Toothbrush microbiomes feature a meeting ground for human oral and environmental microbiota

Microbiome

Sarah Ben Maamar¹  Hansung Lee¹  Adam J. Glawe¹  Stefanie Huttelmaier¹  Erica M. Hartmann¹  Nancy Hellgeth¹  Ryan A. Blaustein²  Lisa-Marie Michelitsch³ 

[1] Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA;Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA;National Human Genome Research Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA;Institute of Environmental Biotechnology, Graz University of Technology, Graz, Austria;

关键词: Toothbrush;    Oral microbiome;    Built environment;    Metagenomics;    Antimicrobial resistance;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s40168-020-00983-x

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundWhile indoor microbiomes impact our health and well-being, much remains unknown about taxonomic and functional transitions that occur in human-derived microbial communities once they are transferred away from human hosts. Toothbrushes are a model to investigate the potential response of oral-derived microbiota to conditions of the built environment. Here, we characterize metagenomes of toothbrushes from 34 subjects to define the toothbrush microbiome and resistome and possible influential factors.ResultsToothbrush microbiomes often comprised a dominant subset of human oral taxa and less abundant or site-specific environmental strains. Although toothbrushes contained lower taxonomic diversity than oral-associated counterparts (determined by comparison with the Human Microbiome Project), they had relatively broader antimicrobial resistance gene (ARG) profiles. Toothbrush resistomes were enriched with a variety of ARGs, notably those conferring multidrug efflux and putative resistance to triclosan, which were primarily attributable to versatile environmental taxa. Toothbrush microbial communities and resistomes correlated with a variety of factors linked to personal health, dental hygiene, and bathroom features.ConclusionsSelective pressures in the built environment may shape the dynamic mixture of human (primarily oral-associated) and environmental microbiota that encounter each other on toothbrushes. Harboring a microbial diversity and resistome distinct from human-associated counterparts suggests toothbrushes could potentially serve as a reservoir that may enable the transfer of ARGs.4LqYjTwSLFZjCpHDUfn4noVideo abstract

【 授权许可】

CC BY