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.

本研究对71名健康受试者5天内7个皮肤部位的细菌群落结构差异进行分析，结果显示该差异与年龄、性别、皮肤物理参数，以及受试者是否居住于同一城市的城区或乡村区域存在显著相关性。尽管身体部位对细菌群落结构的变异贡献占比最高，但皮肤相关细菌群落的组成主要受受试者居住环境（城区或乡村）的影响，且城区人群中特拉布勒西菌属（Trabulsiella）的相对丰度显著更高。成人的整体微生物多样性高于青少年与老年群体，而老年群体与乡村人群的组内差异显著更大。皮肤相关细菌群落的结构与组成，可用于预测样本来源为城区还是乡村居民，其预测准确率较随机猜测高约5倍。