Metagenomic Analysis of Airborne Bacterial Community and Diversity in Seoul, Korea, during December 2014, Asian Dust Event

Abstract

Asian dust or yellow sand events in East Asia are a major issue of environmental contamination and human health, causing increasing concern. A high amount of dust particles, especially called as particulate matter 10 (PM10), is transported by the wind from the arid and semi-arid tracks to the Korean peninsula, bringing a bacterial population that alters the terrestrial and atmospheric microbial communities. In this study, we aimed to explore the bacterial populations of Asian dust samples collected during November–December 2014. The dust samples were collected using the impinger method, and the hypervariable regions of the 16S rRNA gene were amplified using PCR followed by pyrosequencing. Analysis of the sequencing data were performed using Mothur software. The data showed that the number of operational taxonomic units and diversity index during Asian dust events were higher than those during non-Asian dust events. At the phylum level, the proportions of Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, and Firmicutes were different between Asian dust and non-Asian dust samples. At the genus level, the proportions of the genus Bacillus (6.9%), Arthrobacter (3.6%), Blastocatella (2%), Planomicrobium (1.4%) were increased during Asian dust compared to those in non-Asian dust samples. This study showed that the significant relationship between bacterial populations of Asian dust samples and non-Asian dust samples in Korea, which could significantly affect the microbial population in the environment.

Aeolian Dispersal of Bacteria Associated With Desert Dust and Anthropogenic Particles Over Continental and Oceanic Surfaces

“…Dust samples from both sites had high relative abundances of Firmicutes ( Bacilli ) and Cytophagaceae sequences, which are positively correlated with the mineral‐particle concentrations (Tables and ). These bacteria were typically dominant populations associated with mineral dust particles and frequently detected from Asian‐dust aerosol samples collected at high altitudes above Asian desert (Dunhuang: Maki et al, ) and downwind areas (Korea: Cha et al, ; Jeon et al, , Japan: Maki, Hara, et al, ; Yamaguchi et al, ). The Bacilli lineage of phylum Firmicutes are generally found in terrestrial environments in the Gobi and Taklimakan Deserts (Puspitasari et al, ) and their ability to form endospores can help maintain viabilities against atmospheric stressors (Nicholson et al, ).…”

“…Evidence has generally come from passive collection of viable airborne taxa (Griffin, ). More recently local and long‐distance dispersals have been surveyed by active collection at near‐ground levels (Cao et al, ; Cha et al, ; Jeon et al, ; Li et al, ; Pavuluri et al, ) as well as higher atmospheric aerosols (Maki et al, , , ; Yamaguchi et al, ). Dust vectoring of microorganisms in aerosols has been implied from several opportunistic collections of desert dust at sink locations, on land and at sea where dust‐associated taxa have been linked to desert source locations (Maki et al, ; Yamaguchi et al, ).…”

Airborne bioaerosols and their impact on human health

“…The variations in ELISA allow us to detect either antigen or antibody, identifying the different strains of microbes at a time, and also in characterization of the epitope distribution on the microbial surface (Verma et al, 2013).It shows wider applications in clinical diagnosis, in pathological studies, and in quality control studies. Metagenomics applies direct genetic analysis tools to access the genetic content of entire communities of organisms (Cha et al, 2017). Metagenomics gives genetic information on potentially novel biocatalysts or enzymes, genomic linkages between function and phylogeny for uncultured organisms, and evolutionary profiles of community function and structure (Thomas et al, 2012).…”

Progresses on Metagenomic Airbiome Studies

“…Accumulation of bacterial information and characterization by monitoring during meteorological events should be studied in order to establish a relationship between human health and bacterial communities. Characterization of airborne bacterial communities at genus level during Asian Dust event and comparison the microbiomes with the non-Asian dust events by the pyrosequencing were also studied by Cha et al (2017). During the non-Asian dust events, genus Sphingomonas be- Figure 4.…”