Category: Updates

Microbes and Social Equity essay published!

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I’m pleased to announced that the ‘microbes and social equity’ paper has been published as an essay in PLoS Biology, and will be included in their Microbiomes Across Biological Systems special issue.

In summer 2019, I developed and taught a course on ‘Microbes and Social Equity‘ to the Clark Honors College at the University of Oregon. The course assignments were literature review essays on various topics, which were compiled into a single manuscript as the group-based final project for the course. This large version is available as a preprint; however, the published version is more focused.

“Framing the discussion of microorganisms as a facet of social equity in human health.“

Suzanne L. Ishaq1,2*, Maurisa Rapp2,3, Risa Byerly2,3, Loretta S. McClellan2, Maya R. O’Boyle2, Anika Nykanen2, Patrick J. Fuller2,4, Calvin Aas2, Jude M. Stone2, Sean Killpatrick2,4, Manami M. Uptegrove2, Alex Vischer2, Hannah Wolf2, Fiona Smallman2, Houston Eymann2,5, Simon Narode2, Ellee Stapleton6, Camille C. Cioffi7, Hannah Tavalire8

  1. Biology and the Built Environment Center,  University of Oregon
  2. Robert D. Clark Honors College, University of Oregon
  3. Department of Human Physiology, University of Oregon
  4. Charles H. Lundquist College of Business, University of Oregon
  5. School of Journalism and Communication, University of Oregon
  6. Department of Landscape Architecture, University of Oregon
  7. Counseling Psychology and Human Services, College of Education, University of Oregon
  8. Institute of Ecology and Evolution, University of Oregon

Abstract

What do ‘microbes’ have to do with social equity? On the surface, very little. But these little organisms are integral to our health, the health of our natural environment, and even impact the ‘health’ of the environments we have built. Early life and the maturation of the immune system, our diet and lifestyle, and the quality of our surrounding environment can all impact our health. Similarly, the loss, gain, and retention of microorganisms ⁠— namely their flow from humans to the environment and back⁠ — can greatly impact our health and well-being. It is well-known that inequalities in access to perinatal care, healthy foods and fiber, a safe and clean home, and to the natural environment can create and arise from social inequality. Here, we focus on the argument that access to microorganisms as a facet of public health, and argue that health inequality may be compounded by inequitable microbial exposure.

Pilot study published on chemicals and bacteria in house dust.

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In October 2017, Dr. Rich Corsi came to visit Oregon for two weeks during a sabbatical from the University of Texas, Austin. During his stay, Rich and I, and other BioBE/ESBL researchers chatted about doing a pilot study that would bring UT’s indoor chemistry work together with BioBE’s indoor microbial work.

Since we began our collaboration in the fall of 2017, only one of the research team is still in their original position (Jeff Kline at ESBL)! Rich Corsi, Ying Xu, and myself have all gone on to faculty positions elsewhere, graduate student Chenyang Bi defended and started a post-doc position, and the two undergrads working with me, Susie Nunez and Samantha Velazquez, graduated and went on to other things! Science collaborations work best when they can stand the test of time and geography. The benefit to everyone moving around is that you are able to hold collaboration meetings in new and exciting places each time.

In addition to the literature review we collaborated on, we eventually did get a research pilot running, and it has now been published in PeerJ!

Accumulation of di-2-ethylhexyl phthalate from polyvinyl chloride flooring into settled house dust and the effect on the bacterial community.

Samantha Velazquez1, Chenyang Bi 2,3, Jeff Kline 1,4, Susie Nunez1, Richard Corsi 3,5, Ying Xu 3,6, Suzanne L. Ishaq1,7*

Affiliations:

1 Biology and the Built Environment Center,  University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, 97403

2 Department of Civil Environmental Engineering, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA 24061 (current)

3 Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering, University of Texas, Austin, TX 78712

4 Energy Studies and Buildings Laboratory, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, 97403

5 Fariborz Maseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science, Portland State University, Portland, OR 97207 (current)

