Impact of host genetic variation and environmental influences on the cutaneous microbiome composition

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The composition of the skin microbiome likely contributes to a wide-range of health and disease states including chronic inflammatory skin diseases. It is shaped by both environmental and host (genetic) components. In contrast to the large-scale efforts of the Human Microbiome Project to catalogue the healthy cutaneous microbial flora at different body sites, relatively little has been accomplished to characterize the host and environmental factors impacting the skin microbiome. To date, there are no genome-wide studies that have attempted to characterize specific genes and pathways in the human genome that may shape the composition of the skin microbiome, and relatively little is known on the impact of specific extrinsic individual-dependent factors such as UV-exposure, pet exposure and dietary habits. Finally, potential correlations between the microbiome composition at the skin and other body sites have not been examined so far. The proposed project therefore aims at comprehensively profiling the impact of human genetic variation and selected environmental factors on the composition of the cutananeous microbial ecosystem at 3 sites on a genome- and microbiome-wide scale, and to examine the concordance of skin and gut microbiomes, in two well characterized population-based cohorts comprising 386 (KORA) and 600 (POPGEN) adults.