Maskne is essentially acne issues related to wearing masks. It has been observed that acne patients exhibit noticeable facial microbiota imbalance and reduced microbial diversity
In the summer 2023, we collected a total of 50 samples from 15 Maskne patients and 10 normal people before and after wearing masks for a long time. 16S ribosomal DNA sequencing and identification technology with V3-V4 variable region were adopted to explore the microbiome changes caused by mask-wearing, analyzing the changes in microbial diversity, and making interaction network. LDA effect size analysis and ANOVA t-test were used to find changed microorganisms.After Maskne patients wore masks,the changing degree of their microbiomes was significantly more than those of normal people,with both alpha diversity and beta diversity lower than those of Maskne patients before wearing masks and those of normal people after wearing masks.Co-occurrence network analysis showed that compared with other groups, the network of Maskne patients after wearing masks for a longtime had the lowest connectivity and complexity, but the highest clustering property,while the normal people group was the opposite. Many microbes that are potentially beneficial to the skin decreased significantly after wearing the mask.There was almost no difference in normal people before and after wearing masks.