Different cities have their own microbial fingerprint, a global study reports If you gave me your shoe, I could tell you with about 90% accuracy the city you came from, the authors boast.
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An international team of researchers says that every city has its own fingerprint in the shape of pathogens.
Image credits Denis Poltoradnev.
The largest ever genetic study of urban microbiomes (including both surfaces and the air in 60 cities worldwide) reports that each city has its own microbial fingerprint. The project sequenced and analyzed samples from public transit systems and hospitals in cities around the world, identifying thousands of viruses, bacteria, and two archaea not found in reference databases.
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Each city has its own unique microbiome, a fingerprint of viruses and bacteria that uniquely identify it, according to a new study from an international consortium of researchers that included a team from the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM). The international project, which sequenced and analyzed samples collected from public transit systems and hospitals in 60 cities around the world, was published today in the journal
Cell.
The research is considered to be the largest-ever global metagenomic study of urban microbiomes, spanning both the air and the surfaces of multiple cities. It features a comprehensive analysis for all the microbial species identified including thousands of viruses and bacteria and two newly identified single-cell organisms not found in reference databases.
About 12,000 bacteria and viruses collected in a sampling from public transit systems and hospitals around the world from 2015 to 2017 had never before been identified, according to a study by the International MetaSUB Consortium, a global effort at tracking microbes that is led by Weill Cornell Medicine investigators.
Researchers use genomic sequencing technique to detect presence of various microbes
About 12,000 bacteria and viruses collected in a sampling from public transit systems and hospitals around the world from 2015 to 2017 had never before been identified, according to a study by the International MetaSUB Consortium, a global effort at tracking microbes that is led by Weill Cornell Medicine investigators.
For the study, published May 26 in
Cell, international investigators collected nearly 5,000 samples over a three-year period across 60 cities in 32 countries and six continents. The investigators analyzed the samples using a genomic sequencing technique called shotgun sequencing to detect the presence of various microbes, including bacteria, archaea (single-celled organisms that are distinct from bacteria), and viruses that use DNA as their genetic material. (Other types of viruses that use RNA as their genetic material, such as SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, would not
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