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Want to know what's on a New York City ATM keypad? Ask a microbiologist

November 22, 2016

Actually, the microbes living on ATM keypads mentioned in a study this week by the American Society for Microbiology are pretty much the same ones you'll find on any surface touched by humans — and a good reminder that it's flu season, so everybody wash your hands.

"Our results suggest that ATM keypads integrate microbes from different sources, including the human microbiome, foods, and potentially novel environmental organisms adapted to air or surfaces," senior study author Jane M. Carlton, PhD, director of the Center for Genomics and Systems Biology and professor of biology at New York University, said in a press release. "DNA obtained from ATM keypads may therefore provide a record of both human behavior and environmental sources of microbes."

In June and July 2014, investigators took swabs of keypads from 66 ATM machines in eight neighborhoods over three New York boroughs: Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn. Four of the machines were located outdoors, the release said.

The most common identified sources of microbes were household surfaces such as televisions, restrooms, kitchens and pillows. Researchers found microbes from bony fish and mollusks, and from chicken on some neighborhood ATMs, suggesting that residual DNA from a meal may remain on a person's hands and be transferred to the ATM keypad.

ATM keypads located in laundromats and stores had the highest number of biomarkers, with the most prominent being Lactobacillales (lactic acid bacteria), which is usually found in decomposing plants or milk products. In samples from Manhattan, researchers observed the biomarker Xeromyces bisporus, a food-borne mold associated with spoiled baked goods.

Researchers found no significant difference in the keypads from ATMs located outdoors vs. indoors, the press release said.

Since each ATM keypad in New York City is most likely used by hundreds of people each day (and may come into contact with air, water, and microbes from different urban surfaces), the microbial communities obtained in this study may represent an "average" community that is effectively pooled from vastly different sources, said study coauthor Maria Gloria Dominguez-Bello, PhD, an associate professor in New York University School of Medicine's human microbiome program.

The relative lack of diversity among locations could result from periodic cleaning of the machines, which would wipe out some of the microbes, the researchers said.

Next on the list for the scientists conducting the study are microbes in the city's cats, dogs, mice, pigeons and cockroaches, according to the press release.