What Have We Learned about the Microbiomes of Indoor Environments?

Abstract

The advent and application of high-throughput molecular techniques for analyzing microbial communities in the indoor environment have led to illuminating findings and are beginning to change the way we think about human health in relation to the built environment. Here I review recent studies on the microbiology of the built environment, organize their findings into 12 major thematic categories, and comment on how these studies have or have not advanced knowledge in each area beyond what we already knew from over 100 years of applying culture-based methods to building samples.