Scientists Have Uncovered Previously Hidden Microbial Activity on Human Skin

The useful part

Stock The most abundant microbes on your skin may not be the ones doing most of the work. Human skin supports vast communities of bacteria, fungi, and viruses that can influence its protective barrier, immune defenses, and overall health. Yet simply cataloging these organisms cannot reveal which ones are active, how they respond to their surroundings, or what substances they produce.

How it works

• Described in Nature Biotechnology, the method captures gene activity rather than microbial presence alone, offering a closer look at how these communities behave on the body.
• This can identify organisms and the genes they carry, but it cannot show whether those genes are being used.
• Human genetic material can overwhelm the microbial signal, while RNA itself is fragile and can deteriorate quickly.
• The researchers overcame these obstacles with a workflow designed to enrich microbial RNA and filter out misleading signals.
• By contrast, Malassezia fungi and Staphylococcus bacteria generated an unexpectedly large share of microbial transcripts despite sometimes appearing far less prominent in the DNA data.

What to take from it

RNA provides a more immediate record of which genes microbes have switched on. They tested it at five skin sites in 27 healthy adults, pairing metatranscriptomics, which measures RNA activity, with metagenomics, which identifies organisms through DNA. The comparison exposed a striking mismatch between population size and activity.

Example or evidence

• By comparing gene expression with changes in microbial abundance, the researchers identified more than 20 genes that may help mediate interactions among skin organisms.
• Researchers could use it to identify pathways associated with disease, search for useful microbial molecules, and examine whether shifts in gene activity appear before or during symptoms.
• Niranjan Nagarajan, Associate Director, AI & Compute, at A*STAR GIS, said, "This approach gives researchers and clinicians a new way to profile microbial activity directly on the skin.
• A*STAR Research Dermatology Microbiology Popular RNA Skin Share.

Details worth keeping

Beyond a Microbial Head Count Most skin microbiome studies examine DNA. This means a microbe that looks minor in a conventional survey may still be performing a major role. Microbial activity also varied sharply across different parts of the body.

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