Multi-omics in Study of Skin Microbiome

Skin is the first line of defense of human body against infections where many diverse microbes, including fungi, viruses, bacteria are surviving. These microbes exists in/on a different layer of skin like epidermis, dermis, etc. These skin microbiomes prevent invasion of such pathogen in association with the immune system, while a few skin microbiomes can also react as opportunistic pathogens. Culture-dependent and culture-independent methodologies are useful for the identification and characterization of disease associated with skin microbiome. 16s RNA gene sequencing techniques are useful for skin disease determination, but these techniques have certain limitations as they dont accurately predict microorganism present on flora of skin. However, methods such as NGS, shotgun sequencing, Illumina’s sequencing, etc. have capability to give precise details about the skin microbiome. There are some challenges regarding skin microbiome samples, advantages and disadvantages of the sequencing methodologies, and probable future prospect for the discipline.