ArticleScience translational medicine2015
Vitamin B12 modulates the transcriptome of the skin microbiota in acne pathogenesis.
Article in Science translational medicine, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT03450369 (A Phase 1B Dose Escalating Study of the Safety, Short-Term Engraftment and Action of a Singly-Applied NB01 in Adults With Moderate Acne), which is not on this map. Cited by 84 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
A Phase 1B Dose Escalating Study of the Safety, Short-Term Engraftment and Action of a Singly-Applied NB01 in Adults With Moderate Acne
Who cites it
84 citing papers in PubMed, 170 citations in OpenAlex.
- Antimicrobials from human skin commensal bacteria protect againstScience translational medicine · 2017Trial
- Skin metatranscriptomics reveals a landscape of variation in microbial activity and gene expression across the human body.Nature biotechnology · 2026Article
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- Multi-omics characterization of the skin microbiota reveals the anti-aging roles of Stenotrophomonas maltophilia.Microbiome · 2026Article
- Vitamin BNutrients · 2026Review
- Ketogenic diet synergistic reprogramming of both host and microbiome promotes tissue regeneration.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- The Evolving Microbial Paradigm in Acne.Biomolecules · 2026Review
- Colouring dysbiosis: FetB-dependent Mn-PPIX produced by Porphyromonas gingivalis shapes the oral microbiota.NPJ biofilms and microbiomes · 2026Article
- VDLIN: A Deep Learning-Based Platform for Methylcobalamin-Inspired Immunomodulatory Compound Screening.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2026Article
- Nanobiosensors: A Potential Tool to Decipher the Nexus Between SARS-CoV-2 Infection and Gut Dysbiosis.Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Porphyrin pathways as targets for combating antimicrobial resistance: virulence and therapeutic opportunities.Frontiers in cellular and infection microbiology · 2026Review
- Rebalancing the Skin: The Microbiome, Acne Pathogenesis, and the Future of Natural and Synthetic Therapies.Molecules (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Infections as ecosystems: community metabolic interactions in microbial pathogenesis.Infection and immunity · 2025Review
- Microbiome-Based Products: Therapeutic Potential for Inflammatory Skin Diseases.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Review
- Vitamin biosynthesis in the gut: interplay between mammalian host and its resident microbiota.Microbiology and molecular biology reviews : MMBR · 2025Review
- TEAL-Seq: targeted expression analysis sequencing.mSphere · 2025Article
- The role of lipid metabolism in acne risk: integrating blood metabolite and genetic insights.Skin health and disease · 2025Article
- Desensitization for Vitamin B12 Hypersensitivity and How to Do It.Biomedicines · 2025Review
- Effects of vitamin BApplied and environmental microbiology · 2025Article
- A multi-strain human skin microbiome model provides a testbed for disease modeling.Frontiers in microbiomes · 2025Article
24 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Various diseases have been linked to the human microbiota, but the underlying molecular mechanisms of the microbiota in disease pathogenesis are often poorly understood. Using acne as a disease model, we aimed to understand the molecular response of the skin microbiota to host metabolite signaling in disease pathogenesis. Metatranscriptomic analysis revealed that the transcriptional profiles of the skin microbiota separated acne patients from healthy individuals. The vitamin B12 biosynthesis pathway in the skin bacterium Propionibacterium acnes was significantly down-regulated in acne patients. We hypothesized that host vitamin B12 modulates the activities of the skin microbiota and contributes to acne pathogenesis. To test this hypothesis, we analyzed the skin microbiota in healthy subjects supplemented with vitamin B12. We found that the supplementation repressed the expression of vitamin B12 biosynthesis genes in P. acnes and altered the transcriptome of the skin microbiota. One of the 10 subjects studied developed acne 1 week after vitamin B12 supplementation. To further understand the molecular mechanism, we revealed that vitamin B12 supplementation in P. acnes cultures promoted the production of porphyrins, which have been shown to induce inflammation in acne. Our findings suggest a new bacterial pathogenesis pathway in acne and provide one molecular explanation for the long-standing clinical observation that vitamin B12 supplementation leads to acne development in a subset of individuals. Our study discovered that vitamin B12, an essential nutrient in humans, modulates the transcriptional activities of skin bacteria, and provided evidence that metabolite-mediated interactions between the host and the skin microbiota play essential roles in disease development.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.