6 Department of Building Science, Tsinghua University, 100084, Beijing, P. R. China (current)

7 School of Food and Agriculture, University of Maine, Orono, ME 04469 (current)

Abstract

Di-2-ethylhexyl phthalate (DEHP) is a plasticizer used in consumer products and building materials, including polyvinyl chloride flooring material. DEHP adsorbs from material and leaches into soil, water, or dust, and presents an exposure risk to building occupants by inhalation, ingestion, or absorption.  A number of bacterial isolates are demonstrated to degrade DEHP in culture, but bacteria may be susceptible to it as well, thus this study examined the relation of DEHP to bacterial communities in dust.  Polyvinyl chloride flooring was seeded with homogenized house dust and incubated for up to 14 days, and bacterial communities in dust were identified at days 1, 7, and 14 using the V3-V4 regions of the bacterial 16S rRNA gene.  DEHP concentration in dust increased over time, as expected, and bacterial richness and Shannon diversity were negatively correlated with DEHP concentration.  Some sequence variants of Bacillus, Corynebacterium jeddahense, Streptococcus, and Peptoniphilus were relatively more abundant at low concentrations of DEHP, while some Sphingomonas, Chryseobacterium, and a member of the Enterobacteriaceae family were relatively more abundant at higher concentrations.  The built environment is known to host lower microbial diversity and biomass than natural environments, and DEHP or other chemicals indoors may contribute to this paucity.

A stack of papers facedown on a table.

10 publications in 2019!!!

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2019 has been a hectic year for my career, but I managed to turn lemons into peer-reviewed lemonade. For the first half of the year, my primary focus was writing and submitting manuscripts on a backlog of work. And it’s paid off, I have had 10 things accepted for publication this year! I don’t expect to repeat this feat, this was the culmination of many projects over the last 5 years which matriculated all at once. But, it feels great to be able to do it once.

Research Articles

Ishaq, S.L., Page, C.M., Yeoman, C.J., Murphy, T.W., Van Emon, M.L., Stewart, W.C. 2019. Zinc amino acid supplementation alters yearling ram rumen bacterial communities but zinc sulfate supplementation does not. Journal of Animal Science 97(2):687–697. Article.

blog post and project page for the zinc paper.

Ishaq, S.L., Lachman, M.M., Wenner, B.A., Baeza, A., Butler, M., Gates, E., Olivo, S., Buono Geddes, J., Hatfield, P., Yeoman, C.J. 2019. Pelleted-hay alfalfa feed increases sheep wether weight gain and rumen bacterial richness over loose-hay alfalfa feed.  PLoS ONE 14(6): e0215797. Article.

blog post and project page for the ‘particle size’ paper.

Stenson, J., Ishaq, S.L., Laguerre, A., Loia, A., MacCrone, G., Mugabo, I., Northcutt, D., Riggio, M., Barbosa, A., Gall, E.T., Van Den Wymelenberg, K. 2019. Monitored Indoor Environmental Quality of a Mass Timber Office Building: A Case Study. Buildings 9:142. Article.

Blog post for the buildings paper.

Seipel, T., Ishaq, S.L., Menalled, F.D. 2019. Agroecosystem resilience is modified by management system via plant–soil feedbacks. Basic and Applied Ecology. In press. Article.

Ishaq, S.L., Seipel, T., Yeoman, C.J., Menalled, F.D. 2020. Soil bacterial communities of wheat vary across the growing season and among dryland farming systems. Geoderma 358(15):113989. Article.

Blog post on the soil microbes paper.

Velazquez, S., Bi, C., Kline, J., Nunez, S., Corsi, R., Xu, Y., Ishaq, S.L. 2019. Accumulation of di-2-ethylhexyl phthalate from polyvinyl chloride flooring into settled house dust and the effect on the bacterial community. PeerJ. Accepted, anticipated out in early December

Reviews

Velazquez S., Griffiths W., Dietz L., Horve P., Nunez, S., Hu, J., Shen, J., Fretz, M., Bi, C., Xu, Y., Van Den Wymelenberg, K.G., Hartmann, E.M., Ishaq, S.L. 2019. From one species to another: A review on the interaction of chemistry and microbiology in relation to cleaning in the built environment. Indoor Air 26(6):875-1049. Impact 4.71. Article.

