Humans Are Protected by Unique Microbial Clouds

STATES CHRONICLE – A new study published in the journal of PeerJ has proven that humans are protected by unique microbial clouds, no matter how much time they would spend scrubbing germs off their skin. This unique pattern of human microbiome can have many appliances in the future, scientist have explained.

After a recent study proved that humans have thousands of microbes in their homes and that bacteria is gender-related, a new research says humans have specific clouds of microbes. These microbiomes differ from one person to another, the experiment has revealed.

For the current experiment, scientists have placed 11 participants in a completely sanitized room and left to interact with equally sanitized objects therein. Their microbial prints have been compared to the ones in a nearby room, which was kept empty all throughout the experiment. The results have proven that all the 11 responds had different microbial clouds surrounding them.

Scientists have looked at the structure of 312 samples to determine the extent to which microbiomes differed from one person to another. They have discovered that the air and dust samples had 14 million sequences, each containing thousands of bacteria. Even more interestingly, no two persons shared the same bacteria combination.

Further analyses have also revealed that there could be other differences, as well, between humans’ microbiomes. More specifically, the microbial clouds of the 11 participants had different sizes and contents, based on every person’s personal characteristics and lifestyle.

While microbiomes contain more or less the same categories of microbes, the bacteria within the cloud is not identical. Thus, there is a unique combination of mouth Streptococcus, Corynebacterium and Propionibacterium germs from the skin in the microbial cloud of every person, scientists have concluded.

As expected, the new finding has immediately got researchers thinking of possible uses of their new discovery. Since the microbial cloud is unique for every person, it can be used by forensic experts to identify criminals. Additionally, the research could help medical experts better understand how diseases get transmitted from one person to another and find appropriate treatments or vaccines.

The study was conducted by James F. Meadow and colleagues at the University of Oregon. In their opinion, the study could set the grounds for a new technology that can identify humans’ microbial clouds.

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