Cohabitation—relationships of corynebacteria and staphylococci on human skin

Abstract

Skin microbiome main cultivable aerobes in human are coagulase-negative staphylococci and lipophilic corynebacteria. Staphylococcus strains (155) belonging to 10 species and 105 strains of Corynebacterium belonging to nine species from the skin swabs of healthy male volunteers were investigated to determine their enzymatic activity to main metabolic substrates: carbohydrates, proteins, lipids, and response to factors present on the skin such as osmotic pressure, pH, and organic acids. The results showed that lipophilic corynebacteria have different capacity for adaptation on the skin than staphylococci. Most of Corynebacterium spp. expressed lack of proteinase, phospholipase, and saccharolytic enzymes activity. Corynebacteria were also more sensitive than Staphylococcus spp. to antimicrobial agents existing on human skin, especially to low pH. These characters can explain domination of Staphylococcus genera on healthy human skin. It can be suggested that within these two bacterial genus, there exists conceivable cooperation and reciprocal protection which results in their quantitative ratio. Such behavior must be considered as crucial for the stability of the population on healthy skin.

Coagulase-Negative Staphylococcal Strain Prevents Staphylococcus aureus Colonization and Skin Infection by Blocking Quorum Sensing

“…previously noted that S. caprae spent media had inhibitory activity against S. aureus agr types I and II (Geisinger et al, 2009), although the S. caprae AIP structure was not identified. We chose to focus our efforts on S. caprae, given that it is found on human skin (Cosseau et al, 2016; Gao et al, 2007; Kwaszewska et al, 2014), and may interact with colonizing S. aureus to provide a protective benefit to the host. Additionally, S. caprae has not been extensively studied, and little is known about its AIP signals or agr system.…”

“…Although S. caprae was historically regarded as a primarily animal-associates species, recent studies reveal that the presence of this microbe on human skin has been underappreciated. Knowing that S. caprae is present at transiently on human skin (Cosseau et al, 2016; Gao et al, 2007; Kwaszewska et al, 2014), it seems likely that S. caprae and S. aureus interact within the cutaneous environment, and the production of the inhibitory AIP could give S. caprae a competitive advantage. In the context of these findings, our work suggests that further studies should be carried out to characterize the human skin microbiota to the species level to better appreciate the contribution of S. caprae .…”

“…Although S. caprae has received little attention, its appearance in species-level analysis of skin bacterial communities suggests that its contribution as a human colonizer is underestimated (Cosseau et al, 2016; Gao et al, 2007; Kwaszewska et al, 2014). Studies to date have relied mostly on 16s rRNA sequencing, and there are inherent challenges in separating closely-related species, such as each individual CoNS, and analyzing the temporal population dynamics with a single marker gene (Poretsky et al, 2014).…”

“…One of the intriguing CoNS isolates that inhibited S. aureus agr function was Staphylococcus caprae , which was originally isolated from goat milk and is considered to be a commensal of goats and sheep (Devriese et al, 1983). However, recent studies have identified S. caprae on the skin of healthy humans (Cosseau et al, 2016; Gao et al, 2007; Kwaszewska et al, 2014), indicating that it may reside in a similar host environment as S. aureus . Little is known about the S. caprae agr system, although predictions based on AgrD gene sequence suggest that it has two agr types that result in different AIP structures (Thoendel et al, 2011; Zheng et al, 2015).…”

Impact of Selected Cosmetic Ingredients on Common Microorganisms of Healthy Human Skin

“…However, some produce lipases, which can hydrolyze skin lipids as well as other fatty acid esters. The hydrolysis of synthetic emulsifiers by staphylococci and corynebacteria has been reported [34]. The lipolytic activity of bacteria is strongly dependent on the strain and on the fatty acid nutrition source [35][36][37][38].…”