March 10, 2015

Human microbiome, general

Abstract: Targeted Genomic Characterization, Uncultured Bacteria from Human Microbiota, Project – Mircea Podar – Environmental Metagenomics

Review: The Emerging Role of Metagenomics in the Diagnosis of Infectious Diseases – Jun Li and Qiang Feng – SOJ Microbiology & Infectious Diseases

Review: Chapter 4 – Applications of Next-Generation Sequencing Technologies to the Study of the Human Microbiome – Philip Chuang – Comprehensive Analytical Chemistry

Microbiome of pregnancy and birth

In vitro impact of human milk oligosaccharides on Enterobacteriaceae growth – Jennifer L Hoeflinger – Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry

Human oral microbiome

Review: Distribution of Genes Related to Antimicrobial Resistance in Different Oral Environments: A Systematic Review – Ludmila Coutinho Moraes

Human gastric and gut microbiome

Variations of gastric corpus microbiota are associated with early esophageal squamous cell carcinoma and squamous dysplasia – Dariush Nasrollahzadeh – Scientific Reports

Review: Autism and Our Intestinal Microbiota – Reddy B.L. and Saier M.H – Journal of Molecular Microbial Biotechnology

Human reproductive organ microbiome

The association of uterine cervical microbiota with an increased risk for cervical intraepithelial neoplasia in Korea – Hea Young Oh – Clinical Microbiology and Infection

Animal models of microbiome research

Helicobacter pylori infection can affect energy modulating hormones and body weight in germ free mice – Yalda Khosravi – Scientific Reports

Using Corticosteroids to Reshape the Gut Microbiome: Implications for Inflammatory Bowel Diseases – Huang, Edmond Y. – Inflammatory Bowel Diseases

Animal microbiome

Characterization of intestinal bacterial communities of western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla), central chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes troglodytes), and a forest elephant (Loxodonta africana cyclotis) living in Moukalaba-Doudou National Park in Gabon – Sayaka Tsuchida – Tropics

Editorial: Phylogeny: Are arthropods at the heart of virus evolution? – Gytis Dudas, Darren J Obbard – eLIFE

Unprecedented genomic diversity of RNA viruses in arthropods reveals the ancestry of negative-sense RNA viruses – Ci-Xiu Li – eLIFE

Review: Marsupial oral cavity microbiome – Philip S Bird – Microbiology Australia

Review: The marine mammal microbiome: current knowledge and future directions – Tiffanie M Nelson – Microbiology Australia

Review: Mammalian microbiomes – Linda L Blackall – Microbiology Australia

Plant microbiome

Analysis of the Peltigera membranacea metagenome indicates that lichen-associated bacteria are involved in phosphate solubilization – Margrét Auður Sigurbjörnsdóttir – Microbiology

The response of root-associated bacterial community to the grafting of watermelon –
Ning Ling – Plant and Soil

Soil and sediment microbiome

Call for papers: BIODESERT: Exploring and Exploiting the Microbial Resource of Hot and Cold Deserts – BioMed Research International

Metagenome of a Microbial Community Inhabiting a Metal-Rich Tropical Stream Sediment – Patrícia S. Costa – PLOS ONE

Establishing microbial diversity and functions in weathered and neutral Cu–Pb–Zn tailings with native soil addition – Xiaofang Li – Geoderma

A novel sub-phylum method discriminates better the impact of crop management on soil microbial community – Florine Degrune – Agronomy for Sustainable Development

Grazing intensity in subarctic tundra affects the temperature adaptation of soil microbial communities – Sari Stark – Soil Biology and Biochemistry

Phytoremediation Using Microbial Communities: I – Mohammad Miransari – Phytoremediation

Effects of soil management practices on soil microbial communities and development of southern blight in vegetable production – Tiehang Wu – Applied Soil Ecology

Soil fungal communities respond compositionally to recurring frequent prescribed burning in a managed southeastern US forest ecosystem – Alena K. Oliver – Forest Ecology and Management

Short-term effects of simulated below-ground carbon dioxide leakage on a soil microbial community – I. Fernández-Montiel – International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control
Review: Microbial communities and their primary to early diagenetic mineral phases; the record from Neoproterozoic microbialites of Qarn Alam, Oman – M. Mettraux – Microbial Carbonates in Space and Time: Implications for Global Exploration and Production

Water microbiome

Review: Halophilic microbial communities and their environments – Aharon Oren – Current Opinion in Biotechnology

Bioreactor microbiome

Metagenomic insights into Cr(VI) effect on microbial communities and functional genes of an expanded granular sludge bed reactor treating high-nitrate wastewater – Yu Miao – Water Research

Comparative analysis of metagenomes from three methanogenic hydrocarbon-degrading enrichment cultures with 41 environmental samples – Boonfei Tan – ISME Journal

Microbiome of the built environment

Total Concentrations of Virus and Bacteria in Indoor and Outdoor Air – Aaron J. Prussin – Environmental Science & Technology

Mapping microbial ecosystems and spoilage-gene flow in breweries highlights patterns of contamination and resistance – Nicholas A Bokulich – eLIFE

Metabolomics and transcriptomics

Microbial community transcriptional networks are conserved in three domains at ocean basin scales – Frank O. Aylward – PNAS USA

Review: The use of evolutionary approaches to understand single cell genomes – Haiwei Luo – Frontiers in Microbiology

Book: Encyclopedia of Metagenomics – Genes, Genomes and Metagenomes – Basics, Methods, Databases and Tools – Nelson, Karen E. Some interesting book chapters include:

  • MEMOSys: Platform for GenomeScale Metabolic Models – Stephan Pabinger and Zlatko Trajanoski – Genes, Genomes and Metagenomes
  • Insights into Environmental Microbial Denitrification from Integrated Metagenomic, Cultivation, and Genomic Analyses – Stefan J. Green
  • Fast Program for Clustering and Comparing Large Sets of Protein or Nucleotide Sequences -Weizhong Li
  • Use of Bacterial Artificial Chromosomes in Metagenomics Studies, Overview – Lingling Wang
  • A 123 of Metagenomics – Torsten Thomas