Garcia-Mazcorro, J.F., Ishaq, S.L., Rodriguez-Herrera, M.V., Garcia-Hernandez, C.A., Kawas, J.R., Nagaraja, T.G. 2019. Review: Are there indigenous Saccharomyces in the digestive tract of livestock animal species? Implications for health, nutrition and productivity traits. Animal: 1-9. Article.

Blog post for the yeast paper.

Horve, P.F., Lloyd, S., Mhuireach, G.A., Dietz, L., Fretz, M., MacCrone, G., Van Den Wymelenberg, K., Ishaq, S.L. Building Upon Current Knowledge of Indoor Microbiology to Construct the Next Era of Research into Microorganisms, Health, and the Built Environment. Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology.  Article.

Essays

Ishaq, S.L., Rapp, M., Byerly, R., McClellan, L.S., O’Boyle, M.R., Nykanen, A., Fuller, P.J., Aas, C., Stone, J.M., Killpatrick, S., Uptegrove, M.M., Vischer, A., Wolf, H., Smallman, F., Eymann, H., Narode, S., Stapleton, E., Cioffi, C.C., Tavalire, H.. 2019. Framing the discussion of microorganisms as a facet of social equity in human health. PLoS Biology, Microbiomes Across Systems special issue. Accepted, will be released Nov. 26, 2019 at 2 pm EST

Blog post for the social equity paper.

Paper published on effect of farming systems on soil bacteria!

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After several years of bouncing through internal and external review, I’m pleased to announce that the first microbes paper out of the Montana State University Fort Ellis project has been published in Geoderma! The Fort Ellis research has encompassed multiple labs, projects, and many personnel, as it was a large collaboration looking at the effect of different farming systems on biodiversity at the macro (plant), mini (insect), and micro (-be) levels. Spanning multiple years, this project has been a massive undertaking that I briefly participated in but anticipate getting four publications out of (two more are in preparation).

Winter wheat

I previously presented this work at the 2017 Ecological Society of America (ESA) conference (poster: Ishaq et al ESA 2017 poster). And this field soil was the “soil probiotic” that was used in the follow-up greenhouse trial that I ran which was also published this year.

Soil bacterial communities of wheat vary across the growing season and among dryland farming systems.

Ishaq, S.L., Seipel, T., Yeoman, C.J., Menalled, F.D. 2020. Geoderma 358:113989.

Abstract

Despite knowledge that management practices, seasonality, and plant phenology impact soil microbiota; farming system effects on soil microbiota are not often evaluated across the growing season.  We assessed the bacterial diversity in soil around wheat roots through the spring and summer of 2016 in winter wheat (Triticum aestivium L.) in Montana, USA, from three contrasting farming systems: a chemically-managed no-tillage system, and two USDA-certified organic systems in their fourth year, one including tillage and one where sheep grazing partially offsets tillage frequency. Bacterial richness (range 605 – 1174 OTUs) and evenness (range 0.80 – 0.92) peaked in early June and dropped by late July (range 92 – 1190, 0.62-0.92, respectively), but was not different by farming systems.  Organic tilled plots contained more putative nitrogen-fixing bacterial genera than the other two systems.  Bacterial community similarities were significantly altered by sampling date, minimum and maximum temperature at sampling, bacterial abundance at date of sampling, total weed richness, and coverage of Taraxacum officinale, Lamium ampleuxicaule, and Thlaspi arvense.  This study highlights that weed diversity, season, and farming management system all influence soil microbial communities. Local environmental conditions will strongly condition any practical applications aimed at improving soil diversity, especially in semi-arid regions where abiotic stress and seasonal variability in temperature and water availability drive primary production. Thus, it is critical to incorporate or address seasonality in soil sampling for microbial diversity.

‘Microbes and Social Equity’ essay accepted for publication!

