The skin microbiome in psoriatic arthritis: methodology development and pilot data

Area of Science:

• Microbiology
• Genomics
• Bioinformatics

Background:

• The skin microbiota plays a crucial role in the development of inflammatory conditions such as psoriatic arthritis.
• Understanding the skin microbiome composition in psoriatic plaques is essential for advancing research in this area.

Purpose of the Study:

• To determine the optimal study design for skin microbiome research using the MiSeq platform.
• To compare data generated from two primer pairs and two sequencing platforms (MiSeq and Roche454) using a mock bacterial community.

Main Methods:

• DNA extraction from mock communities and skin swabs from healthy volunteers.
• Amplification of 16S rRNA gene hypervariable regions (V1-V3 and V3-V4) using specific primer pairs.
• Sequencing on MiSeq and Roche454 platforms, followed by data processing using QIIME software.

Main Results:

• The V3-V4 hypervariable region demonstrated superior bacterial diversity capture compared to the V1-V3 region.
• High concordance (98.9-99.8%) was observed within each platform, with minimal impact from human DNA contamination.
• The MiSeq and Roche454 platforms showed high concordance (87%) at the family level when using the V3-V4 region.

Conclusions:

• Sequencing the V3-V4 16S rRNA hypervariable region on the MiSeq platform yields concordant results, comparable to the Roche454 platform.
• The MiSeq platform and the selected primers offer a reliable and comparable method for skin microbiota profiling.