Author Archives: eliesbik

June 28, 2016

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A fundraiser to study the turtle microbiome, multiple sclerosis, generalists inside specialist, and visualizing translational activity.

Events

IndieGoGo campaign: TurtleTracts: Study Microbes to Save Sea Turtles – Aubrey Tauer

Also see this blog post: Sneak Peak at our Sea Turtle Microbiome Initiative – Aubrey Tauer

Pregnancy and birth

Gut bacteria and late-onset neonatal bloodstream infections in preterm infants – Phillip I. Tarr – Seminars in Fetal and Neonatal Medicine

Human respiratory microbiome

Commentary: Mode of delivery to the brave new (microbial) world: a defining moment for the respiratory microbiome? – Georgios D. Kitsios – EBioMedicine

Human gut microbiome

Multiple sclerosis patients have a distinct gut microbiota compared to healthy controls – Jun Chen – Scientific Reports

Press: Link between gut bacteria, MS discovered. MS patients show lower levels of good bacteria – Science Daily

Review: Microbiota as Therapeutic Targets – Xavier R.J. – Digestive Diseases

Animal microbiome
The Generalist Inside the Specialist: Gut Bacterial Communities of Two Insect Species Feeding on Toxic Plants Are Dominated by Enterococcus sp. – Cristina Vilanova – Frontiers in Microbiology

Review: The gut microbiome as a virtual endocrine organ with implications for farm and domestic animal endocrinology – T.F. O’Callaghan – Domestic Animal Endocrinology

Plant, root, and soil microbiome
Systemic enrichment of antifungal traits in the rhizosphere microbiome after pathogen attack – Jan-Hendrik Dudenhöffer – Journal of Ecology

A multi-biological assay approach to assess microbial diversity in arsenic (As) contaminated soils – S.R. Stazi – Geomicrobiology Journal

Effects of two fungicide formulations on microbial and macroinvertebrate leaf decomposition under laboratory conditions – Adria A. Elskus – Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry

Book: Plant, Soil and Microbes – Editors: Khalid Rehman Hakeem, Mohd Sayeed Akhtar – Springer

Water and extremophile microbiome

Metagenomics-Guided Mining of Commercially Useful Biocatalysts from Marine Microorganisms – A.R. Uria – Advances in Food and Nutrition Research

Lessons learned from thirty years of geomicrobiological studies of Río Tinto – Ricardo Amils – Research in Microbiology

Metabolic diversity and adaptive mechanisms of iron- and/or sulfur-oxidizing autotrophic acidophiles in extremely acidic environments – Xian Zhang – Environmental Microbiology Reports

Reconstructing metabolic pathways of hydrocarbon-degrading bacteria from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill – Nina Dombrowski – Nature Microbiology

News and views: Marine microbiology: Community clean up – Rachel Mackelprang – Nature Microbiology

Assessing viral taxonomic composition in benthic marine ecosystems: reliability and efficiency of different bioinformatic tools for viral metagenomic analyses – M. Tangherlini – Scientific Reports

Marine phage genomics: the tip of the iceberg – Blanca Perez Sepulveda – Microbiology Letters

Metabolic networks and proteomics

MetaPro-IQ: a universal metaproteomic approach to studying human and mouse gut microbiota – Xu Zhang – Microbiome

The use of propidium monoazide in conjunction with qPCR and Illumina sequencing to identify and quantify live yeasts and bacteria – Mansak Tantikachornkiata – International Journal of Food Microbiology

Protocol: Constructing and Analyzing Metabolic Flux Models of Microbial Communities – José P. Faria – Springer Protocols

Viruses and phages

Opinion: The Janus-Face of Bacteriophages across Human Body Habitats – Adam Wahida – PLOS Pathogens

Review: Research on the human virome: where are we and what is next – Shimian Zou – Microbiome

Microbial ecology and techniques

Visualizing in situ translational activity for identifying and sorting slow-growing archaeal−bacterial consortia – Roland Hatzenpichler – PNAS

Press: See and sort: Developing novel techniques to visualize uncultured microbial cell activity – Science Daily

