Author: Juliana Aboukasem, Yr 12
These animals are mites tiny archfiends related to spiders and ticks too small to see with the naked eye too small to feel move around. Their bodies are shaped like the inside of a pore, evolution having a large part to play as they changed their shape over time reducing themselves to narrow plugs topped with eight absurdly tiny legs.
Face mites were first discovered in 1841 in the human ear canal and then soon discovered in the eyebrows and eyelashes. Since then scientists have learned that not only do they live in the areas covered by long hair but also in areas with short fine hairs all over the body. When it was first discovered it was seen as a potential pest/medical problem and that idea continued for longer than a century the reason for this will be further discussed later on in this article.
At the moment lets focus on what face mites are and try to understand what they do… our pores are homes to at least 2 different species of mites both of the genus Demodex. D.brevis is one species that prefer to nestle deep in the sebaceous glands and the other species being D.folliculorum which prefers to hang out in hair follicles closer to the skin surface. Both types of species are such homebodies that scientists have trouble observing them either in captivity or in the wilds of the human face meaning very little is known about them, however, some things are known for certain such as face mites are sensitive to light, they don’t have an anus however details about their diet is unknown scientists nowadays assume that they consume dead skin and sebum, they spend virtually their entire lives on our skin and finally, they are capable of reproducing.
As mentioned previously these mites are so cryptic, that most of us will never see one. A journalist that goes by the name Erika Engelhaupt was skeptical and shocked when finding out about these mites and inspired to find out more she visited North Carolina state university in Raleigh where a biologist named Rob Dunn had made breaking news in understanding these mites. Erika Engelhaupt aimed to not only see her face mites but also to learn more about them. Upon arrival, she is greeted by Dr. Megan Thoemmas who was at the time just finishing off her Ph.D. in Dunn’s laboratory. Dr. Thoemmas enlightens the journalist telling her about the different ways to collect a Demodex sample, one being placing a drop of cyanoacrylate ( super glue) on a individuals face and stick a glass microscope to it when the cyanoacrylate dries peel off the glue allowing the cyanoacrylate to pull everything out of your pores including the mites, all stuck together in a pore-shaped clump. Another way (“the old fashion way”) would be by using a stainless steel spatula to scrape out the sebum and placing it on a glass microscope slide. A current more developed way to find out if face mites are present in a sample is through testing for their DNA. Dunn’s group analyzed the sebum samples of a large number of participants all over the age of 18 and found that every single one of the participants had face mite DNA in their sebum sample obtained from their skin.
In 2014 it was published that face mites are ubiquitous in humans (meaning they are found everywhere.) Now here’s where it gets interesting, further DNA research has shown that face mites have evolved so closely with their hosts that at least 4 distinct lineages of mites mirror our own- those with European, Asian, Latin American and African ancestry.
The hope for the future is Dr. Michelle Trautwein – one of Dunn’s colleges is continuing to study the diversity of mites and having sampled, mites on people from more than 90 countries she hopes to sequence the entire face mite genome. You may be asking yourself how could this help us? Her discovery could help us understand how the mites have evolved alongside us and allow us to look at their genes which could further help us understand their physiology despite the difficulty of growing them in a lab.
Now, why is it that it took so long for scientists to accept that face mites were common in all humans and were not a medical concern? The reason was that scientists/doctors/dermatologists found that people who were diagnosed with rosacea tended to have a greater number of face mites then the average which led them to conclude that face mites cause the condition. However now we know that we all have them and the link that was initially made might not be what it appeared to be. Dr. Thommas suggests that it might be the other way around “maybe the inflammation and increased blood flow related to rosacea created favorable conditions for face mites to live in.” meaning a large number of face mites found in rosacea patients is a symptom of it, not a cause.
In conclusion, It’s not clear whether Demodex mites should be considered as a harmful pesticide or as a “good” microbe. They could be eating harmful bacteria, dead skin, and sebum or secreting antimycobacterial compounds, therefore, having a symbiotic relationship. We feed them junk, they help with the housekeeping it’s a win win.
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