TY - JOUR A1 - Toepfer, I. A1 - Favet, J. A1 - Schulte, A. A1 - Schmölling, M. A1 - Butte, W. A1 - Triplett, E.W. A1 - Broughton, W.J. A1 - Gorbushina, Anna T1 - Pathogens as potential hitchhikers on intercontinental dust JF - Aerobiologia N2 - Desert dust seeds distant lands and waters with minerals as well as micro-organisms raising the question of whether this ancient phenomenon also spreads pathogens across the globe. Severe dust storms require strong winds blowing over land-masses that are largely devoid of vegetation, effectively limiting the scope for winds to raise pathogens into the air. Nevertheless, changing patterns of land-use, often driven by belligerency, result in refugees spreading to areas that were previously deemed barely habitable. With the help of the International Committee of the Red Cross, a number of sand/dust samples were collected from the Republic of Chad, some near refugee camps, others further removed from human influence. In parallel studies, we documented the micro-organisms present in these samples and used a number of the isolates here to test the effect of environmental constraints on their ability to survive intercontinental flight. We also added traditional pathogens to the palette of microbes and tested the effects of UV irradiation, desiccation and temperature on survival of both bacteria and fungi. A clear trend was obvious—those microbes that are coloured or able to form conidia or spores (in other words, those that are native to deserts) were well able to resist the imposed stresses. On the other hand, most pathogens were more sensitive to stresses than the environmental isolates. Toxin production in two species of Aspergillus was also investigated. Short-term desiccation (simulating environmental conditions during intercontinental travel) of sand amended with fungal spores containing sterigmatocystin leads to increased mycotoxin contents, but significant mycotoxin production was only possible under growth-permissive conditions, e.g. at higher humidity. It thus seems likely that an ever-decreasing fraction of the initial pathogen load survives as the dust recedes from its desert source and that those organisms that land on other continents are highly enriched in desert dwellers. KW - Chad KW - Desert sand KW - Sterigmatocystin KW - Aspergillus sydowii KW - A. versicolor PY - 2012 DO - https://doi.org/10.1007/s10453-011-9230-2 SN - 0393-5965 SN - 1573-3025 VL - 28 IS - 2 SP - 221 EP - 231 PB - Springer Science + Business Media B.V. CY - Dordrecht [u.a.] AN - OPUS4-24814 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Giongo, A. A1 - Favet, J. A1 - Lapanje, A. A1 - Gano, K.A. A1 - Kennedy, S. A1 - Davis-Richardson, A.G. A1 - Brown, C. A1 - Beck, A. A1 - Farmerie, W.G. A1 - Cattaneo, A. A1 - Crabb, D.B. A1 - Aung, Y.-Y. A1 - Kort, R. A1 - Brumsack, H.-J. A1 - Schnetger, B. A1 - Broughton, William J. A1 - Gorbushina, Anna A1 - Triplett, E.W. T1 - Microbial hitchhikers on intercontinental dust: high-throughput sequencing to catalogue microbes in small sand samples JF - Aerobiologia N2 - Microbiological studies on the intercontinental transport of dust are confounded by the difficulty of obtaining sufficient material for analysis. Axenic samples of dust collected at high altitudes or historic specimens in museums are often so small and precious that the material can only be sacrificed when positive results are assured. With this in mind, we evaluated current methods and developed new ones in an attempt to catalogue all microbes present in small dust or sand samples. The methods used included classical microbiological approaches in which sand extracts were plated out on a variety of different media, polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based amplification of 16S/18S rRNA sequences followed by construction of clone libraries, PCR amplification of 16S rRNA sequences followed by high-throughput sequencing (HtS) of the products and direct HtS of DNA extracted from the sand. A representative sand sample collected at Bahaï Wadi in the desert of the Republic of Chad was used. HtS with or without amplification showed the most promise and can be performed on ≤100 ng DNA. Since living microbes are often required, current best practices would involve geochemical and microscopic characterisation of the sample, followed by DNA isolation and direct HtS. Once the microbial content of the sample has been deciphered, growth conditions (including media) can be tailored to isolate the micro-organisms of interest. KW - Chad KW - Deserts KW - Eukaryota KW - 16S amplicons KW - Metagenomics PY - 2013 DO - https://doi.org/10.1007/s10453-012-9264-0 SN - 0393-5965 SN - 1573-3025 VL - 29 IS - 1 SP - 71 EP - 84 PB - Springer Science + Business Media B.V. CY - Dordrecht [u.a.] AN - OPUS4-27687 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Favet, J. A1 - Lapanje, A. A1 - Giongo, A. A1 - Kennedy, S. A1 - Aung, Y.-Y. A1 - Cattaneo, A. A1 - Davis-Richardson, A.G. A1 - Brown, C.T. A1 - Kort, R. A1 - Brumsack, H.