Location, location, location
Different types of bacteria are known to predominate certain parts of the body, due to factors such as moisture, which can aid their growth and development. For this reason, when mapped, the feet were the largest home for bacteria such as staphylococcus, whereas bacteria associated with conditions such as acne were predictably found in higher numbers on the face and upper back.
"But we don't know what they're doing there," says Dorrestein for whom this study is just a snapshot. The aggregation of chemicals in certain places around the body -- such as sunscreen around the neck -- need further research to be understood. "At this point it's a mystery," he adds.
Until now, little has been understood about the make-up and locations of the skin's microbial ecosystem. "[This mapping] adds a new dimension to the study of the complex community of microorganisms that live on normal human skin ... which provides interesting new information," says Thomas Kupper, head of dermatology at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, United States. "[But] The full potential of this approach is as yet unrealized ... we need to consider these complex and uncharacterized interactions between the cells of our skin, the multitude of microbes that inhabit the skin, and how chemicals applied to our skin interact with both."
The findings are based on insight from only two volunteers and provide purely a first glimpse into this burgeoning new field of research -- providing a baseline to further investigate the workings of human skin. The team hope human skin composition could be one day be monitored or altered to improve, or prevent, diseases including skin allergies such as psoriasis and dermatitis.
"We want to know what's a healthy microbial community," says Dorrestein about the mapping technology and hopes it could be used to find indicators of what might be going wrong in an individual. "We can then improve health.