Table 1.
Definitions for the dandruff grade scoring used to assess severity of scalp dandruff.
Table 2.
Primers used for amplification of 16S rRNA gene and ITS2 regions.
Table 3.
Forward (F) and reverse (R) primers designed for amplification of tuf and gap genes from Staphylococcus taxa.
Table 4.
Sequences of qPCR primers and probes for the quantification of bacterial and fungal taxa.
Table 5.
Number of samples in each group (scalp type and site score) remaining after rarefaction processing.
Fig 1.
Fungal mean relative abundance.
Mean relative abundance of the predominant fungal genera as assessed by: A) TWHS: (Healthy and Dandruff) and B) Site score: Healthy (O and A) and Dandruff (O and C). The y-axis is truncated at 50% to facilitate visualisation of small changes in relative abundance.
Fig 2.
Malassezia spp. mean relative abundance.
Mean relative abundance of Malassezia taxa as assessed by: A) TWHS: Healthy and Dandruff and B) Site score: Healthy (O and A) and Dandruff (O and C). The y-axis is truncated at 50% to facilitate visualisation of small changes in relative abundance.
Fig 3.
Malassezia enumeration by qPCR.
Least Square Means (LSMean) log 10 copies/ml for M. globosa and M. restricta at different scalp sites graded on the basis of their dandruff severity: Healthy_O site; Healthy_A site.; Dandruff_O site; and Dandruff_C site. Statistically significant differences between groups are highlighted by means of connecting bars with associated p values.
Fig 4.
Phylogenetic assessment of Malassezia species.
(A) Phylogenetic tree showing the evolutionary relationship across 423 bases of the ITS2 region for the 18 described species of Malassezia, Malassezia KM205220 reported by Soares et al, and the unclassified Malassezia sp. reported here. (B) Pairwise alignment plot showing pairwise identity of the 20 sequences.
Fig 5.
Bacterial mean relative abundance.
Mean relative abundance of the predominant bacterial genera as assessed by: A) TWHS (Healthy and Dandruff) and B) Site score: Healthy (O and A) and Dandruff (O and C).
Fig 6.
Bacterial enumeration by qPCR.
Least Square Means (LSMean) log 10 copies/ml for C. acnes and Staphylococcus spp. at different scalp sites graded on the basis of their dandruff severity: Healthy_O site; Healthy_A site.; Dandruff_O site; and Dandruff_C site. Statistically significant differences between groups are highlighted by means of connecting bars with associated p values.
Fig 7.
Staphylococcus species enumeration by qPCR.
Least Square Means (LSMean) log 10 copies/ml for S. capitis and S. epidermidis at different scalp sites graded on the basis of their dandruff severity: Healthy_O site; Healthy_A site.; Dandruff_O site; and Dandruff_C site. Statistically significant differences between groups are highlighted by means of connecting bars with associated p values.
Fig 8.
Non-metric Multi-Dimensional Scaling Bray Curtis analysis of bacterial communities at genus (a) and OTU (b) level at differentially graded scalp sites. Beta Diversity analysis of bacterial communities shows significant differences (p>0.01), at both genus and OTU level, between lesional sites on a dandruff scalp (Dandruff_C) and all other sites tested. Non–lesional sites on dandruff scalps (Dandruff_O) cluster more closely with sites from a healthy scalp (Healthy_O and Healthy_A).