Identificação e caracterização da comunidade bacteriana do transporte público de Natal/RN através de abordagens metagenômicas e microbiológicas

Abstract

The built environments harbor a diversity of known and unknown microorganisms, which may or may not be harmful to human and animal health. Thus, public collective transport constitutes an important built environment that transports thousands of people every day, being a significant means of transmission for numerous microorganisms. The aim of this study was to conduct the first metagenomic analysis of public transportation in the city of Natal (RN, Brazil) through high-throughput DNA sequencing, obtained from surface samples of the internal areas of buses operating between the city's four zones (n = 110), during two different seasons (winter and summer), and to test the antimicrobial susceptibility profile of bacterial isolates from two circular buses of UFRN. Taxonomy was revealed through GOTTCHA2, a bioinformatics tool that classifies metagenomic reads by comparing them with public databases. The study results revealed that the microbiome of public transport in Natal/RN is mainly influenced by the microbiota of its users, with a predominance of the phyla Actinobacteria, Proteobacteria, and Firmicutes, most of which are associated with the normal human microbiota. Various opportunistic pathogenic bacterial genera were identified among our samples, such as Staphylococcus aureus, Enterobacter cloacae, Klebsiella pneumoniae, and Haemophilus influenzae, which are routinely associated with various community and hospital infections. Furthermore, the interpretation of susceptibility tests showed that most isolates do not have antibiotic resistance, but some bacteria may possess resistance genes, with isolates suggestive of MRSA and ESBL, which are of great global concern. Therefore, it is concluded that more studies on profiling the microbial community of built environments are urgent, with the aim of identifying and preventing possible infectious outbreaks, as well as conducting research on antimicrobial resistance genes in these spaces.