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Analysis of skin microbiota of Indian twins

biodiversity
computational-biology
microbiology
molecular-biology

Abstract

Background: The human skin microbiota is shaped by host-specific factors like age, diet, geography, and environment. However, the interplay between host genetics and environment remains largely unexplored in Indians. Monozygotic twins share 100% of their genetic makeup, thereby providing a unique opportunity to investigate the associations between genetic relatedness, environmental variation, and microbiota composition.

Methods: We collected axillary sweat samples from thirteen monozygotic twin pairs (n=26) and sequenced V3-V4 regions of the 16S rRNA gene on Illumina.

Result: The Firmicutes (Bacillota in the newly adopted LPSN/NCBI nomenclature ) , Proteobacteria (Pseudomonadota), and Actinobacteria (Actinomycetota) were the most prevalent phyla. The geographical location had a borderline significant association with skin microbiota alpha diversity (Shannon index, Kruskal-Wallis FDR=0.06) and a significant association with beta diversity (Bray-Curtis dissimilarity; PERMANOVA, p=0.003; Jaccard index; PERMANOVA, p=0.001). Pairwise comparisons based on the Jaccard index revealed significant differences in genus-level community composition between twins vs siblings (Kruskal-Wallis test, p=0.002) and siblings vs unrelated individuals (p=0.02).

Conclusion: Our pilot study expands the current knowledge of skin microbiota association with genetic relatedness and other potential confounders. We show the association of geographical location with twins’ skin microbiota. However, to understand the interplay between genetic and environmental variation in shaping skin microbiota diversity and composition, a study needs to be carried out on a larger scale with a greater number of twins and siblings, along with their parents living in different households.

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