Highlights!

Particular genomic and virulence traits associated with preterm infant-derived toxigenic Clostridium perfringens strains – Raymond Kiu – Nature Microbiology

Detailed mapping of Bifidobacterium strain transmission from mother to infant via a dual culture-based and metagenomic approach – Conor Feehily – Nature Communications

Human and General Microbiome

Expanding the repertoire of counterselection markers for markerless gene deletion in the human gut bacterium Phocaeicola vulgatus – André Neff – Anaerobe

Gut microbiota, circulating inflammatory markers and metabolites, and carotid artery atherosclerosis in HIV infection – Zheng Wang – Microbiome

Symbiotic microbiome Staphylococcus epidermidis restricts IL-33 production in allergic nasal epithelium via limiting the cellular necroptosis – Yung Jin Jeon – BMC Microbiology

Gut microbiome associated with low anterior resection syndrome after rectal cancer surgery – Min Jung Kim – Scientific Reports

Metabolomics Reveals Gut Microbiota Contribute to PPARα Deficiency-Induced Alcoholic Liver Injury – Ting Zhang – Journal of Proteome Research

Following your gut: the emerging role of the gut microbiota in predicting and treating immune-related adverse events – Antoine Desilets – Current Opinion in Oncology

Respiratory eukaryotic virome expansion and bacteriophage deficiency characterize childhood asthma – Spyridon Megremis – Scientific Reports

The causal links between gut microbiota and COVID-19: A Mendelian randomization study – Jukun Song – Journal of Medical Virology

The Sexome – A proof of concept study into microbial transfer between heterosexual couples after sexual intercourse – Ruby Dixon – Forensic Science International

A systematic review of the protein composition of whole saliva in subjects with healthy periodontium compared with chronic periodontitis – Ana G Sánchez-Medrano – PloS ONE

Microbiome, Food and Diet

Metagenomic analysis and antibacterial activity of kefir microorganisms – Brianda D González-Orozco – Journal of Food Science

Fecal Metabolites as Biomarkers for Predicting Food Intake by Healthy Adults – Leila M Shinn – The Journal of Nutrition

More Microbes

Taxonogenomics of Culturomica massiliensis gen. nov., sp. nov., and Emergencia timonensis gen. nov., sp. nov. new bacteria isolated from human stool microbiota – Afaf Hamame – Scientific Reports

Animal Microbiome

Gut microbiome signatures of extreme environment adaption in Tibetan pig – Fangfang Zhao – NPJ Biofilms and Microbiomes

Holobiont Evolution: Population Theory for the Hologenome – Joan Roughgarden – The American Naturalist

Plant Microbiome

Integration of Phenotypes in Microbiome Networks for Designing Synthetic Communities: a Study of Mycobiomes in the Grafted Tomato System – Ravin Poudel – Applied and Environmental Microbiology

Root Niches of Blueberry Imprint Increasing Bacterial-Fungal Interkingdom Interactions along the Soil-Rhizosphere-Root Continuum – Jilu Che – Microbiology Spectrum

Bioinformatics, Microbiome Analysis and Techniques

MDM-Pred: a freely available web application for predicting the metabolism of drug-like compounds by the gut microbiota – A S Kolodnitsky – SAR and QSAR in Environmental Research

HONMF: integration analysis of multi-omics microbiome data via matrix factorization and hypergraph – Yuanyuan Ma – Bioinformatics 

Bayesian compositional regression with microbiome features via variational inference – Darren A V Scott – BMC Bioinformatics

The Pathfinder plasmid toolkit for genetically engineering newly isolated bacteria enables the study of Drosophila-colonizing Orbaceae – Katherine M Elston – ISME Communications

Review: Unravelling animal-microbiota evolution on a chip – Ostaizka Aizpurua – Trends in Microbiology