Recently, the team of Prof. Jianxin Wu and Prof. Qing Huang from the School of Traditional Chinese Pharmacy published a research paper titled “Microecology in vitro model replicates the human skin microbiome interactions” online in Nature Communications, constructing the first stratum corneum-like microecology model (SCmic), which provides a brand new tool platform for skin microbiome research. Wang Pan, a PhD student from the School of Traditional Chinese Pharmacy class of 2023, Lecturer Huijuan Li from the School of Traditional Chinese Pharmacy, and Prof. Jianxin Wu from the School of Traditional Chinese Pharmacy are the co-first authors, Prof. Jianxin Wu from the School of Traditional Chinese Pharmacy and Prof. Qing Huang are the co-corresponding authors of this paper, and the University of Pharmacy of China is the sole correspondent of the paper.
Human skin microorganisms are crucial for maintaining skin health, but their complex interactions and dynamic changes have made related research extremely challenging and limited so far. The research team innovatively used special polymer materials to simulate the ecological environment of skin, successfully replicated the skin microflora, and realized the long-term stable colonization of skin flora in vitro for the first time.
In addition, the research team revealed for the first time the effects of skin-resident flora on cosmetic active ingredients, such as the transformation of α-arbutin into hydroquinone and the metabolism of niacinamide into nicotinic acid, which provide an important basis for the safety assessment of cosmetic raw materials and topical preparations. In addition, evaluating the safety of chemical substances from a microecological perspective will provide a new perspective for overall safety assessment, especially the effects of colony metabolism interference, which may be overlooked in traditional in vitro toxicology tests.
The skin microecology model developed by this research team breaks through the limitations of traditional microbial culture methods, and has the advantages of being standardizable, reproducible, easy to manipulate, and low cost, which provides a reliable and intuitive means for microbial and host interdependence and coexistence, and for research and product development of medicinal products on skin microecology. The microbial in vitro model can be widely used in the study of human microecology and skin health, the efficacy and safety evaluation of pharmaceutical and cosmetic raw materials and products, the safety evaluation of topical medical devices and percutaneous preparations, the dynamic changes between special bacteria (drug-resistant bacteria) and other microorganisms in the environment of microecological coexistence, and also provides a key tool for the study of the mechanism of skin diseases, personalized health management, and the development of microecologically-targeted products. It can also provide a key tool for the study of skin disease mechanisms, personalized health management, and the development of microecologically targeted products. This study marks an important step for skin microbiome research towards clinical and industrial applications.
This research work was supported by the Research Program for High-level Introduced Talents of China Pharmaceutical University.
Link to the paper: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-58377-2
Schematic diagram of the SCmic model
