Department of Epidemiology, Ministry of Education Key Lab of Hazard Assessment and Control in Special Operational Environment, School of Public Health, Air Force Medical University, Xi'an, 710032, People's Republic of China.
Wuwei Municipal Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Wuwei City, Gansu Province, People's Republic of China.
BMC Microbiol. 2021 Jan 6;21(1):7. doi: 10.1186/s12866-020-02056-3.
Working in an underground tunnel environment is unavoidable in professions such as miners and tunnel workers, and there is a concern about the health of these workers. Few studies have addressed alterations in the intestinal microbiome of workers within that environment.
Fecal samples were collected from the workers before they entered the tunnel (baseline status, BS) and after they left the tunnel (exposed status, ES), respectively (a time period of 3 weeks between them). We analyzed 16S rRNA sequencing to show the changes in microbial composition and self-evaluation of mental health questionnaire was also performed. The results showed that Shannon and Simpson indices decreased significantly from BS to ES. A higher abundance was found in the phylum Actinobacteria, classes Actinobacteria and Deltaproteobacteria, orders Bifidobacteriales, Coriobacteriales, and Desulfovibrionales, families Bifidobacteriaceae, Peptostreptococcaceae, Coriobacteriaceae, Clostridiaceae_1, Desulfovibrionaceae, Pseudomonadaceae, and Microbacteriaceae, and genera Bifidobacterium, Romboutsia, Clostridium sensu stricto, and Leucobacter in ES, while BS showed greater levels of genera Faecalibacterium and Roseburia. The self-evaluation showed that at least one-half of the tunnel workers experienced one or more symptoms of mental distress (inattention, sleeplessness, loss of appetite, headache or dizziness, irritability) after working in the underground tunnel environment.
Collectively, the underground tunnel environment led to alterations in the intestinal microbiome, which might be relevant to symptoms of mental distress in underground-tunnel workers.
矿工和隧道工人等职业不可避免地要在地下隧道环境中工作，人们对这些工人的健康状况表示担忧。很少有研究涉及到该环境中工人肠道微生物组的变化。
分别在工人进入隧道前（基线状态，BS）和离开隧道后（暴露状态，ES）采集粪便样本（两者之间有 3 周的时间间隔）。我们进行了 16S rRNA 测序分析，以显示微生物组成的变化，同时还进行了心理健康自我评估问卷。结果表明，Shannon 和 Simpson 指数从 BS 到 ES 显著下降。厚壁菌门、放线菌纲和δ变形菌纲、双歧杆菌目、柯里氏菌目和脱硫弧菌目、双歧杆菌科、消化链球菌科、柯里氏菌科、梭菌科 1 组、脱硫弧菌科、假单胞菌科和微杆菌科的丰度较高，而 ES 中的双歧杆菌属、罗姆布茨菌属、严格梭菌属和白喉杆菌属的丰度较高。自我评估显示，至少有一半的隧道工人在地下隧道环境中工作后经历了一种或多种精神困扰症状（注意力不集中、失眠、食欲不振、头痛或头晕、易怒）。
总的来说，地下隧道环境导致了肠道微生物组的改变，这可能与地下隧道工人的精神困扰症状有关。
