Acne. Another of the malevolent designer's creations?
For any teenage Creationist suffering from acne or carrying the facial scars of it, it will come as no comfort at all that their favourite pestilential malevolence, the 'creator' god of the Bible and Qur'an, could have just as easily given them a strain of the bacteria that causes it, Cutibacterium acnes, that not only doesn't cause acne, but which might even protect the skin from another pathogen, Staphylococcus aureus.
It will also come as no comfort to those who have fallen for the Deception Institute's intelligent [sic] design hoax, that a discovery by a Japanese team of scientists from Osaka City University and Okayama University shows how muddled and stupid any intelligence who designed the complex ecosystem that is the human skin and its commensal organisms, would have been.
Using a novel approach where a nematode, Caenorhabditis elegans, was used as a proxy for human skin, the team showed that certain strains, or ribotypes (RT), of C. acnes, based on clades of their ribosomal RNA (rRNA), not only do not cause acne but actually protect the nematode from infection with S. aureus and so possibly help to maintain a healthy skin. RT4 and 8, which are associated with acne also shorten the life of Ce. elegans, while RT6, found on healthy skin, does not.
From the Osaka University News release:
At a GlanceSo, from the point of view of a Creationist who believes all living things were created for a purpose by a magic creator, what we have here is an example of how it could have created just the ribotypes of C. acnes which not only do not cause acne and the resulting scars, but which protect the skin against other pathogenic organisms such as S. aureus but decided instead to create the form that causes acne, especially in teenagers.
Study on Caenorhabditis elegans shows that certain strains of the bacteria Cutibacterium acnes actually prolong the nematode’s lifespan and help its innate immune system fight against the pathogen Staphylococcus aureus.
Summary
Researchers reveal correlation between ribotype (RT) strains of Cutibacterium acnes, which are found in human skin, and the lifespan of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. Strains RT4 and 8, which are associated with acne in human skin, shortened the lifespan of the nematode, while RT6, which are predominantly found in healthy human skin, did not. Also, it was found that the healthy skin-related RT6 strain of C. acnes improved C. elegans resistance to the pathogenic organism Staphylococcus aureus.
Research outline
It is likely that C. acnes maintains skin health by inhibiting common pathogens like S. aureus from invading skin tissue. Instead of using mammals, we explored this with Caenorhabditis elegans, a 1mm nematode that has basic animal parts like a nervous system, muscles, and digestive tract, as well as a body surface barrier equivalent to human skin.Cutibacterium acnes, a bacteria that is known to cause acne, is also widely spread on people with healthy skin. Recent advances in gene sequencing have shown that differences in the genetic background between strains of bacteria may lead to differing roles in the skin. A new study, done without animal (mammal) testing, shows that the nonpathogenic strain of C. acnes improves the skin’s resistance against the infection-causing bacteria Staphylococcus aureus.
Ayano Tsuru, lead author
Graduate student at the Graduate School of Human Life Science
Osaka City University, Osaka, Japan
The report appears in Microbiology Spectrum of the American Society for Microbiology.
[…]
This means that ribotype strains of C. acnes that cause acne in humans correlated with virulence, or a shortening the C. elegans lifespan.In this joint study between the Osaka City University and Okayama University, researchers used C. elegans to investigate the biological effects of several strains of C. acnes isolated from human skin.
Yumi Hamazaki, co-author
Graduate student at the Graduate School of Human Life Science
Osaka City University, Osaka, Japan
Results showed that ribotype (RT) 4 and 8 strains, a classification of bacteria strains based on polymorphisms in rRNA, which are often detected in the skin of individuals suffering from acne, shortened the lifespan of the nematode, while RT6 strains that are often found in the skin of people without acne, did not.
Further analysis of nematode gene mutants suggests this resistance to S. aureus was mediated by TIR-1 and p38 MAPK pathways that are responsible for innate immunity and not by suppressing the growth of the S. aureus pathogen.The team further clarified this finding by investigating the effect of healthy skin-associated strains of C. acnes on the nematode’s susceptibility to S. aureus. Results showed the survival period of nematodes infected with the pathogen to be longer than the control group.