Viruses and phages

The Importance of Virology at a Time of Great Need and Great Jeopardy – Michael J. Imperiale and Arturo Casadevall – mBio

A metagenomics and case-control study to identify viruses associated with bovine respiratory disease – Terry Fei Fan Ng – Journal of Virology

Techniques

Cautionary tale of using 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity values in identification of human-associated bacterial species – Morgane Rossi-Tamisier – International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology

A single protocol for extraction of gDNA from bacteria and yeast – Laurie Vingataramin and Eric H. Frost – BioTechniques

Microbes in the news

Are you overweight? The clue’s in your poo – Robert Pickup – The Conversation

New research finds queen bee microbiomes are starkly distinct from worker bees – Indiana University Bloomington

Queen Bee Microbiomes Are not Like Those of Worker Bees – Entomology Today

Launch of the AMI Microbiome Podcast – American Microbiome Insitute

Dog bacteria might benefit human health – Kalli Ricka Wolf – Tucson Sentinel

A Short History of the Discovery of Viruses – MicrobiologyBytes

How Bacteria Work – Marianne Spoon – How Stuff Works

Resistance: The Film, a documentary on antibiotic resistance.

Science and art

Science and Culture: High concept art and experiments – Calla Cofield – PNAS USA

Science, publishing, and career

The postdoc series: What is a postdoc? – Julie Gould – Nature

Mistake index as a surrogate of quality in scientific manuscripts – Antoni Margalida and M. Àngels Colomer – PNAS USA

A Second Chance for Fraudsters? What’s behind paper retractions? – Adam Marcus and Ivan Oransky – Labtimes

Bik’s Picks

Chameleons’ Color-Changing Secret Revealed – Laura Geggel – LiveScience

This plant can feel bugs eating it alive. Can scientists improve its self defense? – Darryl Fears – Washington Post

Picture of the Week: Plastiglomerate – Chau Tu – ScienceFriday

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March 9, 2015

Pregnancy and birth

Association between caesarean section and childhood obesity: a systematic review and meta-analysis – S. Kuhle – Obesity Reviews

Editorial: Metabolomics, milk-oriented microbiota (MOM) and multipotent stem cells: the future of research on breast milk – Vassilios Fanos – Journal of Pediatric and Neonatal Individualized Medicine

Human oral microbiome

Detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis DNA on the oral mucosa of tuberculosis patients – Rachel C. Wood – Scientific Reports

Human gut microbiome

Microbes-Gut-Brain Axis: A Possible Future Therapeutics Target for Gastrointestinal and Behavioral Disorder – Amit Ghosh – International Journal of Health Sciences and Research

Review: Collective unconscious: how gut microbes shape human behavior

Human microbiome after death

Seasonal variation of postmortem microbial communities – David O. Carter – Forensic Science, Medicine, and Pathology

Animal models of microbiome research

Perturbation and restoration of the fathead minnow gut microbiome after low-level triclosan exposure – Adrienne B Narrowe – Microbiome

Responses in gut microbiota and fat metabolism to a halogenated methane analogue in Sprague Dawley rats – Yong Su – Microbial Biotechnology

Animal microbiome

The oral and conjunctival microbiotas in cats with and without feline immunodeficiency virus infection – Scott J Weese – Veterinary Research

Phylogenetic distribution of symbiotic bacteria from Panamanian amphibians that inhibit growth of the lethal fungal pathogen Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis – Matthew H. Becker – Molecular Ecology

Microbial ecology in Hydra: Why viruses matter – Thomas C.G. Bosch – Journal of Microbiology

Plant microbiome

Microbial communities on flower surfaces act as signatures of pollinator visitation – Masayuki Ushio – Scientific Reports

Review: The Ecology and Natural History of Foliar Bacteria with a Focus on Tropical Forests and Agroecosystems – Eric A. Griffin, Walter P. Carson – Botanical Review

Review: Chemical diversity of microbial volatiles and their potential for plant growth and productivity – Chidananda N. Kanchiswamy – Frontiers in Plant Science

Soil and plant root microbiome

Metagenomic Assessment of the Potential Microbial Nitrogen Pathways in the Rhizosphere of a Mediterranean Forest After a Wildfire – José F. Cobo-Díaz – Microbial Ecology

Evaluation of Methyl Bromide Alternatives Efficacy against Soil-Borne Pathogens, Nematodes and Soil Microbial Community – Hongwei Xie – PLOS ONE

Relative importance of soil physico-chemical characteristics and plant species identity to the determination of soil microbial community structure – André M. Massenssini – Applied Soil Ecology

Decoupled distance-decay patterns between dsrA and 16S rRNA genes among salt marsh sulfate-reducing bacteria – Angus Angermeyer – Environmental Microbiology

Long-term nickel exposure altered the bacterial community composition but not diversity in two contrasting agricultural soils – Jing Li – Environmental Science and Pollution Research

Extreme plagiarism alert: Influence of heavy metals on earthworms, soil microbial community and mammals – Ahmad Gholamalizadeh Ahangar and Abbas Keshtehgar – Journal of Novel Applied Sciences

Water (and ice) microbiome

Dynamics of marine bacterial community diversity of the coastal waters of the reefs, inlets, and wastewater outfalls of southeast Florida – Alexandra M. Campbell – MicrobiologyOpen

Temperature affects the size-structure of phytoplankton communities in the ocean – Ángel López-Urrutia – Limnology and Oceanography

Stable microbial community composition on the Greenland Ice Sheet – Michaela Musilova – Frontiers in Microbiology

Diversity and spatial distribution of autotrophic communities within and between ice-covered Antarctic lakes (McMurdo Dry Valleys) – Jenna M. Dolhi – Limnology and Oceanography

Book chapter: Microbial Life in Volcanic Lakes – Francesca Mapelli – Volcanic Lakes

