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Page 2 of 16 Mataix et al. Plast Aesthet Res 2020;7:69 I http://dx.doi.org/10.20517/2347-9264.2020.138

Keywords: Exposome, skin aging, skin homeostasis, detoxifying, Deschampsia antarctica, Edafence®, pollution

INTRODUCTION
Environmental agents, both natural (e.g., sunlight, moisture, and endogenous active compounds
such as sweat) and derived from human activity (e.g., air pollutants, plastics, cosmetics, textiles, and
tobacco), compound a sustained challenge for our organism in general, and the skin in particular, to
maintain homeostasis. Our modern lifestyle and increased life expectancy demand the identification and
characterization of substances simultaneously safe (i.e., non-toxic) and effective to confer protection, either
directly or through boosting our endogenous defense mechanisms, including stress and DNA damage
repair pathways, antioxidant and proteostatic programs, and tissue architecture remodeling. Popular
wisdom through the ages has identified, basically by tinkering and intuitive experimentation, products
from nature that consistently exert protection from environmental wearing of our organism. However, we
have now the opportunity to, beyond practical conveniences such as safety and consistency, understand
with unprecedented detail how these compounds intersect with both environmental and endogenous
stressor agents, to confer protection against tissue damage.

Here, we frame our current knowledge about the activity of a soluble aqueous extract from the hair grass
Deschampsia antarctica (Edafence®), a tracheophyte adapted to extreme environmental conditions and
endowed with remarkable protective and antioxidant properties, on this integrative perspective and discuss
underlying candidate mechanisms and therapeutic potential.

THE SKIN EXPOSOME AND SKIN HEALTH AND AGING
The basic concept that phenotype arises from the interplay between genotype and environment is most
clearly portrayed by the impact external agents have on aging and disease. While environmental agents
[1]
may account on their own for up to ~16% of total deaths worldwide , their impact on global health is
far larger, as prime challenges to public health such as cardiovascular disease have a very limited (well
[2]
below 50%) genetic basis . At present, ~5000 toxic chemical species are identified as posing a significant
[1]
threat to human population across the globe . Thus, approaching the study of the impact of environment
on the organism and their interplay, from a systematic and integrative perspective, is warranted. The
[3]
term “exposome”, proposed in 2005 by cancer epidemiologist Christopher Wild , aims at capturing this
dynamic, reciprocal complexity and is currently defined as the totality of exposures an organism receives
[4]
from conception to death and their interplay with the organism’s response .
The skin is the first body barrier environmental cues encounter in our daily lives. As such, it is an organ
whose physiopathology cannot be understood without considering this external influence, and the
skin exposome is the central driver of skin aging and diseases such as cancer or chronic inflammatory
conditions [5,6] . While classifying the wide variety of environmental agents our skin encounters is
cumbersome and their interdependence or even synergy must additionally be taken into account, for
simplicity, we briefly enumerate them as: (1) air pollution; (2) tobacco; (3) light radiations; and (4) other
environmental agents including temperature and humidity, different chemicals from daily activities
(nutrition, cosmetics, plastics), and endogenous factors such as stress and sleep deprivation [Figure 1].

Air pollution
Human activity in the industrialized era releases into the atmosphere different pollutants that, apart
from inducing damage to respiratory airways and associated conditions, have a direct impact on skin
homeostasis [1,5,7,8] . The list of these agents is extensive and includes ionizing molecular gas species [ozone
(O ), carbon monoxide/carbon dioxide (CO/CO ), nitrogen species, and sulphide dioxide (SO )], volatile
2
3
2