Every Pore on Your Face Is a Walled Garden (nytimes.com) 15
Veronique Greenwood writes via The New York Times: Your skin is home to a thousand kinds of bacteria, and the ways they contribute to healthy skin are still largely mysterious. This mystery may be getting even more complex: In a paper published Thursday in the journal Cell Host & Microbe, researchers studying the many varieties of Cutibacterium acnes bacteria on 16 human volunteers found that each pore was a world unto itself. Every pore contained just a single type of C. acnes. C. acnes is naturally occurring, and the most abundant bacteria on skin. Its link to acne, the skin disease, is not clear, said Tami Lieberman, a professor at M.I.T. and an author of the new paper. If biologists want to unpack the relationship between your face's inhabitants and its health, it will be an important step to understand whether varying strains of C. acnes have their own talents or niches, and how the strains are distributed across your skin.
Each person's skin had a unique combination of strains, but what surprised the researchers most was that each pore housed a single variety of C. acnes. The pores were different from their neighbors, too -- there was no clear pattern uniting the pores of the left cheek or forehead across the volunteers, for instance. What's more, judging from the sequencing data, the bacteria within each pore were essentially identical. "There's a huge amount of diversity over one square centimeter of your face," said Arolyn Conwill, a postdoctoral researcher who is the study's lead author. "But within a single one of your pores, there's a total lack of diversity."
What the scientists think is happening is that each pore contains descendants of a single individual. Pores are deep, narrow crannies with oil-secreting glands at the bottom, Dr. Lieberman said. If a C. acnes cell manages to get down there, it may proliferate until it fills the pore with copies of itself. This would also explain why strains that don't grow very quickly manage to avoid being outcompeted by speedier strains on the same person. They're not competing with each other; they're living side by side in their own walled gardens. Intriguingly, these gardens are not very old, the scientists think. They estimate that the founding cells in the pores they studied took up residence only about one year before. What happened to the bacteria that previously lived there? The researchers don't know -- perhaps they were destroyed by the immune system, fell prey to viruses or were unceremoniously yanked out by a nose strip, clearing the way for new founders.
Each person's skin had a unique combination of strains, but what surprised the researchers most was that each pore housed a single variety of C. acnes. The pores were different from their neighbors, too -- there was no clear pattern uniting the pores of the left cheek or forehead across the volunteers, for instance. What's more, judging from the sequencing data, the bacteria within each pore were essentially identical. "There's a huge amount of diversity over one square centimeter of your face," said Arolyn Conwill, a postdoctoral researcher who is the study's lead author. "But within a single one of your pores, there's a total lack of diversity."
What the scientists think is happening is that each pore contains descendants of a single individual. Pores are deep, narrow crannies with oil-secreting glands at the bottom, Dr. Lieberman said. If a C. acnes cell manages to get down there, it may proliferate until it fills the pore with copies of itself. This would also explain why strains that don't grow very quickly manage to avoid being outcompeted by speedier strains on the same person. They're not competing with each other; they're living side by side in their own walled gardens. Intriguingly, these gardens are not very old, the scientists think. They estimate that the founding cells in the pores they studied took up residence only about one year before. What happened to the bacteria that previously lived there? The researchers don't know -- perhaps they were destroyed by the immune system, fell prey to viruses or were unceremoniously yanked out by a nose strip, clearing the way for new founders.
Interesting (Score:2)
Reading the summary made me think of Shild's Ladder by Greg Egan. /. in a long time.
One of the most interesting articles here on
Put BeauHD in a walled garden. (Score:2, Funny)
Very high walls.
On second thought, scratch the garden part.
Re: (Score:2)
Which means that every zit on your face is an unique ecosystem.
Geek Vernacular (Score:3)
Using Walled Garden, to describe the latest advancements in skin research on a nerd forum? Really? Quite a pore justification for that.
What's next, we start using wrestling terms to describe politics? I mean, we might as well. Can't tell the difference between a shoot and a work with all those elected jabroney's running around heeling everyone with COVID scaremongering.
Re: (Score:3)
Using Walled Garden, to describe the latest advancements in skin research on a nerd forum? Really?
Clearly one's skin is more of a "siloed workplace" than a "walled garden". Sheesh, Slashdot.
Re: (Score:2)
More of a soiled workplace.
Re: (Score:2)
I think it is probably the best apt description on the condition, even better than what we geeks apply to App stores.
An actual walled garden, is a Garden with various plants often ones that are not native to the general ecosystem, with a wall that prevents them from going to the general ecosystem, and also prevents the ecosystem from entering the garden.
However, you also need to keep in mind, Reporting (including Science Reporting) is generally targeted towards people with an 8th grade education, as after 8
Re: (Score:2)
I think it is probably the best apt description on the condition, even better than what we geeks apply to App stores. An actual walled garden, is a Garden with various plants often ones that are not native to the general ecosystem, with a wall that prevents them from going to the general ecosystem, and also prevents the ecosystem from entering the garden.
However, you also need to keep in mind, Reporting (including Science Reporting) is generally targeted towards people with an 8th grade education, as after 8th grade or so, we begin to specialize in our education, as we go further in education we become more and more specialized..
The only realization that should be highlighted here, is wondering why the hell we even bother educating the public beyond 8th grade.
And no, education does not become "specialized" beyond 8th grade. We call that "High School", and it's still part of that standardized education system that every citizen looks to obtain. You're FAR from "special" with a high school degree. Just ask any recruiter.
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You do realize that "walled garden" in an app store context is *also* a metaphor?
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You do realize that "walled garden" in an app store context is *also* a metaphor?
Yes, I do.
I also realize that saying the word "apple" can also mean a reference to a fruit, but no one under 25 years old would ever assume that you're talking about something other than the beloved iPimp of Tech.
Every Pore on Your Face Is a Walled Garden (Score:3)
Every Pore on Your Face Is a Walled Garden
Beat that, Apple!
How fitting (Score:1)
...both links are on a paywalled garden.
Something odd going on (Score:1)
I have acne/rosacea, often known as "adult acne". One oddity is that if one spot on my face or body flares up, the opposite side also often flares up in unison. For example, if my upper right arm has a flare-up, the upper left arm is also likely to experience one shortly after. It does seem like the bacteria specializes in specific skin cell types, which tends to fit these findings. If that specific strain has a boom, then it can spread more spores, which the other corresponding side of the body eventually
This complicates microbiome research (Score:2)
If the microbiome is that localised, then it severely complicates efforts to understand how it all interacts. The claim that there is no pattern is also interesting, as you'd expect pores in close proximity - given how small they are - to experience very similar environmental factors. I'd like to know if they actually mean each pore, or if they simply mean "very small area of the skin", as a pore won't yield much dna.