Microbiome of the built environment

Urban microbiome – Orli G. Bahcall – Nature Review Genetics

Our interface with the built environment: immunity and the indoor microbiota – Simon Lax – Trends in Immunology

Microbial evolution and ecology

Extending the Conserved Phylogenetic Core of Archaea Disentangles the Evolution of the Third Domain of Life – Céline Petitjean – Molecular Biology and Evolution

The community ecology of pathogens: coinfection, coexistence and community composition – Eric W. Seabloom – Ecology Letters

Computational prediction of molecular pathogen-host interactions based on dual transcriptome data – Sylvie Schulze – Frontiers in Microbiology

Genetic isolation between two recently diverged populations of a symbiotic fungus
Sara Branco – Molecular Ecology

Review: Ecology and exploration of the rare biosphere – Michael D. J. Lynch & Josh D. Neufeld – Nature Reviews Microbiology

Metagenomics and bioinformatics

Metaxa2: Improved Identification and Taxonomic Classification of Small and Large Subunit rRNA in Metagenomic Data – Johan Bengtsson-Palme – Molecular Ecology Resources

RITA: Rapid Identification of HighConfidence Taxonomic Assignments for Metagenomic Data – Norman J. MacDonald – Genes, Genomes and Metagenomes

RIEMS: a software pipeline for sensitive and comprehensive taxonomic classification of reads from metagenomics datasets – Matthias Scheuch – BMC Bioinformatics

Poster: Possibilities and obstacles in recovery of genomes from elusive microbes in complex metagenomes – Søren M. Karst

Beyond research: a primer for considerations on using viral metagenomics in the field and clinic – Richard J. Hall – Frontiers in Microbiology

Whole genome sequencing in clinical and public health microbiology – Kwong, J. C – Pathology

Metabolomics

Genome-Wide Association Study of Metabolic Traits Reveals Novel Gene-Metabolite-Disease Links – Rico Rueedi – PLOS Genetics

Techniques

International interlaboratory study comparing single organism 16S rRNA gene sequencing data: Beyond consensus sequence comparisons – Nathan D. Olson – Biomolecular Detection and Quantification

The Effects of Freezing on Faecal Microbiota as Determined Using MiSeq Sequencing and Culture-Based Investigations – Fiona Fouhy – PLOS ONE

Parallel DNA polymerase chain reaction: Synthesis of two different PCR products from a DNA template – Vikash Bhardwaj1, Kulbhushan Sharma2 – F1000 Research

MinION nanopore sequencing identifies the position and structure of a bacterial antibiotic resistance island – Philip M Ashton- Nature Biotechnology

Microbes in the news

1h podcast with Jonathan Eisen: The Tiny World of Microbes Inside You – Inquiring Minds at Soundcloud

20m podcast: The Straight Poop – Transistor

Beyond Probiotics: Can You “Hack” Your Microbiome? – Beth Skwarecki – Vitals

The unseen world: reflections on Leeuwenhoek (1677) ‘Concerning little animals’ – Nick Lane – Royal Society

Drugging the gut microbiome – Ken Garber – Nature Biotechnology

Tummy Troubles? Your Microbiome Can Help – Isabel Smith

Sewage Bacteria Reveal Cities’ Obesity Rates – Brian Owens – Inside Science

Trend of colon cleansing generally unnecessary – Denise Cedar and Marilyn Bacon – Statesman Journal

Health focus shifts to gut microbiome and nurturing ‘good’ bacteria – Peg Moline – LA Times

How Microbes Keep Us Healthy – Scientific American

Understanding psychobiotics: John F. Cryan – Catherine Lawson – Wired

“Thinking from the Gut” – Rob Wipond – Mad In America

Prediabetes Patients Have Fewer Gut Bugs – Parker Brown – MedPageToday

Fecal microbiota present target for glucose tolerance assessment – Elena Barengolts – Healio

How gut microbiota could play a key role in protecting the brain – Nina Weisbroth – Translational Microbiome

Hand-Wringing Over Bacteria – C. Claiborne Ray – New York Times

Beer Makers To Produce Beer Replicas of 170-Year-Old Brews – Jenny Michelle Panganiban – International Business News

Gut check: With bacteria in us and all over us, researchers are finding ways to take advantage of them – Kyle Peveto – The Advocate

First Detailed Microscopy Evidence of Bacteria at the Lower Size Limit of Life – Lab Manager

Autism’s bacteria link gains credence – Jonathan Sher – LF Press

Nestlé’s research on nutrition and the human gut microbiome – Enea Rezzonico – Scientific American

Fine Focus: Microbiology Research Journal for Undergraduate Students

Science and art

New Drawings Show the Strange Beauty of Phages, the Bacteria Slayers – Brian Handwerk – Smithsonian’

Cosmos: Abstract Images Created by Destroying Star Photo Film Slides with Bacteria – Michael Zhang – Peta Pixel

Science, publishing, and career

Keys to the kingdom (academic bioentrepreneurs) – Sybil C K Wong- Nature Biotechnology

My Most Informative Error – Ami Schattner – JAMA Internal Medicine

We need post-publication peer review of journals – Lenny Teytelman – The Spectroscope

Bik’s Picks: The science of aging edition

Cavers Find Ancient Hoard of Coins and Jewelry in Israel – Megan Gannon – Live Science

Book Review: Rust’ Offers an Engrossing Look at Corrosion – Gregory Cowles – New York Times

Achieving Immortality: How Science Seeks to End Aging – Josh Nilaya – WNPR

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March 6, 2015

Pregnancy and birth

Longitudinal Analysis of the Premature Infant Intestinal Microbiome Prior to Necrotizing Enterocolitis: A Case-Control Study – Yanjiao Zhou – PLOS ONE

Effects of Bifidobacterial Supplementation to Pregnant Women and Infants in the Prevention of Allergy Development in Infants and on Fecal Microbiota – Tadao Enomoto – Allergology International

