Metagenomic for cultural heritage: techniques for conservation and monitoring

This investigation presents the characterization of biodeteriogenic microorganisms in the biological patina of architectural surfaces of the Church of Madonna del Carmine in Melpignano (Lecce, Italy). The aim was to picture the biodiversity of fungal and bacterial consortia inhabiting different part of this monument in order to obtain useful informations for restoration and conservation interventions. Microbial communities were characterized by means high throughput deep sequencing using an Illumina Miseq-based amplicon sequencing of the ribosomal internal transcribed spacer-1 (ITS1) region for fungi and of the V3-V4 hypervariable regions of the 16S ribosomal RNA gene for bacteria. The results showed evidence of important differences among the samples obtained from the different substrates exposed to different environmental conditions and provided useful information to predict the state of deterioration and address future interventions for restoration.