Good morning from New Jersey! There’s an amazing batch of microbiome papers to share with you today, including studies that use skin microbes to fight cancer, gut microbes to fight rotavirus, and evidence that the bird microbiome may harbor a mechanism that protects them from malaria. There’s also a fun story about dogs training a computer to detect prostate cancer.

General microbiome

Feasibility of integrating canine olfaction with chemical and microbial profiling of urine to detect lethal prostate cancer, Guest, Harris and Sfanos et al., PLOS ONE

Human skin microbiome

Preprint: Eliciting a potent antitumor immune response by expressing tumor antigens in a skin commensal, Yiyin Erin Chen et al., bioRxiv

Human nearly-sterile sites

Preprint: Fetal gut colonization: meconium does not have a detectable microbiota before birth, Katherine M. Kennedy et al., bioRxiv

Human gut microbiome

The gut microbiome modulates the protective association between a Mediterranean diet and cardiometabolic disease risk, Dong D. Wang et al., Nature Medicine

Gut microbiome pattern reflects healthy ageing and predicts survival in humans, Tomasz Wilmanski et al., Nature Metabolism

The composition of the gut microbiome differs among community dwelling older people with good and poor appetite, Cox and Bowyer et al., Journal of Cachexia, Sarcopenia and Muscle

Animal microbiome

The uropygial gland microbiome of house sparrows with malaria infection, Elin Videvall et al., Journal of Avian Biology

The amphibian microbiome exhibits poor resilience following pathogen-induced disturbance, Andrea J. Jani et al., The ISME Journal

Plant, root and soil microbiome

Carbon Fluxes and Microbial Activities from Boreal Peatlands Experiencing Permafrost Thaw, M.P. Waldrop et al., JGR Biogeosciences

Probiotics/prebiotics

Escherichia coli Nissle 1917 administered as a dextranomar microsphere biofilm enhances immune responses against human rotavirus in a neonatal malnourished pig model colonized with human infant fecal microbiota, Husheem Michael et al., PLOS ONE

Impact of Probiotic B. infantis EVC001 Feeding in Premature Infants on the Gut Microbiome, Nosocomially Acquired Antibiotic Resistance, and Enteric Inflammation, Marielle Nguyen et al., Frontiers in Pediatrics