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built environment microbiome bacteriophage biofilm human health

Phage host interactions in indoor biofilms

Abstract ID: 26-RV

Stefanie Huttelmaier 1*, Jack Sumner 1, Weitao Shuai 1, Erica Hartmann 1

  1. Northwestern University

The average American spends 93% of their time in built environments, almost 70% of that is in their place of residence. Human health and well-being are intrinsically tied to the quality of our personal environments and the microbiomes that populate them. Conversely, the built environment microbiome is seeded, formed, pressured and re-shaped by occupant behavior, cleaning, personal hygiene and food choices, as well as geographic location and variability in infrastructure. This ultimately leads to the development of unique microbiomes at different interfaces in our homes. Here, we focus on the presence of viruses in household biofilms, specifically in showerheads and on toothbrushes. Bacteriophage, viruses that infect bacteria with high host specificity, have been shown to drive microbial community structure and function through host infection and horizontal gene transfer in environmental systems. Due to the dynamic environment, with extreme temperature changes, periods of wetting/drying and exposure to hygiene/cleaning products, in addition to low biomass and transient nature of indoor microbiomes, we hypothesize that phage host infection in these unique built environments are different from environmental biofilm interactions. We chose to first approach the hypothesis using metagenomics, querying 34 toothbrush and 92 showerhead metagenomes. Representative of biofilms in the built environment, these interfaces demonstrate distinct levels of occupant interaction. We take an assembly-based approach to identify bacterial and viral genomes and then link virus to host through CRISPR spacers, k-mer identity and prophage integration. Preliminary analysis has identified 4501 low quality 161 medium quality, 62 high quality, and 31 complete circular scaffolds in 92 showerheads, and 3248 low quality, 205 medium quality, 101 high quality, and 25 complete scaffolds on 34 toothbrushes. Statistical analyses were used to determine prevalence and diversity of phage taxa and lifestyles, both lytic and lysogenic. Phage host pairing software identified 1978 potential phage host matchings in showerheads and 3125 in toothbrushes. Current work is focused on parsing high-quality phage contigs and host matches. Next, we plan to compare our findings against the drinking water virome and environmental biofilm viromes using the IMG/VR database. The findings from this analysis will improve our understanding of potential drivers of community formation in biofilms within the built environment. Determining community structure and dynamics of the built environment microbiome enhances our understanding of its relationship to human health. This study will also inform more viral focused sequencing efforts, deeper sequencing, and virus focused methods for DNA extraction, aimed at understanding viral impact on the microbiome in the built environment.