High functional diversity stimulates diversification in experimental microbial communities – Alexandre Jousset – Science Advances

Measuring the biodiversity of microbial communities by flow cytometry – Ruben Props – Methods in Ecology and Evolution

Highlight: A timely reminder of technical limitations – James I. Prosser – Microbial Biotechnology

Species-sorting and mass-transfer paradigms control managed natural metacommunities – Susanne Günther – Environmental Microbiology

Microbes in the news

Slimy clumps of bacteria kill thousands. Scientists are fighting back – Usha Lee McFarling – STAT News

Why everyone’s suddenly talking about gut bacteria – Laura Entis – Fortune

Scientists find link between makeup of individual’s microbiome and head and neck cancer – News Medical

June 27, 2016

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A short Monday post. Bronchiolitis and virome milestones in infants, and playing drums.

Pregnancy and birth

The Fecal Microbiota Profile and Bronchiolitis in Infants – Kohei Hasegawa – Pediatrics

Editorial: Do Bacteria in the Gut Set the Stage for Who Gets Viral Bronchiolitis and Its Severity? – Patrick C. Seed – Pediatrics

Research Highlight: Distinct Fecal Microbiota Pattern Associated with Infant Bronchiolitis – Christine Judge – NEJM Journal Watch

The Bacterial Microbiome and Virome Milestones of Infant Development – Efrem S. Lim – Trends in MIcrobiology

More microbiology

Is there an Infection Risk when Playing Drums Contaminated with Bacillus anthracis? –
A M Bennett – Journal of Applied Microbiology

Microbes in the news

UI researcher finds link between gut bacteria and MS. MS patients show lower levels of good bacteria – EurekAlert

Microbes in extreme heat and cold hold lessons about life on Earth, and beyond – Don Cowan – The Conversation

Olympic rowers unveil special suits to combat bacteria in Rio – WHEC

Pineapples Can Stop Harmful Bacteria In The Gut – Diane Palmer – Parent Herald

June 26, 2016

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Pregnancy and birth

A key genetic factor for fucosyllactose utilization affects infant gut microbiota development – Takahiro Matsuki – Nature Communications

Necrotizing enterocolitis and preterm infant gut bacteria – Barbara B. Warner – Seminars in Fetal & Neonatal

Human oral microbiome

Identification of Veillonella Species in the Tongue Biofilm by Using a Novel One-Step Polymerase Chain Reaction Method – Izumi Mashima – PLOS ONE

Human respiratory microbiome

Bacterial Microbiota Analysis Present in the Nose and Pharynx of a Mexican Young Population – Ana Karina Rodríguez-Vicente – Int J Curr Microbiol App Sci

Human gut microbiome

Significant Differences Found in Short Nucleotide Sequences of Human Intestinal Metagenomes of Northern-European and Chinese Origin – Balázs Szalkai – Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA) – General Subjects

Analysis of the effects of microbiome-related confounding factors on the reproducibility of the volatolomic test – Marcis Leja – Journal of Breath Research

Campylobacter concisus utilizes blood but not short chain fatty acids despite showing associations with Firmicutes taxa – Nadeem O. Kaakoush – Microbiology

Review: Links Between the Microbiome and Bone – C.J. Hernandez – Journal of Bone and Mineral Research

Review: Microbiome, Metabolome and Inflammatory Bowel Disease – Ishfaq Ahmed – Microorganisms

Comment: Ethics of exploring the microbiome of native peoples – Maria G. Dominguez-Bello – Nature Microbiology

Microbes found in blood

I’m skeptical about this review: A Bacterial Component to Alzheimer’s-Type Dementia Seen via a Systems Biology Approach that Links Iron Dysregulation and Inflammagen Shedding to Disease – Etheresia Pretorius – Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease

Animal experiments

A sentinel goblet cell guards the colonic crypt by triggering Nlrp6-dependent Muc2 secretion – George M. H. Birchenough – Science

Gut microbiota drive the development of neuro-inflammatory response in cirrhosis – Dae Joong Kang – Hepatology

