2. Academic Validation
  3. Molecular cartography of the human skin surface in 3D

Molecular cartography of the human skin surface in 3D

  • Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2015 Apr 28;112(17):E2120-9. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1424409112.
Amina Bouslimani 1,  Carla Porto 1,  Christopher M Rath 1,  Mingxun Wang 2,  Yurong Guo 3,  Antonio Gonzalez 4,  Donna Berg-Lyon 4,  Gail Ackermann 4,  Gitte Julie Moeller Christensen 5,  Teruaki Nakatsuji 6,  Lingjuan Zhang 6,  Andrew W Borkowski 6,  Michael J Meehan 1,  Kathleen Dorrestein 1,  Richard L Gallo 6,  Nuno Bandeira 7,  Rob Knight 8,  Theodore Alexandrov 9,  Pieter C Dorrestein 10
Affiliations

Affiliations

  • 1 Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences.
  • 2 Department of Computer Science and Engineering and.
  • 3 School of Medicine.
  • 4 Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, BioFrontiers Institute, and.
  • 5 Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Department of Biomedicine, Aarhus University, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark;
  • 6 Division of Dermatology, and Departments of.
  • 7 Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Department of Computer Science and Engineering and Center for Computational Mass Spectrometry, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093; pdorrestein@ucsd.edu bandeira@ucsd.edu robknight@ucsd.edu theodore.alexandrov@embl.de.
  • 8 Department of Computer Science and Engineering and School of Medicine, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, BioFrontiers Institute, and Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309; pdorrestein@ucsd.edu bandeira@ucsd.edu robknight@ucsd.edu theodore.alexandrov@embl.de.
  • 9 Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Center for Industrial Mathematics, University of Bremen, 28359 Bremen, Germany; SCiLS GmbH, 28359 Bremen, Germany; and European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Meyerhofstrasse 1, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany pdorrestein@ucsd.edu bandeira@ucsd.edu robknight@ucsd.edu theodore.alexandrov@embl.de.
  • 10 Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Biochemistry, Pharmacology, and Chemistry, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92037; pdorrestein@ucsd.edu bandeira@ucsd.edu robknight@ucsd.edu theodore.alexandrov@embl.de.
PMID: 25825778 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1424409112
Abstract

The human skin is an organ with a surface area of 1.5-2 m(2) that provides our interface with the environment. The molecular composition of this organ is derived from host cells, microbiota, and external molecules. The chemical makeup of the skin surface is largely undefined. Here we advance the technologies needed to explore the topographical distribution of skin molecules, using 3D mapping of mass spectrometry data and microbial 16S rRNA amplicon sequences. Our 3D maps reveal that the molecular composition of skin has diverse distributions and that the composition is defined not only by skin cells and microbes but also by our daily routines, including the application of hygiene products. The technological development of these maps lays a foundation for studying the spatial relationships of human skin with hygiene, the microbiota, and environment, with potential for developing predictive models of skin phenotypes tailored to individual health.

Keywords

16S rRNA; 3D mapping; human skin; mass spectrometry.

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