Microbial community in indoor dusts from university dormitories: Characteristics, potential pathogens and influence factors

Abstract

People spend most of their time indoors where they are continually exposed to bacteria in the indoor environment. However, the characteristics of bacterial community in indoor dust from university dormitory and their potential health risks are largely unknown. In this study, the bacterial community of 12 indoor dust samples from university dormitories was characterized by the 16S rRNA gene sequencing of the V4 region. Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria and Firmicutes were the three most abundant bacteria at the phylum level, while Acinetobacter, Paracoccus and Kocuria were the most dominating genera. Some potentially pathogenic bacteria were identified in the indoor dusts, including Acinetobacter spp., Kocuria spp., Corynebacterium spp., and Bacillus spp. Alpha and beta diversity showed that the bacterial community was different among different samples. The Phylogenetic Investigation of Communities by Reconstruction of Unobserved States (PICRUSt) demonstrated that the major microbial functions in dusts were membrane transport, amino acid metabolism and carbohydrate metabolism. While, chemoheterotrophy, aerobic chemoheterotrophy, nitrate reduction were the dominant functional groups according to the FAPROTAX. Significantly positive correlations were revealed between human diseases related microbial functions and some bacterial genera, indicating the potential health risks of bacteria in university dormitory. Canonical Correlation Analysis (CCA) showed that laptop, mobile and PBDEs (BDE 138 and BDE 153) were significant environmental factors associated with the microbial communities in dusts. The results presented in this study offer a comprehensive understanding of the characteristics, potential health risks and influence factors of microbial community in indoor dusts from university dormitories.