The influence of sex, handedness, and washing on the diversity of hand surface bacteria

Bacteria thrive on and within the human body. One of the largest human-associated microbial habitats is the skin surface, which harbors large numbers of bacteria that can have important effects on health. We examined the palmar surfaces of the dominant and nondominant hands of 51 healthy young adult volunteers to characterize bacterial diversity on hands and to assess its variability within and between individuals. We used a novel pyrosequencing-based method that allowed us to survey hand surface bacterial communities at an unprecedented level of detail. The diversity of skin-associated bacterial communities was surprisingly high; a typical hand surface harbored >150 unique species-level bacterial phylotypes,…

• NS
  National Science Foundation
• UO
  University of South Carolina
• NI
  National Institutes of Health