Murals meet microbes: at the crossroads of microbiology and cultural heritage

Abstract

Our cultural heritage consists of manifold cultural ex-pressions and represents a defining feature of our soci-eties that needs to be further inherited to future gen-erations. Even though humankind always fought a daily struggle for survival, at the same time, it seemed to have a spiritual need that went far beyond mere mate-rialistic satisfaction and nowadays manifests in some-times very ancient, yet brilliant artistic works. This fun-damental legacy is endangered by several instances, including biodeterioration. Indeed, microorganisms play a significant role in the decline of all forms of tangible cultural heritage, including movable, immovable and underwater cultural heritage. Microbial colonization, biofilm formation and damaging metabolite production eventually result in critical decay. Thus, efforts to miti-gate the negative impact of damaging microorganisms have been pursued with diverse physical, chemical and biological approaches. Intriguingly, recent advances have unveiled that specific microorganisms and microbi-al-based technologies also have the potential for cultur-al heritage preservation and present unique advantages. This short piece provides a quick overview on the duali-ty of microorganisms in the conservation and restora-tion of cultural heritage.

Keywords

• biocleaning
• tangible cultural heritage
• microbial deterioration
• biodeterioration
• biotreatment
• bacteria
• fungi
• biofilm