UC San Diego

The regulation of cutaneous inflammatory processes is essential for the human skin to maintain homeostasis in the presence of the dense communities of resident microbes that normally populate this organ. Forming the hair follicle-associated sebaceous gland, sebocytes are specialized lipid-producing cells that can release inflammatory mediators. Cytokine and chemokine expression by pilosebaceous epithelial cells (i.e., sebocytes and follicular keratinocytes) has been proposed to contribute to the common human skin disease acne vulgaris. The underlying mechanisms that drive inflammatory gene expression in acne-involved pilosebaceous epithelial cells are still unknown because almost all sebaceous follicles contain dense concentrations of bacteria yet only some show an inflammatory reaction. In this study, we hypothesized that metabolites from the abundant skin-resident microbe Propionibacterium acnes can influence cytokine expression from human sebocytes. We show that short-chain fatty acids produced by P. acnes under environmental conditions that favor fermentation will drive inflammatory gene expression from sebocytes. These molecules are shown to influence sebocyte behavior through two distinct mechanisms: the inhibition of histone deacetylase (HDAC) activity and the activation of fatty acid receptors. Depletion of HDAC8 and HDAC9 in human sebocytes resulted in an enhanced cytokine response to TLR-2 activation that resembled the transcriptional profile of an acne lesion. These data provide a new insight into the regulation of inflammatory gene expression in the skin, further characterize the contribution of sebocytes to epidermal immunity, and demonstrate how changes in the metabolic state of the skin microbiome can promote inflammatory acne.