Being Sunday there aren’t that many publications to talk about. However the study by Zheng and colleagues makes up for it and is a must read! A bit like BCG for bladder cancer they engineered bacteria to induce an effective antitumor immune response, successfully treating tumors in several different mouse models with no evidence of toxicity. In another interesting study, Harach et al demonstrate microbial involvement in the development of Abeta amyloid pathology, and suggest that microbiota may contribute to the development of neurodegenerative diseases.

General microbiome

*Two-step enhanced cancer immunotherapy with engineered Salmonella typhimurium secreting heterologous flagellin – Jin Hai Zheng – Science Translational Medicine

Millennia of genomic stability within the invasive Para C Lineage of Salmonella enterica –  Zhemin Zhou – bioRxiv

A target-specific assay for rapid and quantitative detection of Mycobacterium chimaera DNA in environmental and clinical specimens – Enrique Zozaya-Valdes – bioRxiv

Human gut microbiome

*Reduction of Abeta amyloid pathology in APPPS1 transgenic mice in the absence of gut microbiota – T. Harach –  Scientific Reports

Gut bacteria may play a role in Alzheimer’s disease –  Science Daily

Water and extremophile microbiome 

A survey of microparasites present in adult migrating Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) in south-western British Columbia determined by high-throughput quantitative polymerase chain reaction – A L Bass – Journal of Fish Disease

Distinct Biogeographic Patterns for Archaea, Bacteria, and Fungi along the Vegetation Gradient at the Continental Scale in Eastern China – B Ma – mSystems

Bioinformatics

OptiClust: Improved method for assigning amplicon-based sequence data to operational taxonomic units – Sarah L Westcott – bioRxiv

 Microbes in the news 

Gut Microbiota Improved when Eating Whole Grains – Council Chronicle

Feeding probiotics to rats before stressing them out reduces disruption of gut microbiota – The Indian Express

Researchers develop new method that can rapidly profile resistome of gut microbial communities – News Medical