From: deputydog23x@gmail.com   
      
   Do Gut Microbes Travel From Person to Person?    
      
   By Veronique Greenwood | May 1, 2012 11:04 am    
      
      
      
   It's an exciting time for ecologists who study microbes. DNA sequencing has   
   grown so cheap and fast that they can run around identifying bacteria living   
   just about anywhere they can reach with a cotton swab. Turns out, bacteria are   
   everywhere, even in    
   the cleanest houses, and scientists are starting to wonder: do those bacteria   
   in the home reflect the bacteria that live inside the inhabitants?    
      
   And if so, can they travel from person to person?    
      
   A small insight into this question came at one of the presentations at the   
   International Human Microbiome Congress (covered by New Scientist in a short   
   piece here). James Scott, who studies molecular genetics at the University of   
   Toronto, reported that    
   the gut microbes of babies, as found in their poop, were also in the dust in   
   the babies' homes. It's not clear whether this means that bacteria in the dust   
   are colonizing the babies or vice versa--or both--but it's still something of   
   a surprise. Gut    
   microbes don't seem like the sort to thrive outside the body, as they tend to   
   require an oxygen-free environment. But maybe the gut bacteria in the dust are   
   in a dormant form, waiting to be absorbed into a new gut before flowering into   
   life again.    
      
   The corollary of this finding is that perhaps the other inhabitants of that   
   home might pick up those microbes. Your gut microbiome, thus, would be closer   
   to your roommates' than to a stranger's, something that would be easy to test   
   with modern sequencing    
   techniques. There's also room to speculate that as we learn more about the   
   microbiome's relationship to disease, the swapping of microbes within a   
   household could reveal an infectious component to illnesses that we don't   
   currently think of that way. It's    
   just a speculation now, but an interesting one.    
      
   A whole rash of projects like Scott's baby study, most yet unpublished, are   
   starting to give scientists a sense of the interplay between our personal   
   microbiomes and those of our homes. Many of these projects require the help of   
   generous citizens like    
   yourselves who submit samples from their homes for analysis, in fact: Here are   
   a couple to start with, if you're curious.    
      
   Before you know it, you'll be swabbing everything in sight--just like the   
   pros.    
      
   Image courtesy of juhan sonin / flickr    
      
        
      
   CATEGORIZED UNDER: HEALTH & MEDICINE    
   MORE ABOUT: BACTERIA, DNA SEQUENCING, ENVIRONMENTAL DNA, GUT MICROBES, HUMAN   
   MICROBIOME, INDOOR MICROBIOME, MICROBIOME    
      
      
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   Craig Gosling    
   3 years ago    
   I thought it had been established that babies have their mothers bacteria and   
   acquire more as they grow. Many animals including apes munch on their own and   
   other species fecal material. Some marsupial pouch openings are situated near   
   their anuses for    
   easy access for their young. Calves could not digest without bacteria that   
   digest milk and cellulose. I ingest digestive bacteria from time to time to   
   insure good digestion, especially after taking antibiotics or being exposed to   
   someone who has.    
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   Karl A. Bettelheim    
   3 years ago    
   Researches carried out in the 1970' by my colleagues and myself have shown   
   conclusively that bacteria can spread from baby to baby via the air and the   
   persons handling them. While the spread of 'normal' E.coli appeared   
   limited, when a pathogenic    
   strain entered the ward its spread was far more extensive. It is a pity that   
   the writers of this article did not look at these earlier studies and for   
   their information I have written below references to the main papers on the   
   topic and more papers are    
   referred to in these references.    
      
   1. Bettelheim, K.A., Teoh-Chan, C.H., Chandler, M.E., O'Farrell, S.M.,   
   Rahamin, L., Shaw, E.J. & Shooter, R.A. 1974 Spread of Escherichia coli   
   colonizing new-born babies and their mothers. Journal of Hygiene, Cambridge   
   73:383-387.    
      
   2. Bettelheim, K.A. & Lennox-King, S.M.J. 1976 The acquisition of Escherichia   
   coli by newborn babies. Infection 4:174-179.    
      
   3. Bettelheim, K.A., Drabu, Y., O'Farrell, S., Shaw, E.J., Tabaqchali, S. &   
   Shooter, R.A. 1983 Relationship of an epidemic strain of Escherichia coli   
   0125.H21 to other serotypes of E.coli during an outbreak situation in a   
   neonatal ward. Zentralblatt fü   
   r Bakteriologie Mikrobiologie und Hygiene, I. Abteilung Originale A   
   253:509-514.    
      
      
      
      
      
   http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2012/05/01/do-gut-micr   
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