Bacteriophage infections of microbiota can lead to leaky gut in an experimental rodent model – George Tetz – Gut Pathogens

The Effects of LW-AFC on Intestinal Microbiome in Senescence-Accelerated Mouse Prone 8 Strain, a Mouse Model of Alzheimer’s Disease – Jianhui Wang – Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease

Microbiome associations in pigs with the best and worst clinical outcomes following co-infection with porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV) and porcine circovirus type 2 (PCV2) – Megan C. Niederwerder – Veterinary Microbiology

Press: College of Veterinary Medicine researchers examine microbiome associations related to disease expression in swine – Kansas State University

Supplementing Blends of Sugars, Amino Acids, and Secondary Metabolites to the Diet of Termites (Reticulitermes flavipes) Drive Distinct Gut Bacterial Communities – Xing-Feng Huang – Microbial Ecology

Letter: Does Intestinal Microbiota Protect Mice Against Acute/Binge Drinking-Induced Liver Injury? – Tao Zeng – Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research

Animal microbiome

DGGE: Influence of Starvation on the Structure of Gut-Associated Bacterial Communities in the Chinese White Pine Beetle (Dendroctonus armandi) – Xia Hu – Forests

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Effects of temperature variability on community structure in a natural microbial food web – Axel Zander – Global Change Biology

Effectiveness of ecological rescue for altered soil microbial communities and functions – Kadiya Calderón – ISME Journal

Soil drying procedure affects the DNA quantification of Lactarius vinosus but does not change the fungal community composition – Carles Castaño – Mycorrhiza

Assessing quality of Medicago sativa silage by monitoring bacterial composition with single molecule, real-time sequencing technology and various physiological parameters – Weichen Bao – Scientific Reports

Water and extremophile microbiome

Revealing the relationship between microbial community structure in natural biofilms and the pollution level in urban rivers: a case study in the Qinhuai River Basin, Yangtze River Delta – Wei Cai – Water Science and Technology

Status of metal pollution in rivers flowing through urban settlements at Pune and its effect on resident microflora – Neelu Nawani – Biologia

Profiling of Sediment Microbial Community in Dongting Lake before and after Impoundment of the Three Gorges Dam – Wei Huang – Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health

Bioreactor and wastewater microbiology

Metagenomic analysis of bacterial community composition and antibiotic resistance genes in a wastewater treatment plant and its receiving surface water – Junying Tang – Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety

Food microbiology

Effect of Simulated Sanitizer Carryover on Recovery of Salmonella from Broiler Carcass Rinsates – Gary R. Gamble – Journal of Food Protection

Press: USDA Salmonella Bacteria on Chicken Testing Severely Flawed, New Study Finds – Emily Monaco – Organic Authority

Potential applications of metagenomics to assess the biological effects of food structure and function – Tasha Santiago-Rodriguez – Food & Function

Bioinformatics and metagenomics

A comparison of tools for the simulation of genomic next-generation sequencing data – Merly Escalona – Nature Reviews Genetics

Hessian Regularization Based Symmetric Nonnegative Matrix Factorization for Clustering Gene Expression and Microbiome Data – Yuanyuan Ma – Methods

Techniques

Grown, Printed, and Biologically Augmented: An Additively Manufactured Microfluidic Wearable, Functionally Templated for Synthetic Microbes – Christoph Bader – 3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing

Investigation of bacterial and archaeal communities: novel protocols using modern sequencing by Illumina MiSeq and traditional DGGE-cloning – Lucia Kraková – Extremophiles

DGGE: Representative sampling of natural biofilms: influence of substratum type on the bacterial and fungal communities structure – Jennifer Hellal – Springer Plus

More microbiology

Applying landscape genetics to the microbial world – Rachael Y. Dudaniec – Molecular Ecology

A metapopulation model for the spread of MRSA in correctional facilities – Marc Beauparlant – Infectious Disease Modelling

Biological Dual-Use Research and Synthetic Biology of Yeast – Angela Cirigliano – Science and Engineering Ethics

Microbes in the news

Fabulous Pacific coast and the latest digestive diseases research: BMC Medicine joins DDW2016 – Alessandro Recchioni – BioMedCentral blog

