title: Hand bacterial communities vary across two different human populations.
abstract: This study utilized pyrosequencing-based phylogenetic library results to assess bacterial communities on the hands of women in Tanzania and compared these communities with bacteria assemblages on the hands of US women. Bacterial population profiles and phylogenetically based ordinate analysis demonstrated that the bacterial communities on hands were more similar for selected populations within a country than between the two countries considered. Organisms that have commonly been identified in prior human skin microbiome studies, including members of the Propionibacteriaceae, Staphylococcaceae and Streptococceacea families, were highly abundant on US hands and drove the clustering of US hand microbial communities into a distinct group. The most abundant bacterial taxa on Tanzanian hands were the soil-associated Rhodobacteraceae and Nocardioidaceae. These results help to expand human microbiome results beyond US and European populations, and the identification and abundance of soil-associated bacteria on Tanzanian hands demonstrated the important role of the environment in shaping the microbial communities on human hands.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520, USA.
authors.forename: Denina
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Hospodsky
authors.affiliation: Environmental and Water Studies, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
authors.forename: Amy J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Pickering
authors.affiliation: Environmental Health Sciences, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA.
authors.forename: Timothy R
authors.initials: TR
authors.lastname: Julian
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520, USA.
authors.forename: Dana
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Miller
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520, USA.
authors.forename: Sisira
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Gorthala
authors.affiliation: Environmental and Water Studies, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
authors.forename: Alexandria B
authors.initials: AB
authors.lastname: Boehm
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520, USA.
authors.forename: Jordan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Peccia
mesh_terms: D001419:Bacteria / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics*; D004269:DNA, Bacterial / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics; D004275:DNA, Ribosomal / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics; D005260:Female; D006225:Hand / Q000382:microbiology*; D006801:Humans; D064307:Microbiota; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D012336:RNA, Ribosomal, 16S / Q000235:genetics; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D013636:Tanzania; D014481:United States
chemical_list: D004269:DNA, Bacterial; D004275:DNA, Ribosomal; D012336:RNA, Ribosomal, 16S