ArticleScientific reports2018
A large-scale survey of the postmortem human microbiome, and its potential to provide insight into the living health condition.
Article in Scientific reports, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 71 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
71 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Microbiome and well-being: a meta-analysis.NPJ biofilms and microbiomes · 2025Pooled it
- Impact of the Human Microbiome in Forensic Sciences: a Systematic Review.Applied and environmental microbiology · 2020Pooled it
- Estimation of postmortem submersion interval based on microbial community composition in human remains recovered from aquatic environments.Journal of forensic sciences · 2026Article
- Microbiome modelling for post-mortem interval estimation across species and climates: swine analogues in a British summer and external validation in human donors from the USA.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Cadavers stored under refrigerated conditions as a source of cold-adapted microscopic fungi.Applied microbiology and biotechnology · 2026Article
- Microbial succession and machine learning for postmortem interval estimation in bromadiolone-poisoned cadavers.AMB Express · 2026Article
- Microbial succession in human tissues postmortem: insights from 2bRAD-M sequencing.Microbiology spectrum · 2026Article
- Silent witnesses: basidiomycota as forensic biomarkers in human decomposition.Frontiers in microbiology · 2026Review
- Assessing the risk ofFrontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Diet and gut microbiome of skipjack tuna (Katsuwonus pelamis) as indicators of environmental changes.PloS one · 2026Article
- The impact of age and insects factors on cadaver microbial communities and application to postmortem interval Estimation.International journal of legal medicine · 2026Article
- Myco- and microbiological profiling of a human cadaver reveals drug-resistant strains and new fungal records.Applied microbiology and biotechnology · 2025Article
- Impact of degradation and time of sampling on gut Microbiome composition in wild-caught marine fish.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Microbiota signature of the lung as the promising bioindicator for drowning diagnosis and postmortem submersion interval estimation.International journal of legal medicine · 2025Article
- Pneumocystis jirovecii is a potential pivotal ecological driver contributing to shifts in microbial equilibrium during the early-life lower airway microbiome assembly.Communications biology · 2025Article
- Unveiling the Forensic Potential of Oral and Nasal Microbiota in Post-Mortem Interval Estimation.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Article
- Potential postmortem microbial biomarkers of infant and younger children death investigation.Journal of forensic sciences · 2025Article
- Delving the depths of 'terra incognita' in the human intestine - the small intestinal microbiota.Nature reviews. Gastroenterology & hepatology · 2025Review
- Advancing time-since-interval estimation for clandestine graves: a forensic ecogenomics perspective into burial and translocation timelines using massively parallel sequencing.Frontiers in microbiology · 2025Review
- Comparative soil bacterial metabarcoding after aboveground vs. subsurface decomposition of Mus musculus.Scientific reports · 2024Article
11 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The microbiome plays many roles in human health, often through the exclusive lens of clinical interest. The inevitable end point for all living hosts, death, has its own altered microbiome configurations. However, little is understood about the ecology and changes of microbial communities after death, or their potential utility for understanding the health condition of the recently living. Here we reveal distinct postmortem microbiomes of human hosts from a large-scale survey of death cases representing a predominantly urban population, and demonstrated these microbiomes reflected antemortem health conditions within 24-48 hours of death. Our results characterized microbial community structure and predicted function from 188 cases representing a cross-section of an industrial-urban population. We found strong niche differentiation of anatomic habitat and microbial community turnover based on topographical distribution. Microbial community stability was documented up to two days after death. Additionally, we observed a positive relationship between cell motility and time since host death. Interestingly, we discovered evidence that microbial biodiversity is a predictor of antemortem host health condition (e.g., heart disease). These findings improve the understanding of postmortem host microbiota dynamics, and provide a robust dataset to test the postmortem microbiome as a tool for assessing health conditions in living populations.
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