Abstract
Bacteria become aerosolized by a variety of processes and remain in the atmosphere for days. Many studies have characterized bacteria in air, but little is known regarding whether airborne bacteria are active. Here, we show that a bacterial strain previously isolated from air, Sphingomonas aerolata NW12, exhibited metabolic activity while in the airborne state. Airborne cells incubated in rotating gas phase bioreactors in the presence of known growth substrates acetic acid and ethanol in the gaseous phase had higher rRNA to rRNA gene content than airborne cells without growth substrates. This demonstrates that this species of airborne bacteria has a differential metabolic response to gaseous substrates in the aerial environment with an increasing rRNA content, suggesting that the cells have the potential to produce proteins while aloft.
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