Comparative analysis of impact of human occupancy on indoor microbiomes

doi:10.1007/s11783-020-1383-1

Front. Environ. Sci. Eng.

2021, Vol. 15

Issue (5) : 89 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11783-020-1383-1

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Comparative analysis of impact of human occupancy on indoor microbiomes

Liu Cao¹, Lu Yang¹, Clifford S. Swanson¹, Shuai Li¹(

), Qiang He^1,²(

)

¹. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA
². Institute for a Secure and Sustainable Environment, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA

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Abstract

• Exposure to indoor microbiomes is a public health concern in educational facilities.

• Indoor microbiomes were characterized in two multifunctional university buildings.

• Human occupancy had significant impact on the composition of indoor microbiomes.

• The skin microbiota of occupants represented important sources of indoor microbiomes.

Educational facilities serve as community hubs and consequently hotspots for exposure to pathogenic microorganisms. Therefore, it is of critical importance to understand processes shaping the indoor microbiomes in educational facilities to protect public health by reducing potential exposure risks of students and the broader community. In this study, the indoor surface bacterial microbiomes were characterized in two multifunctional university buildings with contrasting levels of human occupancy, of which one was recently constructed with minimal human occupancy while the other had been in full operation for six years. Higher levels of human occupancy in the older building were shown to result in greater microbial abundance in the indoor environment and greater proportion of the indoor surface bacterial microbiomes contributed from human-associated microbiota, particularly the skin microbiota. It was further revealed that human-associated microbiota had greater influence on the indoor surface bacterial microbiomes in areas of high occupancy than areas of low occupancy. Consistent with minimal impact from human occupancy in a new construction, the indoor microbiomes in the new building exhibited significantly lower influence from human-associated microbiota than in the older building, with microbial taxa originating from soil and plants representing the dominant constituents of the indoor surface bacterial microbiomes. In contrast, microbial taxa in the older building with extensive human occupancy were represented by constituents of the human microbiota, likely from occupants. These findings provide insights into processes shaping the indoor microbiomes which will aid the development of effective strategies to control microbial exposure risks of occupants in educational facilities.

Keywords Built environment Indoor microbiome Occupant Building Sequencing

Corresponding Author(s): Shuai Li,Qiang He

Issue Date: 17 December 2020

Cite this article:

Liu Cao,Lu Yang,Clifford S. Swanson, et al. Comparative analysis of impact of human occupancy on indoor microbiomes[J]. Front. Environ. Sci. Eng., 2021, 15(5): 89.

URL:

https://academic.hep.com.cn/fese/EN/10.1007/s11783-020-1383-1
https://academic.hep.com.cn/fese/EN/Y2021/V15/I5/89

Fig.1 HPC analysis of microbial abundance in the indoor environments with the box plots showing data from 25 surface samples in each building and the symbol “♦” indicating an outlier. The means are not significantly different from each other in boxes labeled with the same italicized lowercase letters (Student’s t-test, p<0.05).

Fig.2 Weighted principle coordinates analysis (PCoA) of the indoor microbiomes in Buildings M and T. Data points represent microbial community composition in indoor surface samples of Buildings M and T defined according to OTUs.

Fig.3 Dissimilarity in indoor microbiome composition between and within Buildings M and T according to analysis of similarity (ANOSIM) with the box plots showing dissimilarity rank distribution sand the symbol “♦” indicating an outlier. The microbial community composition of indoor surface samples is defined according to OTUs.

Fig.4 Comparison of indoor microbiome composition between Buildings T and M at the phylum level. Outer ring: Building T; inner ring: Building M.

Fig.5 The relative abundance of bacterial genera with average relative abundance greater than 5% in indoor microbiomes. The asterisks on top of box plots show the level of significance in the difference between Buildings T and M, with * indicating p<0.05 and ** indicating p<0.01 according to the Wilcoxon rank-sum test. The symbol “♦” indicates an outlier.

Fig.6 Maximum-likelihood tree showing abundant 16S rRNA gene sequences in indoor microbiomes (average relative abundance >5%) in relation to sequences of closest reference strains, which were obtained by SeqMatch as the first perfect match (similarity score= 1.0) in the Ribosomal Database Project (RDP). GenBank accession numbers of the reference strains are shown together with the name of the strains. The scale bar represents the number of substitutions per sequence position.

Fig.7 Percentage of indoor microbiomes contributed by human skin (a) and oral (b) sources in Buildings M and T. The asterisks on top of box plots show the level of significance in the difference between Buildings T and M, with * indicating p<0.05 and ** indicating p<0.01 according to the Student t-test. The symbol “♦” indicates an outlier.

Fig.8 Percentage of indoor microbiomes contributed by human skin (a) and oral (b) sources in high- and low-occupancy areas of Buildings M and T. M—Building M; T—Building T. High occupancy—samples collected from classrooms and lobbies; low-occupancy—samples taken from offices and research laboratories. The means are not significantly different from each other in boxes labeled with the same italicized lowercase letters (Student’s t-test, p<0.05). The symbol “♦” indicates an outlier.

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