Characterizing the Bacterial Communities in Retail Stores in the United States
Abstract
The microorganisms present in retail environments have not been studied in detail despite the fact that these environments represent a potentially important location for exposure. In the present study, HVAC filter dust samples in 13 US retail stores were collected and analyzed via pyrosequencing to characterize the indoor bacterial communities and to explore potential relationships between these communities and building and environmental parameters. Although retail stores contained a diverse bacterial community of 788 unique genera, over half of the nearly 118K sequences were attributed to the Proteobacteria phylum. Streptophyta, Bacillus, Corynebacterium, Pseudomonas, and Acinetobacter were the most prevalent genera detected. The recovered indoor airborne microbial community was statistically correlated with both human oral and skin microbiota, indicating occupants are important contributors, despite a relatively low occupant density per unit volume in retail stores. Bacteria generally associated with outdoor environments were present in the indoor communities with no obvious association with air exchange rate, even when considering relative abundance. No significant association wasobserved between the indoor bacterial community recovered and store location, store type, or season. However, predictive functional gene profiling showed significant association between the indoor community and seasons. The microbiome recovered from multiple samples collected months apart from the same building varied significantly indicating that caution is warranted when trying to characterize the bacterial community with a single sampling event.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 2015
- Accession Number
- AD1013419
Entities
People
- A. Hoisington
- J. P. Maestre
- Jeffrey A. Siegel
- K. A. Kinney
Organizations
- United States Air Force Academy