Back to the past: “find the guilty bug—microorganisms involved in the biodeterioration of archeological and historical artifacts”

Abstract

Microbial deterioration accounts for a significant percentage of the degradation processes that occur on archeological/historical objects and artworks, and identifying the causative agents of such a phenomenon should therefore be a priority, in consideration of the need to conserve these important cultural heritage items. Diverse microbiological approaches, such as microscopic evaluations, cultural methods, metabolic- and DNA-based techniques, as well as a combination of the aforementioned methods, have been employed to characterize the bacterial, archaeal, and fungal communities that colonize art objects. The purpose of the present review article is to report the interactions occurring between the microorganisms and nutrients that are present in stones, bones, wood, paper, films, paintings, and modern art specimens (namely, collagen, cellulose, gelatin, albumin, lipids, and hydrocarbons). Some examples, which underline that a good knowledge of these interactions is essential to obtain an in depth understanding of the factors that favor colonization, are reported. These data can be exploited both to prevent damage and to obtain information on historical aspects that can be decrypted through the study of microbial population successions.

Back to the past—forever young: cutting-edge biochemical and microbiological tools for cultural heritage conservation

“…This field is promising also to find, in the future, a solution to contain microbial deterioration (Mazzoli et al 2018) thus avoiding the use of acids, solvents and surfactants (dangerous for the artworks, the art restorers and the environment) for instance by using enzyme-or bacteriocin-mediated bacterial competition. In this case, the safety and effectiveness of the microorganisms employed is mandatory and the need for control and analysis before and after treatments strongly recommended.…”

“…Artworks may undergo a number of degradation and deterioration events, which widely vary depending on the specific artifact and the environment and conditions of conservation. These parameters may be extremely different if we consider, for instance, a book conserved at controlled temperature and humidity in a library or in a museum, or a stone statue or a cathedral, which are constantly exposed to weathering, pollution, microbial colonization (extensively reviewed in Mazzoli et al 2018), vandalism acts, etc… It is worth reminding that damaging of artworks is sometimes the effect of previous restoration interventions which underwent deterioration themselves during time, as in the case of glues applied to consolidate wall paintings or ancient textiles (Beutel et al 2002;Ferrari et al 2017).…”

Protecting books from mould damage by decreasing paper bioreceptivity to fungal attack using decoloured cell‐free supernatant ofLysobacter enzymogenesC3

“…; Mazzoli et al . ). A number of fungal species are involved in such a biodeterioration, with mitosporic fungi making up the vast majority (Sterflinger ; Lech ; Sawoszczuk et al .…”

“…Paper has played an important role throughout human history. However, due to its organic components, it suffers from fungal biodeterioration (Zyska 1997;Florian and Manning 2000;Szczepanowska and Cavaliere 2000;Cappitelli and Sorlini 2005;Cappitelli et al 2010;Mazzoli et al 2018). A number of fungal species are involved in such a biodeterioration, with mitosporic fungi making up the vast majority (Sterflinger 2010;Lech 2016;Sawoszczuk et al 2017;Karakasidou et al 2018).…”

Isolation and molecular identification of a strain belonging to the new species Zalaria obscura from a deteriorated wooden artwork

“…Different environmental factors influence fungal growth and their activity of wood decomposition. Oxygen (lower oxygen level, lower decay process), pH, temperature, and nitrogen can be taken in account for a faster or slower wood degradation due to a microbial population [12]. Nevertheless, the most important requirement is moisture level [10]; indeed, for white-and brown-rot fungi, the optimum moisture levels are approximately 40-80%, while soft-rot fungi can tolerate a wider range of moisture conditions, as present in excessively wet or dry woods.…”