Microorganisms and Their Incredible Potential to Face Societal Challenges

Editor

Topical Collection Information

Dear Colleagues,

There are billions of microorganisms on Earth, and they have been around for a very long time. Humans rely on microorganisms’ capacities in many aspects of their daily life. Indeed, microbes are well known for their abilities to improve our nutrition through increasing the digestibility of foods or through the production of vitamins. They are also fully involved in depollution processes and in the production of natural medicines as antibiotics or anticancer agents, and they even participate in the esthetic dimension of life with the synthesis of colored molecules. This is mainly due to their incredible capacities of adaptation and biotransformation, which are based on their great genetic potential and diverse biosynthetic pathways. A societal evolution toward a sustainable circular bioeconomy is underway. Thus, we have the duty to enlarge our knowledge on the potentialities of the microbial world and on how microbes can help to address the various urgent problems society is currently facing. Therefore, studies concerning innovative microbial biotechnologies, novel microbial biosynthesis pathways, or the bioproduction of original molecules are of great interest in this Topical Collection.

Dr. Mireille Fouillaud
Collection Editor

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Keywords

  • bacteria
  • fungi
  • microalgae
  • virus
  • fermentation
  • biotransformation
  • biotechnologies
  • specialized metabolite
  • secondary metabolite
  • enzyme
  • genetic
  • metabolomic

Published Papers (1 paper)

2023

11 pages, 1470 KiB  
Article
Microbiome of Clothing Items Worn for a Single Day in a Non-Healthcare Setting
by Kelly Whitehead, Jake Eppinger, Vanita Srinivasan, M. Khalid Ijaz, Raymond W. Nims and Julie McKinney
Microbiol. Res. 2023, 14(3), 948-958; https://doi.org/10.3390/microbiolres14030065 - 26 Jul 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2822
Abstract
When worn, clothing acquires a microbiome of bacteria and fungi derived from the wearer’s skin and from the environment. The types of bacteria and fungi that may be recovered from clothing in healthcare settings have been well characterized, but less is known regarding [...] Read more.
When worn, clothing acquires a microbiome of bacteria and fungi derived from the wearer’s skin and from the environment. The types of bacteria and fungi that may be recovered from clothing in healthcare settings have been well characterized, but less is known regarding the microbiome of clothing worn in non-healthcare settings and the possible roles that such clothing may play in microbial exchange. Culture-based methods and culture-independent genomic sequencing were used to enumerate and identify bacteria and fungi recovered from T-shirts, baby onesies, socks, and underwear worn for a single day after having been purchased new, washed, and dried. The highest bacterial loads were recovered from socks, underwear, and onesies (>106 colony-forming units [cfu]/sample) and the highest fungal loads were obtained from socks and underwear (>5 × 102 cfu/sample). The sequencing method identified opportunistic pathogens present in the samples, including members of genus Staphylococcus and Corynebacterium, as well as anaerobic members of the family Clostridiales. The opportunistic fungal pathogen Candida parapsilosis was identified in a high proportion of worn clothing samples. These results suggest that clothing may represent a pathogen reservoir and a vector for microbial exchange between household occupants or the community outside of the home. Full article
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