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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Microbiomes
Sec. Host and Microbe Associations
Volume 3 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/frmbi.2024.1362408
This article is part of the Research Topic Advanced Skin Microbiome Research and Applications View all articles

Distinct Cutibacterium acnes subsp. defendens Strains Classified by Multi-omics Dissection Alleviate Inflammatory Skin Lesions of Rosacea-like Mouse Model

Provisionally accepted
Hanseol Kim Hanseol Kim 1Kihyun Lee Kihyun Lee 1Ji Young Lee Ji Young Lee 1Bo Eun Kwon Bo Eun Kwon 1Hyun Jeong Kim Hyun Jeong Kim 1Hyunkyung Park Hyunkyung Park 1Taekyung Kim Taekyung Kim 2Jun-Gu Kwak Jun-Gu Kwak 1Joung Eun Choi Joung Eun Choi 2Kwang Hee Hong Kwang Hee Hong 1Jongsik Chun Jongsik Chun 1Changsik Shin Changsik Shin 1*
  • 1 CJ Bioscience, Suwon, Gyeonggi, Republic of Korea
  • 2 CJ CheilJedang Corp, Seoul, Republic of Korea

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Cutibacterium acnes (C. acnes) resides in various organs such as skin, prostate, oculus, nose, stomach and intestine, indicating possibility of prevalent crosstalk of this bacterium with the human body. In the skin, lipid-rich pilosebaceous units provide habitat for C. acnes and the bacterium produces short-chain fatty acids, mostly propionate which has antimicrobial activity. The strains of C. acnes are classified into three subspecies based on phylogenetics and distinguishable phenotypes. Among them, C. acnes subsp. defendens strains have been characterized with their anti-inflammatory features, raising expectation for their potential as future microbiome therapeutics. However, heterogeneity of C. acnes subsp. defendens and its corresponding immunological functions have not been clearly addressed.Here, we demonstrated that the newly isolated C. acnes subsp. defendens strains having phenotypic heterogeneity are distinctly clustered by the combination of single-and multi-locus sequence typing methods, and have a strong immune regulatory function observed in immune and epithelial cell based 2D and 3D in vitro assays. Furthermore, their anti-inflammatory role was functionally confirmed in vivo with rosacea-like mouse model, relieving skin lesions with hyperplasia and dermal inflammation.Through comparative transcriptomics, we observed that the isolated strains have the immunosuppressive role possibly through the enhanced expressions of acnecins and the mutation of the envelope stress regulator (the two component systems, CesSR homologs). We further suggest that those C. acnes type II strains produce anti-inflammatory metabolites or peptides smaller than 3 kDa and those substances are associated with the elevated pyrimidine and lowered L-arginine biosynthesis.

    Keywords: Cutibacterium acnes subsp. defendens, Genomic heterogeneity, Acnecin, Ultraviolet, amino acid metabolism

    Received: 28 Dec 2023; Accepted: 17 Sep 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Kim, Lee, Lee, Kwon, Kim, Park, Kim, Kwak, Choi, Hong, Chun and Shin. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Changsik Shin, CJ Bioscience, Suwon, Gyeonggi, Republic of Korea

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