Human oral microbiome

Subgingival Microbial Communities in Leukocyte Adhesion Deficiency and Their Relationship with Local Immunopathology – Niki M. Moutsopoulos – PLOS Pathogens

Human gut microbiome

What is missing from this title? 16S gut community of the Cameron County Hispanic Cohort – Matthew C Ross – Microbiome

Review: The role of intestinal microbiota in acute graft-versus-host disease – Yuanyuan Chen – Journal of Immunology Research

Review: Type 1 diabetes and gut microbiota: Friend or foe? – Changyun Hu – Pharmacological Research

Review: Collective unconscious: how gut microbes shape human behavior
Timothy G. Dinan- Journal of Psychiatric Research

Human respiratory microbiome

2013 Workshop summary: Host–microbe interactions in distal airways: relevance to chronic airway diseases – Clémence Martin – European Respiratory Review

Review: Microbial Exposure and Onset of Allergic Diseases – Potential Prevention Strategies? – Petra Ina Pfefferle, Harald Renz – Allergology International

Animal models of microbiome research

Analysis of intestinal microbiota in hybrid house mice reveals evolutionary divergence in a vertebrate hologenome – Jun Wang – Nature Communications

Disturbance of the intestinal microbial community by ursolic acid contributes to its function as a regulator of fat deposition – Zemeng Feng – Journal of Functional Foods

Helicobacter hepaticus infection in BALB/c mice abolishes subunit-vaccine-induced protection against M. tuberculosis – Isabelle C. Arnold – Vaccine

Animal microbiome

Early life establishment of the swine gut microbiome and impact on host phenotypes – Núria Mach – Environmental Microbiology Reports

In cattle: Characterization of mucosa-associated bacterial communities in abomasal ulcers by pyrosequencing – Alexandra Hund- Veterinary Microbiology

Baby marmosets (Do a Google Image search)! Isolation and identification of cultivable Bifidobacterium spp. from the faeces of 5 baby common marmosets (Callithrix jacchus L.) – Samanta Michelini – Anaerobe

A Kazal-type inhibitor is modulated by Trypanosoma cruzi to control microbiota inside the anterior midgut of Rhodnius prolixus – Tatiane S. Soares – Biochimie

Plant microbiome

Seagrass biofilm communities at a naturally CO2-rich vent – Christiane Hassenrück – Environmental Microbiology Reports

Soil and sediment microbiome

A Method for Determining Community Level Physiological Profiles of Organic Soil Horizons – Mathew J.B. Swallow and Sylvie A. Quideau – Soil Science Society of America Journal

Influence of elevated ozone concentration on methanotrophic bacterial communities in soil under field condition – Y.Z. Huang – Atmospheric Environment

Disruption of photoautotrophic intertidal mats by filamentous fungi – Cátia Carreira – Environmental Microbiology

Phylogenetically distinct phylotypes modulate nitrification in a paddy soil – Jun Zhao – Applied and Environmental Microbiology

Water microbiome

Metagenomic analysis of a high CO2 subsurface microbial community populated by chemolithoautotrophs and bacteria and archaea from candidate phyla – Joanne B. Emerson – Environmental Microbiology

Effect of historical residual hexachlorocyclohexanes and dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane on bacterial communities in sediment core collected from an estuary in northeastern China by next-generation sequencing – Jianguo Guo – Marine Pollution Bulletin

Understanding diversity patterns in bacterioplankton communities from a Sub-Antarctic peatland – María Victoria Quiroga – Environmental Microbiology Reports

Metatranscriptomic analysis of diminutive Thiomargarita-like bacteria (“Candidatus Thiopilula spp.”) from abyssal cold seeps of the Barbados Accretionary Prism – Daniel S. Jones – Applied and Environmental Microbiology

Bioreactor microbiome

Long-term dynamics of the microbial community in a full-scale wastewater treatment plant – A. Muszyński – International Biodeterioration & Biodegradation

Microbiome of the built environment

Metagenomic Profiling and Identification of Antimicrobial Resistance Genes from Airborne Microbial Communities – Tamar Dickerson – Online Journal of Public Health Informatics

Food microbiology

Yeast strains as potential aroma enhancers in dry fermented sausages – Mónica Flores – International Journal of Food Microbiology

Metagenomics and bioinformatics

IVA: accurate de novo assembly of RNA virus genomes – Martin Hunt – Bioinformatics

Metagenomic profiling of the viromes of plasma collected from blood donors with elevated serum alanine aminotransferase levels – Rika A. Furuta – Transfusion

Review: Fungal genome sequencing: basic biology to biotechnology – Krishna Kant Sharma – Critical Reviews in Biotechnology

Progressive genomic convergence of two Helicobacter pylori strains during mixed infection of a patient with chronic gastritis – Qizhi Cao – Gut

Proteomics

Review: Proteomics as the final step in the functional metagenomics study of antimicrobial resistance – Fiona Fouhy – Frontiers in Microbiology

Microbial Ecology

Predicting ecosystem emergent properties at multiple scales – Jack A. Gilbert and Chris Henry – Environmental Microbiology Reports

Perspective: Re-defining microbial diversity from its single-celled building blocks – Ramunas Stepanauskas – Environmental Microbiology Reports

Microbes in the news

Not Even Science Could Explain the Bacteria In My Apartment – Sarah Zhang – Gizmodo

Gut microbial mix relates to stages of blood sugar control – Medical Xpress
Gut bacteria may contribute to diabetes in black males – Sharon Parmet – University of Illinois at Chicago

Who owns my microbiome? – Gabrielle Morguelan – Transylvania Rambler

Bill Gates Foundation backs microbiome engineering to boost infant health – Shane Starling – Nutraingredients

Antarctic lakes are full of small surprises – Sarah Payne – Australian Antarctic Magazine

Long list of food items in alphabetical order, but not much science: The human microbiome: How to feed your gut – Mindy Athas – Baltimore Sun

Science, publishing, and career

Need registration to read: It starts with a poster: Most researchers learn how to talk about science at meetings – Marcia McNutt – Science

