Researchers have pointed out that the skin, the largest organ in our body, is a kind of zoo for almost 182 species of bacteria.
The study revealed that 8% were unknown species that had never before been described, in the first study to identify the composition of bacterial populations on the skin using a powerful molecular method.
“Not only were the bacteria more diverse than previously estimated, but some of them had not been found before. The skin is home to a virtual zoo of bacteria,” said Martin J. Blaser, MD, Frederick King, Professor and Chair of the Department of Medicine and Professor of Microbiology at NYU School of Medicine, one of the authors of the study.
The researchers analyzed the bacteria on the forearms of 6 healthy subjects; three men and three women. “This is essentially the first molecular study of the skin,” said Dr. Blaser.
Zhan Gao, MD, senior research scientist in Dr. Blaser’s lab, led the research, which took more than three years to complete. Some of the bacteria on the skin appear to be less permanent residents; others are transient, according to the study. This research is part of an emerging effort to study human microbial ecology. Dr. Blaser’s lab has previously examined the bacterial population in the stomach and the esophagus.
Individuals harbor quite different bacteria on their skin. The most numerous cells in our body are microbial – they outnumber our cells 10 to 1. The body has microbes native to the body, including the skin, and these populations change according to how we live, according to Zhan Gao.
In the new study, the researchers took swabs from the inner right and left forearms of six individuals picking the region halfway between the wrist and the elbow for its convenience.
The researchers wanted to compare two similar parts of the body. Because they also wanted to study change over time, they took swabs from four of the individuals 8 to 10 months after the first test.
Roughly half, or 54.4 percent, of the bacteria identified in the samples represented the genera Propionibacterium, Corynebacterium, Staphylococcus and Streptococcus, which have long been considered more or less permanent residents in human skin.
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