Metagenomic and microbiological analyses of historical manuscripts for bacterial community profiling and bacteria-related biodeterioration assessment
Authors:Esra Keles1,* and Ozge Celik2
doi: 10.15698/mic2026.03.871
Volume 13, pp. 117 to 130, published 01/03/2026.
1 Department of Conservation and Archive, The Manuscript Institution of Türkiye, Istanbul, Türkiye. 2 Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Faculty of Science and Letter, T.C. Istanbul Kültür University, Istanbul, Türkiye.
Keywords:
Historical manuscripts, biodeterioration, metagenomics, Illumina sequencing, bacterial community profiling
Corresponding Author(s):
Conflict of interest statement:
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Please cite this article as:
Esra Keles, Ozge Celik (2026). Metagenomic and microbiological analyses of historical manuscripts for bacterial community profiling and bacteria-related biodeterioration assessment. Microbial Cell 13: 117-130. doi: 10.15698/mic2026.03.871
© 2026 Keles and Celik. This is an open-access article released under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which allows the unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are acknowledged.
Abstract:
Bacteria are important agents in the biodeterioration of cultural heritage objects, including historical manuscripts. Characterizing bacterial communities and generating robust microbiological data has therefore become crucial for conservation and restoration strategies. In this study, we investigated the bacterial communities associated with biodeterioration in six historical manuscripts using both culture-dependent and culture-independent (Illumina MiSeq) approaches. Culture-dependent methods yielded only 16 viable and culturable isolates, highlighting the limitations of traditional techniques. In contrast, metagenomic analysis revealed a far richer and more diverse bacterial community, capturing both living and non-living microbial traces accumulated over centuries. Bacterial genera with known cellulolytic and/or proteolytic activities, such as Bacillus, Stenotrophomonas, Pseudomonas and Acinetobacter, were identified as part of a core microbiome commonly associated with paper deterioration. High abundances of gut-associated bacteria (Prevotella, Faecalibacterium, Bacteroides, Porphyromonas) and human-related taxa (Staphylococcus, Streptococcus, Cutibacterium) indicated extensive historical human handling. A notable finding was the detection of Pseudonocardia broussonetiae, an endophytic bacterium associated with paper mulberry (Broussonetia papyrifera), suggesting the possible use of this plant as a papermaking material in one manuscript. This represents an important contribution to understanding Islamic paper production. Overall, our results demonstrate that effective conservation strategies require a detailed understanding of each manuscript’s microbial ecology, together with evidence of past environmental conditions, handling history, and production materials.