Professor Shuta Tomida, co-author
Center for Comprehensive Genomic Medicine
Okayama University Hospital, Okayama, Japan
Also, RNA sequencing analysis of changes in the gene expression revealed that strains of C. acnes behind healthy skin activated a group of genes related to innate immunity and biological defense responses in C. elegans.
[…]
The implications of this study are wide and exciting.
By focusing on ribotypes related to the absence of acne, this study revealed there are beneficial aspects of acne bacteria, which have had a generally negative image.
In their research paper, the team say:
ABSTRACTBut it gets worse! What we have here is an example of the sort of complex ecosystem that no intelligent, omni-benevolent designer would come up with in the first place. Firstly, we have to believe it created humans then created special organisms to live on human skin for no apparent good reason other than to become pathogenic and make us suffer. Then, having created these pathogens for that apparent purpose, it set about designing a way to overcome the effects of its own creation by creating a complex defence. A massively complex solution to a problem of its own creation, all for no discernible benefit, it seems.
Cutibacterium acnes is a human skin-resident bacterium. Although C. acnes maintains skin health by inhibiting invasion from pathogens like Staphylococcus aureus, it also contributes to several diseases, including acne. Studies suggest that differences in genetic background may explain the diverse phenotypes of C. acnes strains. In this study, we investigated the effects of C. acnes strains on the Caenorhabditis elegans life span and observed that some strains shortened the life span, whereas other strains, such as strain HL110PA4, did not alter it. Next, we assessed the effects of C. acnes HL110PA4 on host resistance against S. aureus. The survival time of C. acnes HL110PA4-fed wild-type animals was significantly longer than that of Escherichia coli OP50 control bacterium-fed worms upon infection with S. aureus. Although the survival times of worms harboring mutations at the daf-16/FoxO and skn-1/Nrf2 loci were similar to those of wild-type worms after S. aureus infection, administration of C. acnes failed to improve survival times of tir-1/SARM1, nsy-1/mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase kinase (MAPKKK), sek-1/mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase (MAPKK), and pmk-1/p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) mutants. These results suggest that the TIR-1 and p38 MAPK pathways are involved in conferring host resistance against S. aureus in a C. acnes-mediated manner.
IMPORTANCE Cutibacterium acnes is one of the most common bacterial species residing on the human skin. Although the pathogenic properties of C. acnes, such as its association with acne vulgaris, have been widely described, its beneficial aspects have not been well characterized. Our study classifies C. acnes strains based on its pathogenic potential toward the model host C. elegans and reveals that the life span of C. elegans worms fed on C. acnes was consistent with the clinical association of C. acnes ribotypes with acne or nonacne. Furthermore, nonpathogenic C. acnes confers host resistance against the opportunistic pathogen Staphylococcus aureus. Our study provides insights into the impact of C. acnes on the host immune system and its potential roles in the ecosystem of skin microbiota.
Tsuru Ayano; Hamazaki Yumi; Tomida Shuta; Ali Mohammad Shaokat; Komura Tomomi; Nishikawa Yoshikazu; Kage-Nakadai Eriko; Claesen Jan
Nonpathogenic Cutibacterium acnes Confers Host Resistance against Staphylococcus aureus
Microbiology Spectrum (2021) 10.1128/Spectrum.00562-21
Copyright: © 2021 The authors. Published by American Society for Microbiology
Open access
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)
Only someone ignorant of much of biology could see intelligent design as a better explanation for this than that given by the Theory of Evolution, which is more than capable of explaining these phenomena as the result of an amoral, non-directed, utilitarian natural process where whatever gives the most survivors wins in the struggle for existence.
But for some reason, Creationists seem to prefer a view which portrays their beloved god as an incompetent, hateful sadist who loves creating ways to make its creations suffer. Obviously, those frauds at the Deception Institute who invented the intelligent [sic] design hoax and who have managed to fool ignorant people with it, have an agenda which doesn't involve presenting this supposed creator god as an object of worship, and only in pursuing a relentlessly anti-science agenda for the political ends detailed in the notorious Wedge Strategy.
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