The Unseen – Millions of microbes are yet to be discovered. Will one hold the ultimate cure? – Raffi Khatchadourian – The New Yorker

Indicator of chronic fatigue syndrome found in gut bacteria – Krishna Ramanujan – Cornell Chronicle

Fermentation Fervor: Here’s How Chefs Boost Flavor And Health – Allison Aubrey – NPR Morning Edition

Beneficial bacteria may protect breasts from cancer – ASM – EurekAlert

Economics in Mind, Evolution Has Allowed Some Bacteria to Evolve Sublime Genomes – Aswin Sai Narain Seshasayee – The Wire

Old Technology Successfully Reduce Salmonella in Meat Products by 90 Percent –  John Raphael – Nature World News

Bright Minds Battling Dark Diseases: San Diego is home to world-class biomedical scientists focused on cutting-edge projects touted by president – Gary Robbins – The San Diego Union Tribune

Liquid eyeliner recalled, contains bacteria – CTV News Winnipeg

List of papers on Synthetic Microbial Communities

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Today I found this new article in Wiley’s Environmental Microbiology:

Web Alert: Synthetic microbial communities: An annotated selection of World Wide Web sites relevant to the topics in environmental microbiology – Lawrence P. Wackett – Environmental Microbiology

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As is made clear in the title, this is not a regular review or research article, but a list of links to websites on this topic. Unfortunately, some of these links are more helpful than others: not all will take you to the paper itself, some lead to websites of research groups, and one was not written in English. But what is most disturbing to me is that Wiley put this article behind a paywall, so many people will have to pay $38 to have access to this list of links.

This is not the first Link-Fest article that this author wrote; there are now 5 of these published in Environmental Microbiology. I wrote about another one from the same author in April on MicroBE.net. All of these “Web Alert” articles are listed as regular publications in PubMed. It looks as if this author has found an easy way to expand his publication list, and as if Environmental Microbiology has found an easy way to fill their pages and earn more money

If you are interested in this particular topic but don’t have access to this paper, here is MicrobiomeDigest to the rescue. I have copied the list, improved all links to directly go to the publisher’s website, and updated the list with some missing relevant papers. This collection of papers on synthetic microbial consortia is freely available on a new page called Synthetic Microbial Communities.

This might also be a  good moment to point out that I have made several of these lists of papers on a particular topic, and that you can find all of them here on my page called Microbiome Collection. You will find many topics here that might be of interest, or a good start to a literature search on a particular subject.  And all of them are free! Also note that these are Pages, not Posts. Enjoy!

June 24, 2016

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Placenta samples not distinguishable from controls, gut microbiome in ME/CFS and PKU patients, childhood undernutrition, corals’ microbial sentinels, and plant root traps.

Pregnancy and birth

I was hoping for this study to be done: Comparison of placenta samples with contamination controls does not provide evidence for a distinct placenta microbiota – Abigail P. Lauder – Microbiome

Systematic review: Treatment of bacterial vaginosis in pregnancy in order to reduce the risk of spontaneous preterm delivery – a clinical recommendation – Thor Haahr – Acta Obstetricia et Gynecologica Scandinavica

Human ear microbiome

The microbiome of otitis media with effusion – Chun Ling Chan – The Laryngoscope

Human gut microbiome

Reduced diversity and altered composition of the gut microbiome in individuals with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome – Ludovic Giloteaux – Microbiome

Phenylketonuria and Gut Microbiota: A Controlled Study Based on Next-Generation Sequencing – Felipe Pinheiro de Oliveira – PLOS ONE

Review: Childhood undernutrition, the gut microbiota, and microbiota-directed therapeutics – Laura V. Blanton – Science

Editorial: Gut microbiota and undernutrition – Caroline Ash – Science

Infection and microbiology

Role of Clinicogenomics in Infectious Disease Diagnostics and Public Health Microbiology – Lars F. Westblade – Journal of Clinical Microbiology

