TY - JOUR
T1 - City-Scale Meta-Analysis of Indoor Airborne Microbiota Reveals that Taxonomic and Functional Compositions Vary with Building Types
AU - Zhou, You
AU - Leung, Marcus H.Y.
AU - Tong, Xinzhao
AU - Lee, Justin Y.Y.
AU - Lee, Patrick K.H.
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported by the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong through Project 11215017.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 American Chemical Society.
PY - 2021/11/5
Y1 - 2021/11/5
N2 - Currently, there is a lack of understanding on the variations of the indoor airborne microbiotas of different building types within a city, and how operational taxonomic unit (OTU)-and amplicon sequence variant (ASV)-based analyses of the 16S rRNA gene sequences affect interpretation of the indoor airborne microbiota results. Therefore, in this study, the indoor airborne bacterial microbiotas between commercial buildings, residences, and subways within the same city were compared using both OTU-and ASV-based analytic methods. Our findings suggested that indoor airborne bacterial microbiota compositions were significantly different between building types regardless of the bioinformatics method used. The processes of ecological drift and random dispersal consistently played significant roles in the assembly of the indoor microbiota across building types. Abundant taxa tended to be more centralized in the correlation network of each building type, highlighting their importance. Taxonomic changes between the microbiotas of different building types were also linked to changes in their inferred metabolic function capabilities. Overall, the results imply that customized strategies are necessary to manage indoor airborne bacterial microbiotas for each building type or even within each specific building.
AB - Currently, there is a lack of understanding on the variations of the indoor airborne microbiotas of different building types within a city, and how operational taxonomic unit (OTU)-and amplicon sequence variant (ASV)-based analyses of the 16S rRNA gene sequences affect interpretation of the indoor airborne microbiota results. Therefore, in this study, the indoor airborne bacterial microbiotas between commercial buildings, residences, and subways within the same city were compared using both OTU-and ASV-based analytic methods. Our findings suggested that indoor airborne bacterial microbiota compositions were significantly different between building types regardless of the bioinformatics method used. The processes of ecological drift and random dispersal consistently played significant roles in the assembly of the indoor microbiota across building types. Abundant taxa tended to be more centralized in the correlation network of each building type, highlighting their importance. Taxonomic changes between the microbiotas of different building types were also linked to changes in their inferred metabolic function capabilities. Overall, the results imply that customized strategies are necessary to manage indoor airborne bacterial microbiotas for each building type or even within each specific building.
KW - airborne microbiota
KW - amplicon sequence variants
KW - building type
KW - indoor air
KW - operational taxonomic units
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85119079720&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1021/acs.est.1c03941
DO - 10.1021/acs.est.1c03941
M3 - Article
C2 - 34738808
AN - SCOPUS:85119079720
SN - 0013-936X
VL - 55
SP - 15051
EP - 15062
JO - Environmental Science and Technology
JF - Environmental Science and Technology
IS - 22
ER -