24 SKIN MICROBIOME
Skin microbiome: listening to the microbial symphony
Timo Dijkstra – Gobiotics by Sweetch
The skin microbiome has been a major discovery and a topic that emerges everywhere in cosmetics. Today, the real importance of the microbiome on skin health is still not widely understood. Ingredient suppliers and brands are starting to scratch the surface and consumers are recognizing that they cannot have great skin without a healthy skin microbiome. The skin provides the microorganisms with a delicious meal on which they can feast and in exchange, the microbiome cleans the skin, guards it from invaders, communicates with the immune system, and protects it from external aggressions. External factors such as pollution,
antibiotics, and UV rays continuously threaten and disturb the skin microbiome. Fortunately, the skin microbiome bounces back time after time, until it does not, and then the skin is prone to develop unhealthy conditions. Prebiotics are food for the protective
microbiota to prevent the skin microbiome from getting out of balance. Therefore, the skin becomes more resilient, and it lowers the chance of having skin problems. Gobiotics’ challenge is: “How can we prove it?”
Sampling Before discussing the different tests that explain the mysteries of the skin microbiome, it is first important to consider how to sample the skin microbiome. Samples can be collected using a swab, sticky tape, scraping, or even through a biopsy. Two types of skin microbiota exist: the
resident skin microbiota and the transient skin microbiota. The latter consists of microorganisms from the environment. They do not contribute to the protection. The resident skin microbiota is protective, and these microorganisms actively cooperate with each other and the skin itself. The resident skin microbiota is the one to target when taking samples. However, these microorganisms are physically attached to the skin and often embedded between the skin cells of the stratum corneum. Sampling with a swab would be ideal
to identify the protective microbiota on the surface. However, when the goal of the research is to determine the C. acnes population during acne, a different sampling method is necessary. To get access to the deeper layers of the skin, like the sebaceous gland, samples must be taken with sticky tape or scraping methods.
PERSONAL CARE April 2025
Cultivating The most traditional technique is in vitro testing with bacterial cultures. This is a simple test where bacteria can grow on a food source. Bacterial cultures show bacterial growth under different conditions, e.g., pH, antibiotics, and UV. It is easy to understand the outcome, but the test has many limitations when it comes to the skin microbiome. Most of the microorganisms from the skin
microbiota cannot be cultivated and out of all the existing microorganisms in the world, only two percent can be cultivated in the laboratory. No single microorganism is the same and they all have different lifestyles. These microorganisms can only be cultivated
if their exact lifestyle conditions are met. However, to discover these conditions, microorganisms must be grown in the first place, but they cannot, thus we remain blocked in a loop. Another reason why in vitro testing is limited
comes from the fact that the skin microbiome is an enormous community. The skin microbiome has a diversity of approximately 1,000 species but it is not possible to break it down to some individual cultivatable strains. It is too labour- intensive. The power of the vast microbial community is lost by cultivation. Finally, the most important limitation is that it is impossible to simulate all the interactions within the skin microbiome on a petri dish. The skin microbiome is a huge community, and
each single species greatly contributes to the overall health of the skin; even the ones that are present in a low abundance. Not only does cultivation neglect the interaction within the skin microbiome, but also with the skin itself. The skin microbiome needs the skin to thrive. No skin means no harmony. To better understand what the limitations
are of a test, a metaphorical comparison is made with an orchestra. Imagine that listening to music is something completely new. The listener wants to discover the inner workings of the orchestra and the instruments without ever hearing music or seeing an instrument. In vitro cultivation is like listening to
one violin and missing out on all the other instruments. So, the listener suddenly well understands violin sounds but has no clue how all the instruments together interact in harmony. Cultivating is a useful tool as a proof of concept, but not for mapping the complete skin microbiome.
Amplicon sequencing A much more realistic approach for skin microbiome testing is in vivo 16S rRNA or 18S rRNA amplicon sequencing. A specific region of the DNA is sequenced that all bacteria or fungi possess and the difference in the DNA sequence identifies the type of organism. This technique does not require cultivation and it types all microorganisms of the
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