Microenvironment-specific skin microbiome

On the surface of the skin, numerous microorganisms such as bacteria, fungi, and viruses coexist in symbiosis and constitute a unique population on the skin, which is called the skin microbiome. The skin microbiome has been analyzed with the development of sequencing technology, and its details are becoming clearer. However, the resolution is still limited to the entire skin, and the analysis at the level of skin microstructures such as sweat glands, sebaceous glands, and hair follicles has not progressed. This study aims to understand the skin microbiome by subdividing it into microstructures of the skin, which have been analyzed as an organ as a whole, and to understand the involvement of this microbiome in the pathogenesis of inflammatory skin diseases. To analyze the skin microbiome, we use laser capture microdissection (LCM) to extract microenvironment-specific microbial DNA from human skin samples. This comprehensive analysis provides us with an integrated understanding of the real skin microbiome.