The Microbiome Of Occupants And The Built Environment At The United States Air Force Cadets

摘要

The microbiome of the built environment has important implications for human health and wellbeing; however, bidirectional exchange of microbes between occupants and surfaces can be confounded by lifestyle, architecture and external environmental exposures. Here, we present a longitudinal study of United States Air Force Academy cadets which have substantial homogeneity in lifestyle, diet, and age, all factors that influence the human microbiome. We characterized bacterial communities associated with: (1) skin and gut samples from roommate pairs; (2) four built environment sample locations inside the pairs' dormitory rooms; (3) four built environment sample locations within shared spaces in the dormitory; and, (4) roommatched outdoor samples from the window ledge of their rooms. Linear convergence of microbial composition and structure was observed between an occupants' skin and the dormitory surfaces that were only used by that occupant (i.e., desk). Conversely, bacterial community beta diversity (weighted Unifrac) convergence between the skin of both roommates and the shared dormitory floor between the two cadet's beds was not seen across the entire study population. Cohabitation was significantly associated with increased skin microbiota similarity, but did not significantly influence the gut microbiota. Following a departure from the occupied space of several weeks, the skin microbiota, but not the gut microbiota, showed a significant reduction in similarity relative to the building. In addition to the cohabitation, results showed interesting confounding factors that have not been well defined by other research to include influence on skin and desk microbiomes from predictive mean vote analysis, correlation between salivary Cortisol levels and skin microbiomes, and influence in young adult guy microbiomes depending upon childhood locations of metro or non-metro areas. Overall, longitudinal observation of these dynamics enables us to dissect the influence of occupation, diet and lifestyle factors on occupant and built environment microbial ecology.