Structural aspects of lesional and non-lesional skin microbiota reveal key community changes in leprosy patients from India

Abstract

Although skin is the primary affected organ in Leprosy, the role of the skin microbiome in its pathogenesis is not well understood. Recent reports have shown that skin of leprosy patients (LP) harbours perturbed microbiota which grants inflammation and disease progression. Herein, we present the results of nested Polymerase Chain Reaction-Denaturing Gradient Gel Electrophoresis (PCR-DGGE) which was initially performed for investigating the diversity of bacterial communities from lesional skin (LS) and non-lesional skin (NLS) sites of LP (n = 11). Further, we performed comprehensive analysis of 16S rRNA profiles corresponding to skin samples from participants (n = 90) located in two geographical locations i.e. Hyderabad and Miraj in India. The genus Staphylococcus was observed to be one of the representative bacteria characterizing healthy controls (HC; n = 30), which in contrast was underrepresented in skin microbiota of LP. Taxa affiliated to phyla Firmicutes and Proteobacteria were found to be signatures of HC and LS, respectively. Observed diversity level changes, shifts in core microbiota, and community network structure support the evident dysbiosis in normal skin microbiota due to leprosy. Insights obtained indicate the need for exploring skin microbiota modulation as a potential therapeutic option for leprosy.

Reduced microbial diversity of the nasopharyngeal microbiome in household contacts with latent tuberculosis infection

“…The core’s microbiome present in at least 50% of Mtb infected individuals was represented only by Paracoccus, a gram-negative non-motile which genus, previously associated with infections, including leprosy and other skin infections where the skin microbiota had a relatively higher abundance of the bacteria compared to healthy controls 52 , 53 .…”

Skin microbiome dysbiosis in leprosy cases

“…Abnormal blood flow changed the hydration levels of skin that impacted the resident microbial community structure. 24 Figure 3: Models of dysbiosis of skin-resident microbes. 23 Growing evidence identified the lower diversity in the leprosy patient's skin microbiome than in the healthy subjects; assumed to be associated with the disease severity, colonization of pathogens, and the use of MDT.…”

“…Reduction in the diversity of skin microbiota was observed in freshly diagnosis leprosy patients, those at various stages of MDT, and post MDT; these indicated that both the interaction between M. leprae-skin microbial community and the ongoing therapeutic regimen impacted the skin microbial variation. [24][25][26] Silva et al, studied how microbiota of leprous lesions had different bacterial skin composition than healthy subjects using Sanger and massively parallel small subunit rRNA (SSU) rRNA gene sequencing. Four main phyla were observed in the taxonomic analysis of leprous skin lesions: Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes, and Actinobacteria.…”

“…The alteration of skin microbiota significantly depend upon age, skin site, environmental, stage of disease, and therapeutic phases. 24 Long term monitoring is recommended to assess the microbiome resilience. Other studies that observed the resilience in the human intestinal microbiome after antibiotic cessation show that the Bacteroides population did not return to its original composition for up to 2 years after treatment stopped.…”