Skin microbiota interact with microbes on office surfaces

Hu Li; Shu-Yi-Dan Zhou; Roy Neilson; Xin-Li An; Jian-Qiang Su

doi:10.1016/j.envint.2022.107493

Skin microbiota interact with microbes on office surfaces

Environ Int. 2022 Oct:168:107493. doi: 10.1016/j.envint.2022.107493. Epub 2022 Aug 30.

Authors

Hu Li¹, Shu-Yi-Dan Zhou², Roy Neilson³, Xin-Li An⁴, Jian-Qiang Su⁴

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Urban Environment and Health, Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 1799 Jimei Road, Xiamen 361021, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 19A Yuquan Road, Beijing 100049, China. Electronic address: hli@iue.ac.cn.
² Key Laboratory of Urban Environment and Health, Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 1799 Jimei Road, Xiamen 361021, China; Key Laboratory of Vegetation Restoration and Management of Degraded Ecosystems, South China Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 723 Xingke Road, Tianhe District, Guangzhou 510650, China.
³ Ecological Sciences, The James Hutton Institute, Dundee DD2 5DA, Scotland, UK.
⁴ Key Laboratory of Urban Environment and Health, Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 1799 Jimei Road, Xiamen 361021, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 19A Yuquan Road, Beijing 100049, China.

PMID: 36063613
DOI: 10.1016/j.envint.2022.107493

Abstract

The indoor environment is recognized as a potential contributor to human health impacts through resident microbiomes. Indoor surface microbial communities are formed from several sources, environmental and anthropogenic. In this study, we characterized the bacterial and fungal communities from various sources typical of a working office environment including dust, fingers, and computer keyboards and mice. The composition of the dust bacterial community was significantly different from the other tested surfaces (P < 0.05), whereas the dust fungal community was only significantly different from fingers (P < 0.05). Bacterial and fungal communities were both shaped by deterministic processes, and bacterial communities had a higher migration rate. Results of a network analysis showed that the microbial community interactions of keyboards and mice were mainly competitive. Fast expectation-maximization microbial source tracking (FEAST) identified the sources of > 70 % of the keyboard and mouse microbial communities. Biomarkers for each sample types were identified by LDA Effect Size (LEfSE) analysis, some of which were soil-derived and potential anthropogenic pathogens, indicating the potential for exchange of microbes among outdoor, human and indoor surfaces. The current study shows that the source of microorganisms at the office interface is highly traceable and that their migration is linked to human activity. The migration of potentially pathogenic microbes were identified, emphasising the importance of personal hygiene.

Keywords: Indoor environment; Indoor microbiome; Pathogen; Skin microbiome; Source tracking.