This respository contains files to accompany: Alexandra L. Emmons, Amy Z. Mundorff, Katharina M. Hoeland, Jonathan Davoren, Sarah W. Keenan, David O. Carter, Shawn R. Campagna, Jennifer M. DeBruyn*. Postmortem skeletal microbial community composition and function. Submitted for publication, June 2021.
Understanding the microbes that colonize and degrade bone has important implications for preservation of skeletal elements and identification of unknown human remains. Current research on the postmortem bone microbiome is limited and largely focuses on archaeological or marine contexts. This research expands our understanding of bone microbiomes in buried remains by characterizing the taxonomic and metabolic diversity of microbes that are colonizing bone after a 4-year postmortem burial interval and examines the potential impact of microbial colonization on human skeletal DNA preservation. Results indicate that the postmortem bone microbiome is distinct from the human gut and soil. Evidence from combined metabolomic and amplicon sequencing analysis suggest that Pseudomonas and phosphate solubilization likely play a role in skeletal degradation. This work provides important insight into the types an activities of microbes controlling the preservation of buried skeletal remains.
Types of data found in this repository:
Qiime2 processing code and notes, R analysis code, metadata, and results (not directly in the paper) necessary for replicating analyses in the submitted paper.