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Over the summer, I taught a class on “Microbes and Social Equity” at the University of Oregon, the culmination of which was a joint paper I wrote with the class and several of the guest speakers. After soliciting several journals and modifying the scope a bit, I’ve just heard back that it has passed peer-review and been accepted for publication as an essay in PLoS Biology!

I’ll be sure to send out the link and more information when it’s online.

Microbiomes at The Wildlife Society meeting

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I gave my second talk in two days in as many conferences today, this time presenting on “Moose rumen microbes and their relevance to agriculture and health.” at the American Fisheries Society + The Wildlife Society (AFS+TWS) meeting in Reno, Nevada. You can find the slides with presentation notes: tws_2019_sue_ishaq_moose

I was invited to present in a session on the “Utility of Microbiomes for Population Management”, which presented research from scientists working on clams, fish, frogs, salamanders, koalas, and moose all focused on understanding the microbiome in order better understand wildlife. I had a great time talking wildlife microbes with this group!

The microbiomes speaker group at TWS 2019.

Unfortunately, I won’t be staying longer in Reno, either. In a few hours I’m heading to Bozeman, Montana, to meet with collaborators and teach bioinformatics to a grad student.

Ciencia y aventura en mexico

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For the past four days, I have been in Monterrey, Mexico, where I have been fostering international scientific relations in meetings and in the mountains.  It was my very first trip to Mexico, and it was an amazing experience.

Monterrey, Mexico around the Hotel Novotel Monterrey Ville

After arriving in Monterrey, I was greeted by a research friend of mine, Dr. Jose Garcia-Mazcorro.  We met a few years ago when Jose emailed me to ask questions about a recently published paper on Saccharomyces probiotic treatment in cattle, and our conversations on the ecological theory behind probiotics led to a review paper on the subject, led by Jose and I. It wasn’t until last August when Jose and I actually met in person, at the ISME conference in Leipzig, Germany.

At dinner, I had the opportunity to meet Jose’s wife, Alecia, who is also a researcher, and their son, and discuss everything from aflatoxin to Stephen King’s “It” (we discovered that their son and I were both reading It when I discussed living in Maine, not far from Derry).

The next day, I woke up at 3:45 am to travel to the mountains for an incredible experience: a small-group tour in Matacanes canyon led by Daniel, a mountaineer with 20 years of experience and owner of Todo Avetura. He and Omar, another guide, led us for 12 hours and taught us about Matacanes canyon while we trekked 13 kilometers (8.7 miles) down waterfalls, through caves, over boulders, and over cliffs. Even the drive into and out of the canyon was an adventure; the steep road into the mountains fords rivers and winds along cliff faces.  In the canyon, I got to do many things for the first time, including rappel down the side of two waterfalls; 27 m (88.6 ft) and 15 m (49.2 ft) into a cave, swim through the absolute dark of a river cave system, and jump off of several cliffs into the water below, including a 9.5 meter (31 ft) jump!  It was supposed to be 10 meters, but that looked just a little too terrifying to try so I chose a spot that looked friendlier.  Turns out that jumping 9.5 meters is a lot like getting up to present in front of a large audience, you just have to get up there and do it before you have time to think about and psych yourself out.

The guides were really passionate about the mountains, and they were particular about safety and not rushing or pushing us to the point where we would get hurt.  If you have the chance, and the cohones, to go to Matacanes, I highly recommend Todo Aventura.

On Monday, sore but no worse for wear, I gingerly toured some of the facilities where Jose is currently working, MNA, an animal nutrition company.  I met with company president and nutritionist Dr. Jorge Kawas, and Jose, Jorge, and I discussed the role of microbes in animal nutrition and health. 

Dr. Jose Garcia-Mazcorro and I at MNA in Monterrey.

Monday night, I got to chat one-on-one with Professor T.J. Nagaraja, an author on the Saccharomyces review and a prominent researcher in rumen acidosis, cattle health, and infectious disease. 

