Association between indoor microbiome exposure and sick building syndrome (SBS) in junior high schools of Johor Bahru, Malaysia

Fu X 1 , Norbäck D 2 , Yuan Q 3 , Li Y 3 , Zhu X 3 , Hashim JH 4 Show all authors , Hashim Z 5 , Ali F 6 , Hu Q 7 , Deng Y 3 , Sun Y 8

Affiliations 

  • 1 Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Protein Function and Regulation in Agricultural Organisms, College of Life Sciences, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, 510642, PR China; Department of Occupational and Environmental Health, School of Public Health, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, PR China
  • 2 Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Dept. of Medical Science, University Hospital, Uppsala University, 75237 Uppsala, Sweden
  • 3 Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Protein Function and Regulation in Agricultural Organisms, College of Life Sciences, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, 510642, PR China; Key Laboratory of Zoonosis of Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510642, PR China; Guangdong Laboratory for Lingnan Modern Agriculture, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510642, China
  • 4 Universiti Selangor, Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia
  • 5 Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia, UPM, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia
  • 6 Primary Care Unit, Johor State Health Department, Johor Bahru, Malaysia
  • 7 Department of Occupational and Environmental Health, School of Public Health, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, PR China
  • 8 Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Protein Function and Regulation in Agricultural Organisms, College of Life Sciences, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, 510642, PR China; Key Laboratory of Zoonosis of Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510642, PR China; Guangdong Laboratory for Lingnan Modern Agriculture, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510642, China. Electronic address: sunyu@scau.edu.cn
Sci Total Environ, 2021 Jan 20;753:141904.
PMID: 32890872 DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.141904

Abstract

Sick building syndrome (SBS) is a collection of nonspecific syndromes linked with the built environment. The occurrence of SBS is associated with humidity, ventilation, moulds and microbial compounds exposure. However, no study has reported the association between indoor microbiome and SBS. In this study, 308 students were surveyed for SBS symptoms from 21 classrooms of 7 junior high schools from Johor Bahru, Malaysia, and vacuum dust from floor, desks and chairs was collected. High throughput amplicon sequencing (16S rRNA gene and ITS region) and quantitative PCR were conducted to characterize the absolute concentration of bacteria and fungi taxa. In total, 326 bacterial and 255 fungal genera were detected in dust with large compositional variation among classrooms. Also, half of these samples showed low compositional similarity to microbiome data deposited in the public database. The number of observed OTUs in Gammaproteobacteria was positively associated with SBS (p = 0.004). Eight microbial genera were associated with SBS (p 

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

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