A pilot metagenomic study reveals that community derived mobile phones are reservoirs of viable pathogenic microbes

Abstract

There is increasing attention focussed on the risks associated with mobile phones possibly serving as ‘Trojan Horse’ fomites for microbial transmission in healthcare settings. However, little is reported on the presence of microbes on community derived mobile phones which in 2021, numbered in the billions in circulation with majority being used on a daily basis. Identify viable microbial organisms swabbed from smartphones on a university campus. Entire surfaces of 5 mobile phones were swabbed and examined for their microbial content using pre-agar-based growths followed by downstream DNA metagenomic next-generation sequencing analysis. All phones were contaminated with viable microbes. 173 bacteria, 8 fungi, 8 protists, 53 bacteriophages, 317 virulence factor genes and 41 distinct antibiotic resistant genes were identified. While this research represents a pilot study, the snapshot metagenomic analysis of samples collected from the surface of mobile phones has revealed the presence of a large population of viable microbes and an array of antimicrobial resistant factors. With billions of phones in circulation, these devices might be responsible for the rise of community acquired infections. These pilot results highlight the importance of public health authorities considering mobile phones as ‘Trojan Horse’ devices for microbial transmission and ensure appropriate decontamination campaigns are implemented.

Metagenomic Sequencing and Reverse Transcriptase PCR Reveal That Mobile Phones and Environmental Surfaces Are Reservoirs of Multidrug-Resistant Superbugs and SARS-CoV-2

“…Our study represents the first report of shotgun metagenomics analysis of swab samples from mobile phones in which the bacterial culture step was bypassed, which therefore represents a direct mobile phone swab to metagenomic shotgun analyses. In a recent pilot study by Olsen et al (2021b) to assess microbial contamination of mobile phones in the community, an initial bacterial culture followed by downstream DNA metagenomic next-generation sequencing of mobile phone samples from the cultures was adopted. Although the findings revealed the presence of a significant burden of viable microbes from culture, the metagenomics analysis showed predominance of Gram-positive organism in particular Staphylococcus spp.…”

“…Previous studies on mobile phone contamination have used conventional culture-based methods and reported a preponderance of Gram-positive bacteria in particular staphylococcal species (Selim and Abaza, 2015;Jansen et al, 2019;Khashei et al, 2019;Hikmah and Anuar, 2020;Olsen et al, 2020;Qureshi et al, 2020). However, findings from a recent study using a 16s rRNA sequencing approach and shotgun metagenomics indicates that mobile phones of HCWs are contaminated with a higher diversity of bacteria than previously reported (Simmonds et al, 2020;Olsen et al, 2021b;Tajouri et al, 2021) with greater abundance of Gram-negative organisms (Simmonds et al, 2020;Tajouri et al, 2021).…”

“…Libraries were then sequenced on an Illumina HiSeq 4000 platform 2×150bp (Illumina). Unassembled sequencing reads were directly analyzed by CosmosID bioinformatics platform for multi-kingdom microbiome analysis and profiling of antibiotic resistance and virulence genes and quantification of organisms’ relative abundance ( Olsen et al., 2021b ). Each sample output of sequencing raw data of millions of short reads were distinctively aligned against sequences of microbial genomes for high level of taxonomic resolution identification.…”

High Throughput Metagenomic Analysis Exposes Mobile Phones as Potentially Hazardous Microbial Platforms Warranting Robust Public Health and Biosecurity Protocols

“…A 2021 pilot next generation sequencing project was able to capture a wider population of micro-organisms with all mobile phones found to be contaminated with microbes. The ndings consisted of 235 bacteria, 8 fungi, 8 protists and 53 bacteriophages reported from only ve mobile phones derived swabs 14 . However, this study still could be considered as an underestimation of microbial nding as the samples were pre-cultured on agar plates prior to next generation sequencing metagenomic pro ling 14 .…”

“…The ndings consisted of 235 bacteria, 8 fungi, 8 protists and 53 bacteriophages reported from only ve mobile phones derived swabs 14 . However, this study still could be considered as an underestimation of microbial nding as the samples were pre-cultured on agar plates prior to next generation sequencing metagenomic pro ling 14 . A similar study used a metagenomic shotgun sequencing-based approach of viable pre-cultured microbes collected from 30 mobile phones of HCW.…”