How the cheese rind microbiome diversity affects function, development of “metabolic overlap” as a metric to assess different microbial communities using genomic information, a variety of research articles, commentaries, press releases, and news stories covering the NIH Human Microbiome Project at the completion of its second phase.

General microbiome

Homepage for “Human Microbiome Project, part 2” special section in Nature including:

• Perspective: The Integrative Human Microbiome Project – The Integrative HMP (iHMP) Research Network Consortium – Nature
• Commentary: Priorities for the next 10 years of human microbiome research – Lita Proctor – Nature

Human vaginal microbiome

The vaginal microbiome and preterm birth – Jennifer M Fettweis – Nature Medicine

Racioethnic diversity in the dynamics of the vaginal microbiome during pregnancy – Myrna G Serrano – Nature Medicine

Human gut microbiome

Multi-omics of the gut microbial ecosystem in inflammatory bowel diseases – Jason Lloyd-Price – Nature

Pre-print: Antioxidants maintain Butyrate production by Human Gut Clostridia in the presence of Oxygen – Matthieu Million – bioRxiv

A microbiota-generated bile salt induces biofilm formation in Clostridium difficile – Thomas Dubois – NPJ Biofilms and Microbiomes

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Pre-print: Bacterial and fungal communities are differentially modified by melatonin in agricultural soils under abiotic stress – Andrew P Madigan – bioRxiv

Food microbiology

Pre-print: Strain-level diversity impacts cheese rind microbiome assembly and function – Brittany A Niccum – bioRxiv

Bioinformatics

Pre-print: Metabolic overlap in environmentally diverse microbial communities – Eric R Hester – bioRxiv

Microbes in the news

The Human Microbiome Project expands the toolbox for studying host and microbiome interactions – National Institutes of Health

A wave of NIH-backed microbiome research examines the gut’s link to diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease, and more – Kate Sheridan – STAT

Human Microbiome Project reveals how microbiome is disrupted during inflammatory bowel disease – Christopher Sweeney – Broad Institute

Scientists Find Bacteria Thriving In Earth Environment That’s Just Like Young Mars – Aristos Georgiou – Newsweek