Molecular Analysis of Bacterial Microbiota on Brazilian Currency Note Surfaces

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health

Tairacan Augusto Pereira da Fonseca¹  Rodrigo Pessཊ¹  Sabri Saeed Sanabani¹ 

[1] Clinical Laboratory, Department of Pathology, LIM 03, Hospital das Clínicas (HC), School of Medicine, University of São Paulo, São Paulo 05403 000, Brazil; E-Mails:

关键词: bacteria;    microbiome;    metagenomics;    currency notes;   

DOI  :  10.3390/ijerph121013276

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Currency notes have been implicated as a vehicle for transmitting community-acquired bacterial infections. However, the overall diversity of the bacterial population residing on banknotes is still unknown in Brazil. In this study, we aimed to investigate the overall bacterial population from 150 different Brazilian Rial (R$) notes in circulation using a culture-independent Illumina massively parallel sequencing approach of the 16S rRNA genes. Samples were randomly collected from three different street markets or “feiras” in the metropolitan region of São Paulo. Taxonomical composition revealed the abundance of Proteobacteria phyla, followed by Firmicutes and Streptophyta, with a total of 1193 bacterial families and 3310 bacterial genera. Most of these bacterial genera are of human, animal, and environmental origins. Also, our analysis revealed the presence of some potential pathogenic bacterial genera including Salmonella, Staphylococcus, and Klebsiella. The results demonstrate that there is a tremendous diversity of bacterial contamination on currency notes, including organisms known to be opportunistic pathogens. One of the factors that may contribute to the richness of bacterial diversity in currency notes is personal hygiene. Thus, our results underscore the need to increase public awareness of the importance of personal hygiene of money handlers who also handle food.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2015 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.