Abstract

Increasing evidence demonstrated that Propionibacterium acnes (P. acnes) plays a central role in many human polymicrobial diseases including acne vulgaris, which afflicts more than one million people in the U.S. alone. To date, there are no appropriate therapeutic modalities that effectively control P. acnes succession during disease development. By taking advantage of the availability of genome and proteome of P. acnes, we have highlighted here the events of P. acnes adhesion and biofilm formation as potential targets for development of drugs or vaccines counteracting P. acnesassociated diseases.

Keywords: Propionibacterium acnes, acne, vaccine, lipase, biofilm, bacterial adhesion