Callewaert Chris, Van Nevel Sam, Kerckhof Frederiek-Maarten, Granitsiotis Michael S, Boon Nico
Laboratory of Microbial Ecology and Technology, Department of Biochemical and Microbial Technology, Faculty of Bioscience Engineering, Ghent University Ghent, Belgium.
Research Unit Environmental Genomics, Department of Environmental Science, Helmholtz Zentrum München Neuherberg, Germany.
Front Microbiol. 2015 Dec 8;6:1381. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2015.01381. eCollection 2015.
Household washing machines (WMs) launder soiled clothes and textiles, but do not sterilize them. We investigated the microbial exchange occurring in five household WMs. Samples from a new cotton T-shirt were laundered together with a normal laundry load. Analyses were performed on the influent water and the ingoing cotton samples, as well as the greywater and the washed cotton samples. The number of living bacteria was generally not lower in the WM effluent water as compared to the influent water. The laundering process caused a microbial exchange of influent water bacteria, skin-, and clothes-related bacteria and biofilm-related bacteria in the WM. A variety of biofilm-producing bacteria were enriched in the effluent after laundering, although their presence in the cotton sample was low. Nearly all bacterial genera detected on the initial cotton sample were still present in the washed cotton samples. A selection for typical skin- and clothes-related microbial species occurred in the cotton samples after laundering. Accordingly, malodour-causing microbial species might be further distributed to other clothes. The bacteria on the ingoing textiles contributed for a large part to the microbiome found in the textiles after laundering.
家用洗衣机可清洗脏衣服和纺织品，但无法对其进行消毒。我们调查了五台家用洗衣机中发生的微生物交换情况。将一件新的棉质T恤的样本与正常洗衣量的衣物一起洗涤。对进水和放入的棉质样本以及排水和洗涤后的棉质样本进行了分析。与进水相比，洗衣机排水中的活菌数量通常并不更低。洗涤过程导致洗衣机中进水细菌、与皮肤和衣物相关的细菌以及与生物膜相关的细菌发生了微生物交换。尽管洗涤后排水中各种产生物膜的细菌在棉质样本中的含量较低，但它们在排水中却有所富集。在初始棉质样本上检测到的几乎所有细菌属在洗涤后的棉质样本中仍然存在。洗涤后棉质样本中出现了对典型的与皮肤和衣物相关的微生物种类的选择。因此，产生异味的微生物种类可能会进一步传播到其他衣物上。放入的纺织品上的细菌在很大程度上构成了洗涤后纺织品中发现的微生物群落。