The main reason for my trip to Monterrey was to attend and speak at the XXII UANL-Engorda de Bovinos en Corral Symposium.  I presented the opening seminar titled “Raising feedlot cattle with good microbes in mind” (“Cria y engorda de ganado con buenos microbios en mente”).  The video can be found here, and slides with presentation notes here:

uanl_2019_ishaq_feedlot_cattleDownload

Organized by MNA and UANL, the university in Monterrey, the symposium brings together researchers, producers, animal industry professionals, and students to discuss animal health in feedlot cattle.  I was honored to give the opening talk, which will be available online soon, and pleased to hear that the audience did in fact like microbes more than before my seminar!  Usually when I start talking about the gut microbiome people have the urge to run off and wash their hands…

Unfortunately, I had to jump back on a plane shortly after my talk, as I am heading to give a different presentation at the Wildlife Society meeting in Reno, Nevada tomorrow! But, I have plenty of memories and new project ideas to remember my trip by, and hopefully I will come back to Monterrey soon!

Accepted a tenure track faculty position at the University of Maine, Orono!

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I’m thrilled to announce that this fall I’ll be starting as a tenure-track Assistant Professor in animal microbiome studies at the University of Maine, Orono, in the Department of Animal and Veterinary Sciences!!!

I’ll be returning to the field I started in; gut microbiology, but I’ll be integrating things I picked up along the way over the past few years, including ongoing collaborations in soil and built environment microbiology. I’ll be right at home in the UMaine School of Food and Agriculture, which brings together animal science, nutrition, and plant and soil science.

In addition to formally starting my own lab, I’m looking forward to snowy winters and summers on the rivers.

In fact, I’ll be right at home anywhere in Orono.

Cookies in the Featured Image are from Mug Buddy Cookies, made in Biddeford, Maine!!

Invited to give a talk at the XXII UANL-Engorda de Bovinas en Corral Symposium!

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I’ve been invited to give a talk at the XXII UANL-Engorda de Bovinos en Corral Symposium, in Monterrey, Mexico on October 1st! My talk, “Microbial livestock: raising cattle with good microbes in mind”, will be about improving cattle production using microbial means. The most exciting part is that this will be my first trip to Mexico!

Review on ‘health in the built environment’ available online

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The review on health in the built environment, led by undergrad (now post-bac) Patrick Horve and which I acted as managing author, is available online here, and an open-access, view-only version is available here.  It’s part of the Healthy Building special issue from the Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology.  

Building upon current knowledge and techniques of indoor microbiology to construct the next era of theory into microorganisms, health, and the built environment. Patrick F. Horve, Savanna Lloyd, Gwynne A. Mhuireach, Leslie Dietz, Mark Fretz, Georgia MacCrone, Kevin Van Den Wymelenberg & Suzanne L. Ishaq.  Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology (2019) 

Abstract

In the constructed habitat in which we spend up to 90% of our time, architectural design influences occupants’ behavioral patterns, interactions with objects, surfaces, rituals, the outside environment, and each other. Within this built environment, human behavior and building design contribute to the accrual and dispersal of microorganisms; it is a collection of fomites that transfer microorganisms; reservoirs that collect biomass; structures that induce human or air movement patterns; and space types that encourage proximity or isolation between humans whose personal microbial clouds disperse cells into buildings. There have been recent calls to incorporate building microbiology into occupant health and exposure research and standards, yet the built environment is largely viewed as a repository for microorganisms which are to be eliminated, instead of a habitat which is inexorably linked to the microbial influences of building inhabitants. Health sectors have re-evaluated the role of microorganisms in health, incorporating microorganisms into prevention and treatment protocols, yet no paradigm shift has occurred with respect to microbiology of the built environment, despite calls to do so. Technological and logistical constraints often preclude our ability to link health outcomes to indoor microbiology, yet sufficient study exists to inform the theory and implementation of the next era of research and intervention in the built environment. This review presents built environment characteristics in relation to human health and disease, explores some of the current experimental strategies and interventions which explore health in the built environment, and discusses an emerging model for fostering indoor microbiology rather than fearing it.

Review on health in the built environment
Review on health in the built environment