Axillary fossaa microbial dysbiosis and its relationship with axillary osmidrosis patients

Skin is one of the largest human bacterial reservoirs, especially the human axilla. The microbiota of the human axilla plays an important role in the creation of axillary smell.

To explore the structure and composition of the axillary fossa microbiota between bromhidrosis patients and normal people, skin samples were collected from the armpits of 40 individuals, including 20 patients (10 males (aM), 10 females (aF), osmidrosis), and 20 healthy individuals (10 males (NM), 10 females (NF), control).

High-throughput sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene was carried out on a Hiseq2500 platform with the V3+V4 regions.

According to the bacterial Shannon diversity index and Simpson, we found that aF was significantly higher than the control but aM had no obvious distinction. Actinobacteria, Firmicutes, Proteobacteria and Deinococcus-Thermus were the dominant phyla in the four groups. Actinobacteria was distinctly higher in aM, while Firmicutes was significantly lower in aM. Furthermore, the aF displayed inverse results with aM. Corynebacterium-1 and Staphylococcus were the dominant genera in the four groups. Interestingly, Staphylococcus was the most abundant in aF, and Corynebacterium-1 was the dominant genus in aM and Corynebacterium-kroppenstedtii was significantly different in aM. Moreover, functional capacity analysis showed that genes associated with amino acid metabolism and lipid metabolism were higher in aM than in other groups, while pyruvate metabolism (carbohydrate metabolism) was obviously high in aF.

There were clearly distinct of axillary microbiota undergoes changes between bromhidrosis patients and controls. Staphylococcus and Corynebacterium-1 in aF and aM, respectively, were detected with distinctly elevated proportions, which might be strongly related to human axilla odor.