The Bay Citizen commissioned Darleen Franklin, a supervisor at San Francisco State University’s biology lab, to analyze the bacterial content of a random BART seat. The results may make you want to stand during your trip.

Fecal and skin-borne bacteria resistant to antibiotics were found in a seat on a train headed from Daly City to Dublin/Pleasanton. Further testing on the skin-borne bacteria showed characteristics of methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, the drug-resistant bacterium that causes potentially lethal infections, although Ms. Franklin cautioned that the MRSA findings were preliminary.

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James Allison, a BART spokesman, wrote in an e-mail that the findings were “not surprising,” considering that 330,000 commuters rode the trains daily. Last year, the BART police received 1,051 complaints of smoking, eating and drinking; 245 complaints of urinating or defecating; and 56 reports of spitting.