Characterization of a Perturbed Skin Microbiome in Basal Cell Carcinoma

Abstract Increasing amount of evidence links dysbiosis to various human disease states, which includes cancer. This study aimed to examine the skin microbiome in basal cell carcinoma (BCC) and compare it with that of the healthy-looking skin within the same individual to identify skin cancer-associated changes in the skin microbiome. We performed high resolution analysis of full-length 16S rRNA amplicons, and utilized both skin swabs and biopsy samples which were analyzed separately and altogether. Sequencing of the total 56 samples identified the most abundant species as C. acnes which was significantly more prevalent in Control (biopsy dataset; combined dataset) than in BCC. Random Forest analysis identified 24 microbes that discriminated BCC with C. acnes being the most discriminative taxa (G = 2.08). Using PICRUSt2, we observed diminishment of Vitamin B6 metabolism in the BCC lesions. Absolute quantification of Radical oxygenase of Propionibacterium acnes (roxP, a strong antioxidant unique for C. acnes ) gene by qPCR revealed a significant drop in the relative copy number of roxP to the 16S rRNA gene in the BCC lesion (swab samples, P < 0.05). Our study identified transitional microbial dysbiosis form healthy skin to BCC and support further investigation of how these microbes may influence skin cancer progression.