Why has the scholarly journal endured? – Alice Meadows – Exchanges at Wiley

Reflecting on Fifty Years of Progress for Women in Science – Nancy Hopkins – DNA and Cell Biology

Bik’s Picks

Video: Giant Octopus makes slippery escape from tank in Seattle aquarium – Ben Axelson – Syracuse

CCTV unexpectedly catches rare wild giant panda on midnight stroll – Rose Troup Buchanan – Independent

Turning yogurt waste into new products – University of Wisconsin-Madison – Science Daily

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March 5, 2015

Human skin microbiome

Malassezia species and their associated skin diseases – Kazutoshi Harada – The Journal of Dermatology

Animal and other models for microbiome research

Plant identity drives the expression of biocontrol factors in a rhizosphere bacterium across a plant diversity gradient – Ellen Latz – Functional Ecology

Soil and sediment microbiome

Hydrogen export from intertidal cyanobacterial mats: sources, fluxes and the influence of community composition – Dörte Hoffmann – Environmental Microbiology

Discovery and microbial content of the driest site of the hyperarid Atacama Desert, Chile – Armando Azua-Bustos – Environmental Microbiology Reports

Community composition and population genetics of insect pathogenic fungi in the genus Metarhizium from soils of a long-term agricultural research system – Ryan M. Kepler – Environmental Microbiology

Characterization of wheat straw-degrading anaerobic alkali-tolerant mixed cultures from soda lake sediments by molecular and cultivation techniques – Katharina Porsch – Microbial Biotechnology

Microbes of the built environment

Modeling environmental contamination in hospital single- and four-bed rooms – M-F. King – Indoor Air

Metabolomics

Letter: volatile metabolomics of exhaled breath or faecal gas? – E. F. J. de Groot – Alimentary Pharmacology & Therapeutics

Microbes in the news

Gut Reaction: Study implicates bacteria in maternal stress and infant illnesses – Josie Glausiusz – The American Scholar

Scientists study the microbiome – the bacteria, viruses and fungi – living in an Alabama high school – Lee Roop – AL.com

Infant Gut Bacteria Linked To Later Food Sensitization – Interview with Anita Kozyrskyj – Medical Research

Podcast: SciCafe: Mapping the Urban Microbiome, Genome, Metagenome – American Museum of Natural History

Satire (but probably true): U.S. Children Getting Majority Of Antibiotics From McDonald’s Meat – The Onion

Science, publishing, and career

Movie science vs real life – People in White Coats

The Juggling Scientist: Tips for not Letting Things Fall – Black Science Blog

Developing world: The minority minority – Katia Moskvitch – Nature

Study: At ‘Rate My Professor,’ A Foreign Accent Can Hurt A Teacher’s Score – Kat Chow – NPR

Making Scientific Blogging “Count” – Joshua Nicholson – The Winnower

Bik’s Picks

Video reveals the incredible acrobatic feats (and occasional face plants) of a pouncing praying mantis – Rachel Feltman – Washington Post

After Menopause, Female Killer Whales Help Pod Survive – Jane J. Lee – National Geographic

170-Year-Old Shipwreck Beer Smells Gross – Megan Gannon – Live Science

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March 4, 2015

Human vaginal microbiome

Development of a microarray-based tool to characterize vaginal bacterial fluctuations: application to a novel antibiotic treatment for bacterial vaginosis – Federica Cruciani – Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy

Human skin microbiome

Cutaneous Na+ Storage Strengthens the Antimicrobial Barrier Function of the Skin and Boosts Macrophage-Driven Host Defense – Jonathan Jantsch – Cell Metabolism

Review: Obesity, psoriasis, and microbiota: an unexplored dangerous connection? – Maria Grazia Roccia – Dermatologic Therapy

Animal and other models

The Gut Bacterium Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron Influences the Virulence Potential of the Enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli O103:H25 – Hildegunn Iversen – PLOS ONE

Insights into the Staphylococcus aureus-Host Interface: Global Changes in Host and Pathogen Gene Expression in a Rabbit Skin Infection Model – Natalia Malachowa – PLOS ONE

Editorial: SIGNing a symbiotic treaty with gut microbiota – Geanncarlo Lugo-Villarino – The EMBO Journal

Animal microbiome

A sting in the spit: widespread cross-infection of multiple RNA viruses across wild and managed bees – Dino P. McMahon – Journal of Animal Ecology

Plant microbiome

Review: Nitrogen fixing bacteria in the family Acetobacteraceae and their role in agriculture – Veronica Massena Reis and Kátia Regina dos Santos Teixeira – Journal of Basic Microbiology

Review: Navigating the labyrinth: a guide to sequence-based, community ecology of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi – Miranda M. Hart – New Phytologist

Soil microbiome

Multi-omics of permafrost, active layer and thermokarst bog soil microbiomes – Jenni Hultman – Nature

Microbiome of the built environment

Spatial and Temporal Variations in Indoor Environmental Conditions, Human Occupancy, and Operational Characteristics in a New Hospital Building – Tiffanie Ramos – PLOS ONE

Metabolomics

Programmed Evolution for Optimization of Orthogonal Metabolic Output in Bacteria – Todd T. Eckdahl – PLOS ONE

Microbes in the news

Salty Diet May Fight Invading Microbes – Cell Press – Laboratory Equipment

Characterizing permafrost microbes in a changing climate – Phys.org

Pollution, human health tracked with sewage microbes – Elizabeth Pennisi – Science Magazine News

New light shed on microbial battleground between soil, roots – Max Planck Institute – AG Professional

McDonald’s to Curb Purchases of Chicken Raised With Antibiotics in U.S. – David Kesmodel – Wall Street Journal

Widespread risk of infectious diseases to wild bees, new study reveals – Science Daily

Note: the plague bacterium itself was NOT found. NYC Rats Harbor Plague Fleas – Bob Grant – The Scientist