-J. A1 - Schnetger, B. A1 - Chappell, A. A1 - Kroijenga, J. A1 - Beck, A. A1 - Schwibbert, Karin A1 - Mohamed, A.H. A1 - Kirchner, T. A1 - Dorr de Quadros, P. A1 - Triplett, E.W. A1 - Broughton, William J. A1 - Gorbushina, Anna T1 - Microbial hitchhikers on intercontinental dust: catching a lift in Chad JF - The ISME journal : multisiciplinary journal of microbial ecology N2 - Ancient mariners knew that dust whipped up from deserts by strong winds travelled long distances, including over oceans. Satellite remote sensing revealed major dust sources across the Sahara. Indeed, the Bodélé Depression in the Republic of Chad has been called the dustiest place on earth. We analysed desert sand from various locations in Chad and dust that had blown to the Cape Verde Islands. High throughput sequencing techniques combined with classical microbiological methods showed that the samples contained a large variety of microbes well adapted to the harsh desert conditions. The most abundant bacterial groupings in four different phyla included: (a) Firmicutes—Bacillaceae, (b) Actinobacteria—Geodermatophilaceae, Nocardiodaceae and Solirubrobacteraceae, (c) Proteobacteria—Oxalobacteraceae, Rhizobiales and Sphingomonadaceae, and (d) Bacteroidetes—Cytophagaceae. Ascomycota was the overwhelmingly dominant fungal group followed by Basidiomycota and traces of Chytridiomycota, Microsporidia and Glomeromycota. Two freshwater algae (Trebouxiophyceae) were isolated. Most predominant taxa are widely distributed land inhabitants that are common in soil and on the surfaces of plants. Examples include Bradyrhizobium spp. that nodulate and fix nitrogen in Acacia species, the predominant trees of the Sahara as well as Herbaspirillum (Oxalobacteraceae), a group of chemoorganotrophic free-living soil inhabitants that fix nitrogen in association with Gramineae roots. Few pathogenic strains were found, suggesting that African dust is not a large threat to public health. KW - Aeolian KW - High throughput sequencing KW - Bodélé Depression KW - Republic of Chad KW - Wind erosion PY - 2013 DO - https://doi.org/10.1038/ismej.2012.152 SN - 1751-7362 SN - 1751-7370 VL - 7 SP - 850 EP - 867 PB - Nature Publishing Group CY - Basingstoke AN - OPUS4-28083 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Favet, J. A1 - Lapanje, A. A1 - Giongo, A. A1 - Kennedy, S. A1 - Aung, Y.-Y. A1 - Cataneo, A. A1 - Kort, R. A1 - Brumsack, H.-J. A1 - Schnetger, B. A1 - Triplett, E.W. A1 - Beck, A. A1 - Broughton, William J. A1 - Gorbushina, Anna T1 - Microbial hitchhikers on intercontinental dust - Chadian origins T2 - VAAM-Jahrestagung 2011 - BIOspektrum T2 - VAAM-Jahrestagung 2011 CY - Karlsruhe, Germany DA - 03.04.2011 KW - Intercontinental dust KW - Desert soil PY - 2011 SN - 0947-0867 IS - EMP114 SP - 118 PB - Spektrum, Akad. Verl. AN - OPUS4-23629 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Del Carmen Montero-Calasanz, M. A1 - Göker, M. A1 - Broughton, W.J. A1 - Cattaneo, A. A1 - Favet, J. A1 - Pötter, G. A1 - Rohde, M. A1 - Spröer, C. A1 - Schumann, P. A1 - Klenk, H.-P. A1 - Gorbushina, Anna T1 - Geodermatophilus tzadiensis sp. nov., a UV radiation-resistant bacterium isolated from sand of the Saharan desert JF - Systematic and applied microbiology N2 - Three novel Gram-positive, aerobic, actinobacterial strains, CF5/2T, CF5/1 and CF7/1, were isolated in 2007 during environmental screening of arid desert soil in the Sahara desert, Chad. Results from riboprinting, MALDI-TOF protein spectra and 16S rRNA sequence analysis confirmed that all three strains belonged to the same species. Phylogenetic analysis of 16S rRNA sequences with the strains' closest relatives indicated that they represented a distinct species. The three novel strains also shared a number of physiological and biochemical characteristics distinct from previously named Geodermatophilus species. The novel strains' peptidoglycan contained meso-diaminopimelic acid; their main phospholipids were phosphatidylcholine, phosphatidylethanolamine, diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylinositol and a small amount of phosphatidylglycerol; MK-9(H4) was the dominant menaquinone. The major cellular fatty acids were the branched-chain saturated acids iso-C16:0 and iso-C15:0. Galactose was detected as diagnostic sugar. Based on these chemotaxonomic results, 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis and DNA–DNA hybridization between strain CF5/2T and the type strains of Geodermatophilus saharensis, Geodermatophilus arenarius, Geodermatophilus nigrescens, Geodermatophilus telluris and Geodermatophilus siccatus, the isolates CF5/2T, CF5/1 and CF7/1 are proposed to represent a novel species, Geodermatophilus tzadiensis, with type strain CF5/2T = DSM 45416 = MTCC 11411 and two reference strains, CF5/1 (DSM 45415) and CF7/1 (DSM 45420). KW - Geodermatophilaceae KW - Actinomycetes KW - Taxonomy KW - Radiation-resistant PY - 2013 DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.syapm.2012.12.005 SN - 0723-2020 VL - 36 IS - 3 SP - 177 EP - 182 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam AN - OPUS4-28261 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -