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. 2015 Dec 8:6:1381.
doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2015.01381. eCollection 2015.

Bacterial Exchange in Household Washing Machines

Chris Callewaert  1 , Sam Van Nevel  1 , Frederiek-Maarten Kerckhof  1 , Michael S Granitsiotis  2 , Nico Boon  1
Affiliations

Bacterial Exchange in Household Washing Machines

Chris Callewaert et al. Front Microbiol. .

Abstract

Household washing machines (WMs) launder soiled clothes and textiles, but do not sterilize them. We investigated the microbial exchange occurring in five household WMs. Samples from a new cotton T-shirt were laundered together with a normal laundry load. Analyses were performed on the influent water and the ingoing cotton samples, as well as the greywater and the washed cotton samples. The number of living bacteria was generally not lower in the WM effluent water as compared to the influent water. The laundering process caused a microbial exchange of influent water bacteria, skin-, and clothes-related bacteria and biofilm-related bacteria in the WM. A variety of biofilm-producing bacteria were enriched in the effluent after laundering, although their presence in the cotton sample was low. Nearly all bacterial genera detected on the initial cotton sample were still present in the washed cotton samples. A selection for typical skin- and clothes-related microbial species occurred in the cotton samples after laundering. Accordingly, malodour-causing microbial species might be further distributed to other clothes. The bacteria on the ingoing textiles contributed for a large part to the microbiome found in the textiles after laundering.

Keywords: domestic; fabrics; microbiome; skin; washing machine.

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Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Study design: one pair of jeans, five T-shirts, five pairs of socks, and five pieces of underwear, worn by the family members, were laundered using a delicate washing program, at 30°C, with a detergent without bleaching agents.Samples were taken from the influent and effluent water, and the unused cotton samples before and after laundering.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Bacterial cell counts based on plating on NA (total plate count), MCA (Gram-negative bacteria), and MSA (staphylococci and Micrococcaceae) in the greywater samples; and intact bacterial cell counts based on flow cytometry (FCM) of the influent and greywater samples of the different washing machines (WM).‘Other bacteria’ refer to all bacteria detected on NA, not detected on MCA and MSA.
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Clustering of the pyrosequencing results of the different sample types from different household WMs.Clustering according to the Sorenson index and unweighted pair group with mathematical averages dendrogram method.
FIGURE 4
FIGURE 4
Overview of the relative abundant bacterial classes in the different samples for WM1 (A), WM3 (B), and WM4 (C) displayed according to the study design.
FIGURE 5
FIGURE 5
Clustering of the DGGE bacterial fingerprinting results according to the Pearson correlation and unweighted pair group with mathematical averages dendrogram method.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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