title: Distinctive thanatomicrobiome signatures found in the blood and internal organs of humans.
abstract: According to the Human Microbiome Project, 90% of the cells in a healthy adult body are microorganisms. What happens to these cells after human host death, defined here as the thanatomicrobiome (i.e., thanatos-, Greek defn., death), is not clear. To fill the void, we examined the thanatomicrobiome of the spleen, liver, brain, heart and blood of human cadavers. These organs are thought to be devoid of microorganisms in a healthy adult host. We report that the thanatomicrobiome was highly similar among organ tissues from the same cadaver but very different among the cadavers possibly due to differences in the elapsed time since death and/or environmental factors. Isolation of microbial DNA from cadavers is known to be a challenge. We compared the effectiveness of two methods by amplifying the 16S rRNA genes and sequencing the amplicons from four cadavers. Paired comparisons revealed that the conventional DNA extraction method (bead-beating in phenol/chloroform/bead-beating followed by ethanol precipitation) yielded more 16S rRNA amplicons (28 of 30 amplicons) than a second method (repeated cycles of heating/cooling followed by centrifugation to remove cellular debris) (19 of 30 amplicons). Shannon diversity index of the 16S rRNA genes revealed no significant difference by extraction method. The present report provides a proof of principle that the thanatomicrobiome may be an efficient biomarker to study postmortem transformations of cadavers.
authors.affiliation: Forensic Science Program, Alabama State University, Montgomery, AL 36101, United States. Electronic address: ismail@iyte.net.
authors.forename: Ismail
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Can
authors.affiliation: Forensic Science Program, Alabama State University, Montgomery, AL 36101, United States. Electronic address: gjavan@alasu.edu.
authors.forename: Gulnaz T
authors.initials: GT
authors.lastname: Javan
authors.affiliation: Department of Periodontics, University of Washington, Box 3574444, Seattle, WA 98195, United States. Electronic address: pozhit@uw.edu.
authors.forename: Alexander E
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Pozhitkov
authors.affiliation: PhD Program in Microbiology, Alabama State University, Montgomery, AL 36101, United States; Department of Periodontics, University of Washington, Box 3574444, Seattle, WA 98195, United States. Electronic address: panoble@washington.edu.
authors.forename: Peter A
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: Noble
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001769:Blood / Q000382:microbiology*; D001921:Brain / Q000382:microbiology*; D002102:Cadaver; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D004275:DNA, Ribosomal / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics; D006321:Heart / Q000382:microbiology*; D006801:Humans; D008099:Liver / Q000382:microbiology*; D008297:Male; D064307:Microbiota; D008875:Middle Aged; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D012336:RNA, Ribosomal, 16S / Q000235:genetics; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D013154:Spleen / Q000382:microbiology*; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D004275:DNA, Ribosomal; D012336:RNA, Ribosomal, 16S
keywords: Cadaver; DNA extraction methods; Postmortem interval; Thanatomicrobiome