Impact of the Mk VI SkinSuit on skin microbiota of terrestrial volunteers and an International Space Station-bound astronaut

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Stabler, RA, Rosado, H, Doyle, R, Negus, D ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9047-4565, Carvil, PA, Kristjánsson, JG, Green, DA, Franco-Cendejas, R, Davies, C, Mogensen, A, Scott, J and Taylor, PW, 2017. Impact of the Mk VI SkinSuit on skin microbiota of terrestrial volunteers and an International Space Station-bound astronaut. npj Microgravity, 3 (1): 23. ISSN 2373-8065

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Official URL: http://doi.org/10.1038/s41526-017-0029-5

Abstract

Microgravity induces physiological deconditioning due to the absence of gravity loading, resulting in bone mineral density loss, atrophy of lower limb skeletal and postural muscles, and lengthening of the spine. SkinSuit is a lightweight compression suit designed to provide head-to-foot (axial) loading to counteract spinal elongation during spaceflight. As synthetic garments may impact negatively on the skin microbiome, we used 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) gene amplicon procedures to define bacterial skin communities at sebaceous and moist body sites of five healthy male volunteers undergoing SkinSuit evaluation. Each volunteer displayed a diverse, distinct bacterial population at each skin site. Short (8 h) periods of dry hyper-buoyancy flotation wearing either gym kit or SkinSuit elicited changes in the composition of the skin microbiota at the genus level but had little or no impact on community structure at the phylum level or the richness and diversity of the bacterial population. We also determined the composition of the skin microbiota of an astronaut during pre-flight training, during an 8-day visit to the International Space Station involving two 6–7 h periods of SkinSuit wear, and for 1 month after return. Changes in composition of bacterial skin communities at five body sites were strongly linked to changes in geographical location. A distinct ISS bacterial microbiota signature was found which reversed to a pre-flight profile on return. No changes in microbiome complexity or diversity were noted, with little evidence for colonisation by potentially pathogenic bacteria; we conclude that short periods of SkinSuit wear induce changes to the composition of the skin microbiota but these are unlikely to compromise the healthy skin microbiome.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	npj Microgravity
Creators:	Stabler, R.A., Rosado, H., Doyle, R., Negus, D., Carvil, P.A., Kristjánsson, J.G., Green, D.A., Franco-Cendejas, R., Davies, C., Mogensen, A., Scott, J. and Taylor, P.W.
Publisher:	Nature Publishing Group
Date:	7 September 2017
Volume:	3
Number:	1
ISSN:	2373-8065
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1038/s41526-017-0029-5 DOI 29 Publisher Item Identifier
Rights:	Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Divisions:	Schools > School of Social Sciences
Record created by:	Linda Sullivan
Date Added:	18 Jul 2018 13:02
Last Modified:	18 Jul 2018 13:02
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/34105