About the Biodiversity of the Air Microbiome

Abstract

This brief review focuses on the properties of bioaerosols, presenting some recent results of metagenomic studies of the air microbiome performed using next-generation sequencing. The taxonomic composition and structure of the bioaerosol microbiome may display diurnal and seasonal dynamics and be dependent on meteorological events such as dust storms, showers, fogs, etc., as well as air pollution. The Proteobacteria and Ascomycota members are common dominants in bioaerosols in different troposphere layers. The microbiological composition of the lower troposphere air affects the composition and diversity of the indoor bioaerosol microbiome, and information about the latter is very important, especially during exacerbated epidemiological situations. Few studies focusing on the bioaerosol microbiome of the air above Russia urge intensification of such research.

May the Pathogenic Microbes Not Be with You: Core Microbiome Profiling in Hospital Airspace

“…With the advancement of DNA sequencing technology, the culture-independent method has risen in popularity among researchers and is often conducted to investigate the microbial community as this technique helps in rapidly pro ling microbes without the need of a culture plate and can give better result in term of sensitivity and speci city. Characterization of bacterial community can be done by the process of bacterial DNA extraction, ampli cation of the 16S rRNA gene and sequencing [29,30]. This next generation sequencing (NGS) has become a reliable instrument in pro ling of microbial diversity from dust samples that harbors a wide variety of bacteria and fungi indoor [31].…”

Who inhabits the built environment? A microbiological point of view on the principal bacteria colonizing our urban areas

“…Air, seemingly inhospitable, is actually teeming with life both indoors and outdoors. Though it might not seem conducive to microbial life due to harsh conditions such as drying, UV radiation low nutrients, and temperatures, air harbors diverse microbial communities ( Naumova and Kabilov, 2022 ). Among the diverse bacterial sources, the surrounding environments, and human activities, the soil is a major source of airborne bacteria, especially when rainfall aerosolizes bacterial-rich droplets ( Joung et al, 2017 ).…”

Air monitoring by nanopore sequencing

“…Most genomics-based air microbiome studies have been based on targeted sequencing via metabarcoding due to the air’s ultra-low biomass (1, 4). While metabarcoding can increase the sensitivity of taxonomic detection, it is inherently limited due to amplification biases and incomplete databases.…”

“…Infectious diseases such as COVID-19 or tuberculosis have shifted past research efforts towards pathogenic microbial taxa; however, exposure to a diverse air microbiome has also increasingly been considered as a health promoting factor, which underlines the need for holistic air microbial diversity monitoring (3). Recent advances in the molecular assessment of microbiomes have revealed first insights into the complex nature and diverse natural and anthropogenic origin of bioaerosols (4), such as the vertical-altitudinal stratification of microbial abundance and distribution (5), and substantial diurnal, seasonal, temperature, and humidity fluctuations (6).…”

“…In contrast, metagenomics, which is based on shotgun sequencing of native DNA, avoids amplification biases and allows for de novo reconstructions of microbial genomes for robust species identification and functional annotation. Such metagenomic approaches have also recently been applied for low biomass bioaerosol analysis (7) and have revealed the complex nature and diverse origins of the air microbiome (4), including vertical-altitudinal stratification of microbial abundance and distribution (5), and substantial diurnal, seasonal, temperature-, and humidity-dependent fluctuations (6).…”