American Society for Microbiology receives grant to support ICAAC – EurekaAlert

Cause of tree-killing fungus uncovered: Extra genes – Science Daily

Hope from the Deeps for Coral Reefs – Veronique Greenwood – PBS Nova

Science, publishing, and career

Congrats Young Scientists, You Face The Worst Research Funding In 50 Years – Sam Stein – Huffington Post

Data visualization: Science on the map — Easy-to-use mapping tools give researchers the power to create beautiful visualizations of geographic data – Mark Zastrow – Nature

Satire: Evolutionist Loses It As Colleague Conflates Homology and Similarity Yet Again – The Allium

Bik’s Picks

Genetically speaking, mammals are more like their fathers – Science Daily

Where to Go When the Zombies Strike – Maggie Fox – NBC News

A Scientist Accidentally Developed Sunglasses That Could Correct Color Blindness — Li Zhou – Smithsonian Magazine

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March 3, 2015

Human microbiome general

Manuscript: Humans as Superorganisms: How Microbes, Viruses, Imprinted Genes and Other Selfish Entities Shape Our Behavior – Peter Kramer and Paola Bressan

Microbiome of pregnancy and birth

Gut bacteria are rarely shared by co-hospitalized premature infants, regardless of necrotizing enterocolitis development – Tali Raveh-Sadka – eLIFE

Human respiratory microbiome

Analysis of the Upper Respiratory Tract Microbiotas as the Source of the Lung and Gastric Microbiotas in Healthy Individuals – Christine M. Bassis – mBio

Human gut microbiome

The relevance of intestinal dysbiosis in liver transplant candidates – M. Grąt – Transplant Infectious Disease

Fecal Microbial Transplant Effect on Clinical Outcomes and Fecal Microbiome in Active Crohn’s Disease – Suskind, David L. – Inflammatory Bowel Diseases

Review: The Guts of Obesity: Progress and Challenges in Linking Gut Microbes to Obesity  – Gabriel A. Al-Ghalith – Discovery Medicine

Animal models of microbiome research

Thesis: Exercise is more effective at producing robust, lasting changes in gut microbial composition in juvenile than in adult male F344 rats – Agnieszka Mika – University of Colorado at Boulder

The gut microbiome restores intrinsic and extrinsic nerve function in germ-free mice accompanied by changes in calbindin – K. A. McVey Neufeld – Neurogastroenterology & Motility

Cystic fibrosis mouse model-dependent intestinal structure and gut microbiome – Mark Bazett – Mammalian Genome

Use of bacteriocin-producing, probiotic strain Enterococcus faecium AL41 to control intestinal microbiota in farm ostriches – Andrea Lauková – Letters in Applied Microbiology

Animal microbiome

Deciphering chicken gut microbial dynamics based on high-throughput 16S rRNA metagenomics analyses – Shaufi M Mohd Asrore – Gut Pathogens

Antifungal isolates database of amphibian skin-associated bacteria and function against emerging fungal pathogens – Douglas C. Woodhams – Ecological Archives

Diet shapes the gut microbiota of the omnivorous cockroach Blatella germanica – Ana Elena Pérez-Cobas – FEMS Microbiology Ecology

Characterization of the honey bee microbiome throughout the queen-rearing process – David R. Tarpy – Applied and Environmental Microbiology

Bacterial community composition and predicted functional ecology of sponges, sediment and seawater from the thousand-islands reef complex, West-Java, Indonesia – Nicole J. de Voogd – FEMS Microbiology Ecology

Symbiodinium thermophilum sp. nov., a thermotolerant symbiotic alga prevalent in corals of the world’s hottest sea, the Persian/Arabian Gulf – B. C. C. Hume – Scientific Reports

Plant microbiome

Grazing livestock are exposed to terrestrial cyanobacteria – Bruce C McGorum – Veterinary Research

Soil and root microbiome

Nitrogen fertilizer dose alters fungal communities in sugarcane soil and rhizosphere
Chanyarat Paungfoo-Lonhienne – Scientific Reports

Changes in soil microbial community structure and activity in a cedar plantation invaded by moso bamboo – Ed-Haun Chang, Chih-Yu Chiu – Applied Soil Ecology

Wild plant species growing closely connected in a subalpine meadow host distinct root-associated bacterial communities – Kristin Aleklett – PeerJ

Stable isotope probing reveals the importance of Comamonas and Pseudomonadaceae in RDX degradation in samples from a Navy detonation site – Indumathy Jayamani, Alison M. Cupples – Environmental Science and Pollution Research

Impact of metal pollution on fungal diversity and community structures – Michiel Op De Beeck – Environmental Microbiology

Water microbiome

Diverse uncultivated ultra-small bacterial cells in groundwater – Birgit Luef – Nature Communications

Impacts of the Three Gorges Dam on microbial structure and potential function – Qingyun Yan – Scientific Reports

Nitrogen-fixing bacteria associated with copepods in coastal waters of the North Atlantic Ocean – Rosemary E. Scavotto – Environmental Microbiology

Bacterial diversity in relatively pristine and anthropogenically-influenced mangrove ecosystems (Goa, India) – Sheryl Oliveira Fernandes – Brazilian Journal of Microbiology

Bioreactor microbiology

Start-up strategies in manure-fed biogas reactors: Process parameters and methanogenic communities – M. Goberna – Biomass and Bioenergy

Microbiome of the built environment

Characterization, Microbial Community Structure, and Pathogen Occurrence in Urban Faucet Biofilms in South China – Huirong Lin – BioMed Research International

Observational scores of dampness and mold associated with measurements of microbial agents and moisture in three public schools – S. J. Cho – Indoor Air

Food microbiology

Biotic Stress Shifted Structure and Abundance of Enterobacteriaceae in the Lettuce Microbiome – Armin Erlacher – PLOS ONE

Phages and viruses

‘Ménage à trois’: a selfish genetic element uses a virus to propagate within Thermotogales – Julien Lossouarn – Environmental Microbiology

