Data from: Diversity and evolution of the primate skin microbiome

Skin microbes play a role in human body odour, health and disease. Compared to gut microbes we know comparatively little about the changes in the composition of skin microbes in response to evolutionary changes in hosts, or more recent behavioral and cultural changes in humans. No studies have used sequence-based approaches to consider the skin microbe communities of gorillas and chimpanzees, for example. Comparison of the microbial associates of non-human primates with those of humans offers unique insights into both the ancient and modern features of our skin associated microbes. Here we describe the microbes found on the skin of humans, chimpanzees, gorillas, rhesus macaques and baboons. We focus on the bacterial and Archaeal residents in the axilla using high throughput sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene. We find that human skin microbial communities are unique relative to those of other primates, both in terms of their diversity and composition. These differences appear to reflect both ancient shifts during millions of years of primate evolution and more recent changes due to modern hygiene.

皮肤微生物群（skin microbes）与人体体味、健康及疾病的发生密切相关。相较于肠道微生物群（gut microbes），我们对宿主进化变化或人类近期行为与文化变迁所引发的皮肤微生物群落组成变化的了解相对匮乏。例如，目前尚无研究采用基于测序的方法（sequence-based approaches）对大猩猩与黑猩猩的皮肤微生物群落进行分析。将非人灵长类（non-human primates）的共生微生物与人类的进行对比，可为我们理解皮肤相关微生物的古老与现代特征提供独特视角。本研究对人类、黑猩猩、大猩猩、恒河猴与狒狒的皮肤微生物进行了分析与描述。本研究依托16S核糖体RNA基因（16S rRNA gene）的高通量测序（high throughput sequencing）技术，重点对腋窝处的细菌与古菌菌群展开研究。研究发现，相较于其他灵长类，人类皮肤微生物群在多样性与群落组成上均具有独特性。这些差异似乎既反映了数百万年灵长类进化过程中的古老演化转变，也体现了现代卫生习惯带来的近期变化。