Howard B, Bascom CC, Hu P, et al. - Researchers sought to attain better insight into the phenomenon of changes in the skin microbiome and their relationship to host skin factors during aging.

• From 158 Caucasian females, samples were collected from forearm, buttock, and facial skin at 20-24, 30-34, 40-44, 50-54, 60-64, and 70-74 years of age for metagenomic and host skin factor analyses.

• The analyses revealed an increase in skin bacterial diversity at all the skin sites with increasing age.

• With increasing age, all sampled skin sites showed a significant change (decrease) in abundance of only Lactobacillus and Cutibacterium among the bacterial genera with average relative abundance of > 1%.

• Significant age and site-specific changes in abundance were observed for additional bacterial genera.

• There appeared an age-related decrease in sebocyte area and increases in NMFs/AMPs/skin lipids in analysis of sebocyte area, NMFs, lipids and AMPs, all which linked with changes in specific bacterial genera.

• Overall findings suggest age-associated alterations in the human skin microbiome that may reflect underlying age-related changes in cutaneous biology.