Stability of airborne microbes in the Louvre Museum over time

Abstract

The microbial content of air has as yet been little described, despite its public health implications, and there remains a lack of environmental microbial data on airborne microflora in enclosed spaces. In this context, the aim of this study was to characterize the diversity and dynamics of airborne microorganisms in the Louvre Museum using high-throughput molecular tools and to underline the microbial signature of indoor air in this human-occupied environment. This microbial community was monitored for 6 month during occupied time. The quantitative results revealed variations in the concentrations of less than one logarithm, with average values of 10(3) and 10(4) Escherichia coli/Aspergillus fumigatus genome equivalent per m(3) for bacteria and fungi, respectively. Our observations highlight the stability of the indoor airborne bacterial diversity over time, while the corresponding eukaryote community was less stable. Bacterial diversity characterized by pyrosequencing 454 showed high diversity dominated by the Proteobacteria which represented 51.1%, 46.9%, and 38.4% of sequences, for each of the three air samples sequenced. A common bacterial diversity was underlined, corresponding to 58.4% of the sequences. The core species were belonging mostly to the Proteobacteria and Actinobacteria, and to the genus Paracoccus spp., Acinetobacter sp., Pseudomonas sp., Enhydrobacter sp., Sphingomonas sp., Staphylococcus sp., and Streptococcus sp.

The assessment of fungal bioaerosols in the crypt of St. Peter in Perugia (Italy)

“…These can arise from faulty air conditioning systems, from the presence of people, who represent one of the major carriers of microorganisms, and from sources that are in direct contact with the external environment, such as entrances and exits, or windows or doors (Orlandi et al, 2011;Quian et al, 2012;Gauzere et al, 2014). These airborne particles can be deposited on the works of art, and under favourable conditions of temperature, humidity, light and substrate, they can use the different surfaces not just as a physical support for their growth, but also as a nutrient source.…”

Indoor/outdoor particulate matter concentrations and microbial load in cultural heritage collections

“…A number of studies have been performed to determine the characteristics and sources of particulate matter and airborne microorganisms inside museums [2,[9][10][11][12][13][14].…”

Capillary electrophoresis based on nucleic acid detection for diagnosing human infectious disease

“…Therefore, Gaüzère et al [134] applied CE-SSCP and other high throughput molecular methods to study the microorganism distribution of indoor air. They found that the bacterial diversity in indoor airborn is stable, whereas the corresponding eukaryote group is unstable.…”

“…The core species belong primarily to the Proteobacteria and Actinobacteria, and to the genera Paracoccus spp, Acinetobacter sp., Pseudomonas sp., Enhydrobacter sp., Sphingomonas sp., Staphylococcus sp., and Streptococcus sp. [134].…”