, with a significantly greater relative abundance of Trabulsiella in urban populations. Adults maintained greater overall microbial diversity than adolescents or the elderly, while the intragroup variation among the elderly and rural populations was significantly greater. Skin-associated bacterial community structure and composition could predict whether a sample came from an urban or a rural resident ~5x greater than random.
Department of Microbiology and Microbial Engineering, School of Life Science, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
Shi
S
Ying
Department of Microbiology and Microbial Engineering, School of Life Science, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
Dan-Ning
DN
Zeng
Department of Microbiology and Microbial Engineering, School of Life Science, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
Liang
L
Chi
Scientific Affairs, Johnson & Johnson China Ltd., Shanghai, China.
Yuan
Y
Tan
Scientific Affairs, Johnson & Johnson China Ltd., Shanghai, China.
Carlos
C
Galzote
Graduate Program in Biophysical Sciences, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America.
Cesar
C
Cardona
Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America.
Simon
S
Lax
Graduate Program in Biophysical Sciences, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America; Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America; Institute for Genomic and Systems Biology, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois, United States of America; Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Massachusetts, United States of America; College of Environmental and Resource Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China.
Jack
J
Gilbert
Department of Microbiology and Microbial Engineering, School of Life Science, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
Zhe-Xue
ZX
Quan
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D001419:Bacteria / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics; D044822:Biodiversity; D002648:Child; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D019295:Computational Biology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D054892:Metagenome; D064307:Microbiota; D008875:Middle Aged; D062486:Public Health Surveillance; D012424:Rural Population; D012737:Sex Factors; D012867:Skin / Q000382:microbiology*; D014505:Urban Population; D055815:Young Adult