The pores and skin is the largest organ of the physique, and it performs a vital function as the primary line of protection towards pathogens and insults from the exterior surroundings.

It offers vital features like temperature regulation and moisture retention. And regardless of the misperception that lipids hurt your pores and skin by inflicting oiliness and zits, they really play a significant function in sustaining the pores and skin barrier.

Lipids – natural compounds that embody fat, oils, waxes and different varieties of molecules – are important elements of the outermost layer of pores and skin. Adjustments to the pores and skin’s lipid composition can disrupt its skill to perform as a protecting barrier, resulting in a vary of pores and skin illnesses, together with eczema and psoriasis.

Human pores and skin is colonized by hundreds of species of micro organism. Probably the most frequent microbes on the pores and skin, Cutibacterium acnes, or C. acnes, is well-known for its potential involvement in inflicting zits, however its broader results on pores and skin well being are much less understood.

I’m a researcher in dermatology working within the Gallo Lab on the College of California, San Diego. My colleagues and I research how the pores and skin defends the physique towards infections and the surroundings, with a specific give attention to the pores and skin microbiome, or the microbes dwelling on the pores and skin. In our not too long ago printed analysis performed in collaboration with SILAB, an organization growing energetic components for skincare merchandise, we discovered that C. acnes triggers sure pores and skin cells to considerably improve manufacturing of lipids which can be vital to sustaining the pores and skin barrier.

Pores and skin micro organism and lipid synthesis

To find out the function that micro organism play in lipid manufacturing, we uncovered keratinocytes, the cells that make up the dermis, to completely different micro organism naturally current on the pores and skin and analyzed adjustments in lipid composition.

Of the frequent pores and skin micro organism we examined, solely C. acnes triggered an improve in lipid manufacturing inside these cells. Extra particularly, we discovered a threefold improve in whole lipids, together with ceramides, ldl cholesterol, free fatty acids and particularly triglycerides. Every of those lipid sorts are important to sustaining the pores and skin barrier, locking in moisture and defending towards injury. These findings recommend that C. acnes performs a particular function within the lipid pores and skin regulation.

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We discovered that C. acnes induced this improve in lipid manufacturing by producing a kind of short-chain fatty acid referred to as propionic acid. Propionic acid creates an acidic pores and skin surroundings that gives a number of advantages, together with limiting pathogen development, lowering staph infections and contributing to anti-inflammatory results within the intestine.

We additionally recognized the particular gene and receptor that regulate lipid synthesis by way of C. acnes. Blocking these elements additionally blocked C. acnes-induced lipid synthesis.

In all, our findings spotlight the substantial function {that a} frequent pores and skin bacterium and its chemical byproducts play in shaping the composition of pores and skin lipids.

Reinforcing the pores and skin barrier

Our analysis means that propionic acid from C. acnes has a number of advantageous results on the pores and skin barrier. For instance, by growing the lipid content material in pores and skin cells, propionic acid lowered water loss by way of the pores and skin.

We additionally discovered that the lipids pores and skin cells produce after publicity to C. acnes or propionic acid have antimicrobial results towards C. acnes. This implies that the lipids C. acnes helps produce have a twin function: They not solely management the presence of C. acnes on the pores and skin but in addition contribute to the general stability of the pores and skin microbiome so one species of microbe does not dominate the remainder.

Within the complicated interaction between the pores and skin and its microbial inhabitants, the ever present C. acnes is rising as an vital participant. Additional analysis to higher perceive the pores and skin microbiome might assist result in new therapies for pores and skin situations.

Samia Almoughrabie, Postdoctoral Researcher in Dermatology, College of California, San Diego

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