Microbial fingerprints reveal interaction between museum objects, curators and visitors

Diverse microbial communities reside at the interface between humans and their built environment. Whether the microbiome can be leveraged to gain information on human interaction with museum objects is unclear. To answer this question, museum objects varying in material composition and size from two museums in Berlin, Germany, were selected. In total 126 samples of natural and cultural heritage objects were taken with sterile nylon flocked swabs and subsequently subjected to 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing. By comparing the microbial composition of touched and untouched mollusc and fossil natural heritage objects we derived a robust microbial touch signature characterized by increased abundance of microbes known to be present in human skin. Application of this touch signature to cultural heritage objects from the Pergamonmuseum revealed areas of differential exposure to human contact on the Ishtar gate and gate lions. Moreover, we were able to distinguish museum objects and personal office items touched by two different individuals with high sensitivity. Our results demonstrate that the microbial fingerprint of museum objects gives insight into the degree of exposure to human contact, which is an important parameter for conservation and heritage science, and possibly provenance research.

多样的微生物群落栖息于人类与建成环境之间的交互界面。目前尚不清楚能否利用微生物组（microbiome）来获取人类与博物馆藏品交互相关的信息。为解答这一问题，研究人员从德国柏林的两家博物馆中选取了材质构成与尺寸各异的博物馆藏品。研究团队总计使用无菌尼龙植绒拭子采集了126份自然与文化遗产藏品样本，随后对其开展16S rRNA扩增子测序。通过对比受触碰与未受触碰的软体动物及化石类自然遗产藏品的微生物组成，本研究推导得到了可靠的微生物接触特征：该特征以人体皮肤常见微生物的丰度升高为典型表征。将该接触特征应用于佩加蒙博物馆（Pergamonmuseum）的文化遗产藏品后，研究人员在伊什塔尔门（Ishtar gate）与门狮上发现了存在不同程度人类接触暴露的区域。此外，本研究还能够以高灵敏度区分由两名不同个体触碰过的博物馆藏品与个人办公物品。本研究结果表明，博物馆藏品的微生物指纹可反映其人类接触暴露程度——这是文物保护与遗产科学领域的重要参数，同时也可能为溯源研究提供参考。