Different Cutibacterium acnes Phylotypes Release Distinct Extracellular Vesicles

Bacterial extracellular vesicles (EVs) perform various biological functions, including those that are critical to microbes. Determination of EVs composition allows for a deep understanding of their role in the bacterial community and communication among them. Cutibacterium acnes, formerly Propionibacterium acnes, are commensal bacteria responsible for various infections, e.g., prosthesis, sarcoidosis, soft-tissue infections, and the most known but still controversial—acnes lesion. In C. acnes, three major phylotypes represented variable disease associations. Herein, for the first time, we present a comparative analysis of EVs obtained from three C. acnes phylotypes (IA1, IB, and II) to demonstrate the existence of differences in their protein and lipid composition. In the following work, the morphological analysis of EVs was performed, and the SDS-PAGE protein profile and the lipid profile were presented using the TLC and MALDI-TOF MS methods. This study allowed us to show major differences between the protein and lipid composition of C. acnes EVs. This is a clear indication that EVs released by different phylotypes of the one species are not identical to each other in terms of composition and should be separately analyzed each time to obtain reliable results.