Understanding the microbial basis of body odor in pre-pubescent children and teenagers

Microbiome

Table 1 List of microbes at the species level that show significant correlation with odor intensity in at least one age group

Species	Youth				Children			Teenagers
	Spearman’s ρ		Wilcoxon		Spearman’s ρ		Wilcoxon	Spearman’s ρ			Wilcoxon
	ρ	p-value	p-value		ρ	p-value	p-value	ρ	p-value		p-value
Underarm
Staphylococcus epidermidis	0.67	5 × 10⁻⁷	↑	0.04	0.44	n.s.	↑	n.s.	0.40	n.s.	↑	n.s.
Cutibacterium avidum	0.63	5 × 10⁻⁶	↑	n.s.	0.52	n.s.	↑	n.s.	0.31	n.s.	↑	n.s.
Corynebacterium pseudogenitalium	0.44	10⁻²	↓	n.s.	0.42	n.s.	↓	n.s.	0.13	n.s.	↑	n.s.
Corynebacterium tuberculostearicum	0.38	0.06	↓	n.s.	0.35	n.s.	↓	n.s.	0.18	n.s.	↑	n.s.
Malassezia globosa	0.53	7 × 10⁻⁴	↓	n.s.	0.37	n.s.	↓	n.s.	0.33	n.s.	↑	n.s.
Neck
Staphylococcus hominis	0.32	n.s.	↑	n.s.	0.65	10⁻²	↑	n.s.	0.09	n.s.	↑	n.s.
Staphylococcus phage StB27	0.49	0.02	↑	n.s.	0.77	10⁻⁴	↑	n.s.	0.19	n.s.	↑	n.s.
Cutibacterium granulosum	− 0.45	0.03	↓	0.06	− 0.48	n.s.	↓	n.s.	− 0.38	n.s.	↓	n.s.
Acinetobacter schindleri	− 0.43	0.03	↓	0.07	− 0.47	n.s.	↓	n.s.	− 0.30	n.s.	↓	n.s.
Cutibacterium acnes	− 0.28	n.s.	↓	n.s.	− 0.54	0.08	↓	n.s.	− 0.21	n.s.	↓	n.s.

All reported p-values are adjusted for multiple hypotheses testing through FDR analysis (p-value < 0.1) and with Spearman’s ρ > 0.2. Arrows indicate the directionality of change in relative abundance after exercise (up: ↑ or down: ↓). The “youth” group combines children and teenagers
n.s.: not significant (p-value > 0.1)

ISSN: 2049-2618