Microbiome profiling in airports: Establishing a baseline for future pathogen control strategies in aviation-related indoor environments

Kurzfassung

The potential of disease transmission exists in public transportation vehicles, such as trains, buses and airplanes, as passengers usually spend extended time periods in them with limited mobility. With over 9 billion passengers annually, air travel can, therefore, act as a vector for pathogen spread and the transmission of diseases over long distances. Disease transmission can happen via airborne pathogens or highly-touched surfaces, either in the airplane cabin or at the stay at the airport in terminal areas during travels. Documented cases of transmission of pathogens such as SARS-CoV-2 or Influenza have already suggested the risks of infection while traveling. Within the frame of this study, we investigate the temporal dynamics of the airport microbiome to imply mitigation strategies in order to reduce the microbial load within aviation interiors. For this purpose, microbiological sampling campaigns are currently taking place at a German airport. As part of these campaigns, air sampling is being conducted within the airport terminal buildings, using cultivation-based methods followed by microbial identification, for example, by next-generation sequencing. Furthermore, highly-touched surfaces by passengers, including toilet door handles or armrests in waiting areas of the terminals, are swabbed and subsequently tested by fast-detection methods such as loop-mediated isothermal amplification for the occurrence of specific microorganisms, for instance, human pathogens such as the ESKAPE (Enterococcus faecium, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Acinetobacter baumannii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Enterobacter spp.) organisms. Using environmental microbes that were identified during previous samplings, such as Pseudomonas stutzeri, we are investigating their stability and survival on different airplane cabin material samples provided by AIRBUS, as well as antimicrobial surfaces. Also, antimicrobial coatings that can be applied to various materials are being tested, especially in regard to their longitudinal impact on the survival of the organisms. We will present preliminary findings from these tests, highlighting the molecular mechanisms by which these antimicrobial tactics influence microbial stress responses in the organisms. This will be analyzed through diverse approaches, including transcriptomic profiling, as well as complementary molecular microbiology assays.