Individual identities and behaviors shape the microbial community lurking on clothes

• Microbial diversity of clothes and its influencing factors have been studied. • Distinct variations in the microbial profiles existed across various clothes types. • Children’s suit had the highest fungal but lowest pathogenic fungal diversity. • Main bacterial and fungal pathogens were Staphylococcus and Malassezia , separately. • Clothes microbiome was mainly affected by individuals' age and hygiene behaviors. Clothing microbiome is commonly regarded to be closely related to human health. However, the characteristics of clothing microbiome remained unclear until now. Here we analyzed the profiles of prokaryotic and fungal communities, especially those of pathogens lurking on different types of clothes using full-length amplicon sequencing and explored their influencing factors. Regarding the prokaryotic community, men's socks samples exhibited the fewest amplicon sequence variants (ASVs) among different types of clothing, while for the fungal community, children’s suit samples displayed notably higher ASV richness compared to T-shirt and underwear samples for both male and female. Moreover, children’s suit samples showed the least diverse potential fungal pathogens, while there was no significant difference in the richness of potential bacterial pathogenic community across the samples. Regardless of clothing type, the predominant potential bacterial and fungal pathogens identified belonged to Staphylococcus and Malassezia genera, respectively. There were significant variations in the structure of prokaryotic, fungal, and potential bacterial and fungal pathogenic communities among different types of clothing, which were primarily affected by individuals' identities (e.g., age) and behaviors (e.g., time from last bath and time spent under sunlight). The cross-domain network for children’s suit samples was the most intricate among the networks for different clothing types. This study enhances our understanding of microbial diversity, particularly diversity of potential pathogens, and inter-domain microbial interactions on the clothes, shedding light on the significant impacts of human identities and behaviors on clothing microbiome, and further proposing the importance of laundry hygiene to possibly prevent disease transmission.