A microbiome study reveals the potential relationship between the bacterial diversity of a gymnastics hall and human health

Abstract

Currently, investigations on the microbiota of sports centers and related facilities have been carried out in some countries, which showed that Microsporum gypseum, Trichophyton mentagrophytes and T. tonsurans are important dermatoprotofungi. In China, some research on athletes and sports equipment between the fungal community and public health has made some interesting achievements. However, the bacterial group among them has not been reported. Therefore, The aim of this study was to uncover (I) gymnastic equipment is there potential pathogenic factors and (ii) is there any difference in the biomarker of bacterial in different types of gymnastic room? The samples were collected from the gymnastics halls of one university in western China and main sports equipment, including gymnastics carpets, moving barres, hoops and balls, as well as wall bars, parallel bars and horizontal bars. The 16S rDNA of all the samples was sequenced, and the analyses were performed using FaproTax, Bug base function prediction and Line Discriminant Analysis (LDA) Effect Size. A 16S rDNA sequence analysis revealed abundant bacterial species biodiversity on gymnasts and apparatuses from two gymnastics halls at a university in western China. An analysis using the FaproTax and Bugbase functional prediction platforms showed that there were some opportunistic pathogens on the athletes and equipment from the Rhythmic Gymnastics (RG) and Artistic Gymnastics (AG) halls, such as Staphylococcus and Corynebacteiaceae. Infectious agents associated with cancer induction and development, such as Ruminococcaceae, Veillonellaceae and Moraxellaceae, as well as microbial toxin producers with a potential impact on human health, were also detected. According to a line discriminant analysis (LDA effect size), the bacterial biomarker groups of the two gymnasiums were different at the phylum-genus level: for RG, Erysipelatoclostridium, Lachnospiraceae and Bacteroidales, while for AG, Rhizobiales. Based on the results of the investigation, we suggest that more comprehensive consideration should be given to indoor microbial biodiversity and related public health problems in school gymnasiums.

Figure 1

Bacterial composition and relative abundance of main apparatus in two gyms (Top 30). a/RG Gym: aa (carpet), ab (barre), ac (hoop), ad (ball), ae (palm). b/AG Gym: ba (carpet), bb (wall bars), bc (horizontal bar), bd (parallel bars), be (palm).

Figure 2

Bar chart of FaproTax function prediction of microbiome in two gyms, (a) (TOP 20 in functional abundance; P: 0.05). (b) Phenotypic functional maps of the microbiome of the two gyms predicted by BugBase algorithm; (c) opportunistic pathogens or dominant microbiota associated with cancer displayed at the family-level.

Figure 3

Venn distribution of a genus-level for all sample taxa. b KRONA species annotation map of all samples: RG/aa (carpet), ab (barre), ac (hoop), ad (ball), ae (palm); AG/ba (carpet), bb (wall bars), bc (horizontal bar), bd (parallel bars), be (palm).

Figure 4

LEfse analysis of bacteria characterictic taxa in two gyms. (a) (from phylum to genus) cladogram; (b) bar diagram. The bacterial biomarker enriched in AG (red) in cladogram (a) is Rhizobiales. Similarly, as shown in the cladogram, the bacterial biomarkers of RG (green) in column figure (b) are Erysipelatoclostridium, and Lachnospiraceae and Bacteroidales. The node size in FIG.4.a represents the abundance of the group. b Histogram shows LDA score > 3 and p < 0.05.

Figure 5

Composition of dominant taxon (top 10 taxa) of palms and carpets from RG and AG group. (a) palm of RG athlete, (b) palm of AG athlete, (c) RG carpet, (d) AG carpet.