Masarweh, C. | bioRxiv Science

bioRxiv2025

Indoor environmental conditions shape the microbial landscape of food production facilities across space and time

The microbial communities inhabiting food production environments are distinguished from those of other built environments in their capacity to influence food quality and safety, impacting consumer health. However, how indoor environmental conditions drive the bacterial and fungal communities of food production facilities remains largely unknown. In this study of five commercial food production facilities, we employed remote wireless sensors paired with marker-gene amplicon sequencing (bacterial 16S rRNA genes and fungal ITS) of processing equipment and non-processing built environment surfaces (N=2,329) to profile spatial and longitudinal changes in bacterial and fungal communities, and their association with indoor climate. We identify multiple associations between indoor environmental conditions and microbial community structure, demonstrating the role of the indoor environment in shaping microbial communities on food processing and non-processing surfaces. This suggests that indoor climate could be manipulated to rationally modify surface communities, with the aim of enhancing food quality and safety.

microbiology↗

bioRxiv2023

Plant-based production of diverse human milk oligosaccharides

Human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs) are a diverse class of carbohydrates that aid in the health and development of infants. The vast health benefits of HMOs have made them a commercial target for microbial production; however, producing the [~]130 structurally diverse HMOs at scale has proven difficult. Here, we produce a vast diversity of HMOs by leveraging the robust carbohydrate anabolism of plants. This diversity includes high value HMOs, such as lacto-N-fucopentaose I, that have not yet been commercially produced using state-of-the-art microbial fermentative processes. HMOs produced in transgenic plants provided strong bifidogenic properties, indicating their ability to serve as a prebiotic supplement. Technoeconomic analyses demonstrate that producing HMOs in plants provides a path to the large-scale production of specific HMOs at lower prices than microbial production platforms. Our work demonstrates the promise in leveraging plants for the cheap and sustainable production of HMOs.

plant biology↗