Assessment of the Microbiome Role in Skin Protection Against UV Irradiation Via Network Analysis

Abstract Introduction: Diverse microbiotas which have some contributions to gene expression reside in human skin. To identify the protective role of the skin microbiome against UV exposure, protein-protein interaction (PPI) network analysis is used to assess gene expression alteration.Methods: A microarray dataset, GEO accession number GSE117359, was considered in this respect. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in the germ-free (GF) and specific pathogen-free (SPF) groups are analyzed by GEO2R. The top significant DEGs were assigned for network analysis via Cytoscape 3.7.2 and its applications.Results: A total of 28 genes were identified as significant DEGs and the centrality analysis of the network indicated that only one of the seven hub-bottlenecks was from queried genes. The gene ontology analysis of Il6, Cxcl2, Cxcl1, TNF, Il10, Cxcl10, and Mmp9 showed that the crucial genes were highly enriched in the immune system.Conclusion: The skin microbiome plays a significant role in the protection of the skin against UV irradiation and the role of TNF and IL6 is prominent in this regard. Keywords: Microbiome UV radiation Gene expression Protein-protein interaction network