Microbial Ecology

Disentangling mechanisms that mediate the balance between stochastic and deterministic processes in microbial succession – Francisco Dini-Andreote – PNAS USA

The community ecology of pathogens: coinfection, coexistence and community composition – Eric W. Seabloom – Ecology Letters

Tuberculosis: Fighting an old disease with next-generation sequencing – Anzaan Dippenaar, Robin M. Warren – eLIFE

Horizontal gene transfer and gene dosage drives adaptation to wood colonization in a tree pathogen – Braham Dhillon – PNAS USA

A tortoise-infecting picornavirus expands the host range of the family Picornaviridae
Terry Fei Fan Ng – Archives of Virology

Metagenomics and bioinformatics

Review: Insights from 20 years of bacterial genome sequencing – Miriam Land – Functional & Integrative Genomics

Review: The Current Status and Challenges in Computational Analysis of Genomic Big Data – Yiming Qin – Big Data Research

Metabolomics

Impact of storage conditions on metabolite profiles of sputum samples from persons with cystic fibrosis – Jiangchao Zhao – Journal of Cystic Fibrosis

Microbes in the news

Enter the Vaginome: Meet the Microbes that Live in Our Vaginas – A.V. Flox – Motherboard

New paper on diseased vs healthy infants in a NICU, possible impacts for future hospital microbiome work – Bubba Brooks – MicroBEnet

ArchaeaMysterious microbes hold big possibilities for Sloan Research Fellow Alyson Santoro – EurekaAlert

Genes & cells: Jet lag disrupts microbes in the gut: Mice with time-shifted bacteria develop metabolic problems – Tina Hesman Saey – Science News

The environment may change, but the microbiome of queen bees does not – Matt Shipman

Cheesey Microbial Communities – Daniel P. Haeusser – Small Things Considered

150,000 of these bacteria could fit on the tip of a hair (and that’s about as small as life can get) – Rachel Feltman – Washington Post

Unusual Bacteria Discovered In Deepest Ocean Trench – Ocean Leadership

Link Identified Between Virus Recognition, Destruction in Bacterial Immune System – Infection Control Today
Researchers Discover How Bacteria ‘Steal’ Genetic Information – Jim Algar – Tech Times

Science, publishing, and career

Different personal propensities among scientists relate to deeper vs. broader knowledge contributions – Thomas S. Bateman, and Andrew M. Hess – PNAS USA
Attention, All Scientists: Do Improv, With Alan Alda’s Help – Kenneth Chang – New York Times

Bik’s Picks

Hippos stem from the longest sequence of terrestrial cetartiodactyl evolution in Africa
Fabrice Lihoreau – Nature Communications

Termites: Guardians of the Soil – Natalie Angier – New York Times

A social chemosignaling function for human handshaking – Idan Frumin – eLIFE

Snip, Snap, Slurp: Misophonia Makes Them Unbearable – What sound most grates on your nerves? – Karen Barrow – New York Times
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March 2, 2015

General microbiome papers

Review: The Microbiome: A Contributor to Health and Disease – Bailus Walker Jr. – Journal of the Health Care for the Poor and Underserved

Human oral microbiome

Transduction-mediated horizontal gene transfer in the oral microbiome – Roy H. Stevens – Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology

Human respiratory microbiome

Review: The lung mycobiome: an emerging field of the human respiratory microbiome – Linh D. N. Nguyen – Frontiers in Microbiology

Human gut microbiome

Comparative analysis of gut microbiota in elderly people of urbanized towns and longevity villages – Se-Hoon Park – BMC Microbiology

Gut dysbiosis in acute-on-chronic liver failure and its predictive value for mortality – Yanfei Chen – Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology

Acquisition of extended-spectrum cephalosporin- and colistin-resistant Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica serotype Newport by pilgrims during Hajj – Abiola Olumuyiwa Olaitan – International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents

Functional characterization of IgA-targeted bacterial taxa from undernourished Malawian children that produce diet-dependent enteropathy – Andrew L. Kau – Science Translational Medicine

Human vaginal microbiome

Correlates of the molecular vaginal microbiota composition of African women – Raju Gautam – BMC Infectious Diseases

Animal microbiome

In chickens: Comparison of fecal and cecal microbiotas reveals qualitative similarities but quantitative differences – Dragana Stanley – BMC Microbiology

Community Structure of Skin Microbiome of Gulf Killifish, Fundulus grandis, Is Driven by Seasonality and Not Exposure to Oiled Sediments in a Louisiana Salt Marsh – Andrea M. Larsen – Microbial Ecology

Microbial Consortium Associated with the Antarctic Marine Ciliate Euplotes focardii: An Investigation from Genomic Sequences – Sandra Pucciarelli – Microbial Ecology

Plant microbiome

Phenotypic and genetic characterization of rhizobia isolated from Hedysarum flexuosum in Northwest region of Morocco – Fatima Ezzakkioui – Journal of Basic Microbiology

Biotic and abiotic predictors of fungal colonization in grasses of the Colorado Rockies – Luciana B. Ranelli – Diversity and Distributions

Agroforestry leads to shifts within the gammaproteobacterial microbiome of banana plants cultivated in Central America – Martina Köberl – Frontiers in Microbiology

Rhizobiales as functional and endosymbiontic members in the lichen symbiosis of Lobaria pulmonaria L. – Armin Erlacher – Frontiers in Microbiology

Soil and sediment microbiome

Agricultural intensification and the functional capacity of soil microbes on smallholder African farms – Stephen A. Wood – Journal of Applied Ecology

Microbial community dynamics during the early stages of plant polymer breakdown in paddy soil – Carl-Eric Wegner andWerner Liesack – Environmental Microbiology

Composition of fungal and bacterial communities in forest litter and soil is largely determined by dominant trees – Michaela Urbanová – Soil Biology and Biochemistry

Exploring Actinobacteria assemblages in coastal marine sediments under contrasted Human influences in the West Istria Sea, Croatia – Robert Duran – Environmental Science and Pollution Research

Oxygen availability is a major factor in determining the composition of microbial communities involved in methane oxidation – Maria E. Hernandez – PeerJ

Water microbiome

Comparative Metagenomics of Eight Geographically Remote Terrestrial Hot Springs – Peter Menzel – Microbial Ecology

Phylogenetic shifts of bacterioplankton community composition along the Pearl Estuary: the potential impact of hypoxia and nutrients – Jiwen Liu – Frontiers in Microbiology

Microbiome of the built environment

Thesis: Longitudinal and spatial characterization of microbial communities in offices – John Chase – Northern Arizona University

Bacterial transfer to beverages during drinking games: ‘beer pong’ – Paul L. Dawson – Int. J. Food Safety, Nutrition and Public Health

Food microbiology

High-throughput sequencing for the detection of the bacterial and fungal diversity in Mongolian naturally fermented cow’s milk in Russia – Wenjun Liu – BMC Microbiology

Microbiological Changes and Biodiversity of Cultivable Indigenous Bacteria in Sanbao Larger Yellow Croaker (Pseudosciaena crocea), a Chinese Salted and Fermented Seafood – He Zhang – Journal of Food Sciences

Bioreactor microbiology

A methodological framework for linking bioreactor function to microbial communities and environmental conditions – Francis L de los Reyes III – Current Opinion in Biotechnology

Ignored sediment fungal populations in water supply reservoirs are revealed by quantitative PCR and 454 pyrosequencing – Haihan Zhang – BMC Microbiology

Phages and viruses

No evidence of inhibition of horizontal gene transfer by CRISPR–Cas on evolutionary timescales – Uri Gophna – ISME Journal

Inactivation of an Enveloped Surrogate Virus in Human Sewage – Lisa M. Casanova – Environ. Sci. Technol. Lett.

Phage-mediated Dispersal of Biofilm and Distribution of Bacterial Virulence Genes Is Induced by Quorum Sensing – Friederike S. Rossmann – PLOS Pathogens

Archaea

Diversity of Human-Associated Methanobrevibacter smithii Isolates Revealed by Multispacer Sequence Typing – Vanessa D. Nkamga – Current Microbiology

Bioinformatics and metagenomics

The QRS (Quantification of Representative Sequences) pipeline for amplicon sequencing: Case study on within-population ITS1 sequence variation in a microparasite infecting Daphnia – E. González-Tortuero – Molecular Ecology Resources

MetCap: a bioinformatics probe design pipeline for large-scale targeted metagenomics – Sandeep K Kushwaha – BMC Bioinformatics

Spaced seeds improve metagenomic classification – Karel Bˇrinda – ArXiv

Clumpak: a program for identifying clustering modes and packaging population structure inferences across K – Naama M. Kopelman – Molecular Ecology Resources

PhD thesis: Metagenomic systems biology: frameworks for modeling and characterizing the gut microbiome – Sharon I. Greenblum – University of Washington

Masters thesis: MR-CUDASW – GPU accelerated Smith-Waterman algorithm for medium-length (meta)genomic data – Amir Muhammadzadeh

Testing ecological theories with sequence similarity networks: marine ciliates
exhibit similar geographic dispersal patterns as multicellular organisms – Dominik Forster – BMC Biology

A Brief Review of Software Tools for Pangenomics – Jingfa Xiao – Genomics, Proteomics & Bioinformatics

ClonalFrameML: Efficient Inference of Recombination in Whole Bacterial Genomes – Xavier Didelot – PLOS Computational Biology

Ten years of pan-genome analyses – George Vernikos – Current Opinion in Microbiology

Metabolomics and proteomics

Towards further defining the proteome of mouse saliva – Anne A Blanchard – Proteome Science

Protein Complexes in Bacteria – J. Harry Caufield – PLOS Computational Biology

ReviewMetabolomics and Diabetes: Analytical and Computational Approaches – Kelli M. Sas – Diabetes

Techniques

Inosine at Different Primer Positions to Study Structure and Diversity of Prokaryotic Populations – Eitan Ben-Dov and Ariel Kushmaro – Current Issues Molecular Biology

Negligible effect of X-ray μ-CT scanning on archaea and bacteria in an agricultural soil – Hannes Schmidt – Soil Biology and Biochemistry

Microbes in the news

Diet, Location And Your Kid’s Gut Bacteria – Stefania Hartley – Asian Scientist Magazine

Killing off one Bacterium Can Lead to Obesity – Noel Angeles – SMN Weekly

The Human Microbiome Through an Oral Healthcare Lens – Natasha Singh – Oral Health Group

Yes Virginia, there is a paper on microbial transfer during beer pong – Jonathan Eisen

First detailed evidence of bacteria at the lower size limit of life – Science Codex

How Small Can Life Get? These Ultra-Small Bacteria May Be At The Limit – Science 2.0

Title Fail: Deadly bacteria outbreak linked to UCLA microscopes – Standard Examiner

The bioMASON Startup Grows Bricks from Bacteria – Annie Pilon – Small Biz Trends

Deadly bacteria release sparks concern at Louisiana lab – Alison Young – USA Today

Science, publishing and career

Riding Out Rejection: How to navigate the choppy waters of scientific publication – Kate Yandell – The Scientist

Medical Journals and Free Speech – Joel Bakan – Pediatrics

How to Write a Presubmission Inquiry – Thomas Lengauer, Ruth Nussinov – PLOS Computational Biology

Chill GPS: Keeping track of frozen biological samples – Jeffrey M. Perkel – The Scientist

Science and Art

Move over #TheDress and #LlamaDrama, this weekend’s Twitter storm was all about #SciArt – Twitter

Bik’s Picks

Scientists have created the perfect music for cats – Fiona MacDonald – Science Alert

Gulf of Mexico Turns Deadly for Dolphins – Rachel Nuwer – New York Times

‘Skeletorus’ and ‘Sparklemuffin’ the Newest Spiders – Agata Blaszczak Boxe – Live Science

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