Novel Taxa Associated with Human Fungal Black-Grain Mycetomas: Emarellia grisea gen. nov., sp. nov., and Emarellia paragrisea sp. nov. – Andrew M. Borman – Journal of Clinical Microbiology

Sociomicrobiology and Pathogenic Bacteria – Joao B. Xavier – Microbiology Spectrum

Paleomicrobiology Data: Authentification and Interpretation – Michel Drancourt – Microbiology Spectrum

Animal experiments

Dietary fucoidan modulates the gut microbiota in mice by increasing the abundance of Lactobacillus and Ruminococcaceae – Qingsen Shang – Food & Function

Animal microbiome

Perspective: Corals’ microbial sentinels – Tracy D. Ainsworth – Science

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Escaping Underground Nets: Extracellular DNases Degrade Plant Extracellular Traps and Contribute to Virulence of the Plant Pathogenic Bacterium Ralstonia solanacearum – Tuan Minh Tran – PLOS Pathogens

Press: An ‘arms race’ raging beneath our plants: A crop’s DNA-laden root trap manages to hold on to only a quarter of its bacterial prisoners. – Amy Middleton – Cosmos Magazine

Responsiveness of soil nitrogen fractions and bacterial communities to afforestation in the Loess Hilly Region (LHR) of China – Chengjie Ren – Scientific Reports

Spatial Shifts in Soil Microbial Activity and Degradation of Pasture Cover Caused by Prolonged Exposure to Cement Dust – Fuensanta Caravaca – Land Degradation & Development

Water and extremophile microbiome

Biogeochemical and 16S rRNA gene sequence evidence supports a novel mode of anaerobic methanotrophy in permanently ice-covered Lake Fryxell, Antarctica – Matthew A. Saxton – Limnology and Oceanography

Food microbiology

The Microbiome and Metabolites in Fermented Pu-erh Tea as Revealed by High-Throughput Sequencing and Quantitative Multiplex Metabolite Analysis – Yongjie Zhang – PLOS ONE

More microbiology

Sugar Synthesis from CO2 in Escherichia coli – Niv Antonovsky – Cell

Press: Eating air, making fuel. Scientists engineer bacteria to create sugar from the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide – Science Daily

Not a scientific paper, just a list of links: Web Alert: Synthetic microbial communities: An annotated selection of World Wide Web sites relevant to the topics in environmental microbiology – Lawrence P. Wackett – Environmental Microbiology

Techniques

High stability of faecal microbiome composition in guanidine thiocyanate solution at room temperature and robustness during colonoscopy – Yuichiro Nishimoto – Gut

Microbes in the news

New life form discovered in saliva is linked to human disease – Andy Coghlan – New Scientist

Seagulls Are Carrying a Dangerous Superbug Through the Skies – Maryn McKenna – National Geographic
Beware of Seagulls Carrying This Dangerous Superbug – Laura Lorenzetti – Fortune

Microbes In The Body Affect Success Of Organ Transplants: Study – Katrina Pascual -Tech Times

Scientists just found a compound that kills 98% of a drug-resistant bacteria – Fiona MacDonald – Science Alert

Milken Institute School of Public Health researchers awarded $7 million to study microbiome – Sera Royal – The GW Hatchet

Mycobacterium in olive oil for cancer treatment – EurekAlert

Scientists discover unsuspected bacterial link to bile duct cancer – MedicalXpress

Bik’s completely-not-microbiology Picks

The social dilemma of autonomous vehicles – Jean-François Bonnefon – Science

Award

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Today I had the honor to receive the Microbiome Pioneer Award from Ami Bhatt, Assistant Professor at the Stanford School of Medicine. I was scheduled to get the award at the Stanford Bioinformatics for the Microbiome Symposium in May, but I had to suddenly fly to Europe for a funeral, so I missed the ceremony. But today Ami and I were finally able to meet, and I got this beautiful award. Thank you Ami, for this wonderful present. And thank you, David Relman, without whose support I would not be able to run Microbiome Digest. It’s a privilege to work with these fantastic people at the Stanford School of Medicine.

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Microbes and art: Nurit Bar-Shai and Jennifer Willet

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Two recent articles with work from artists using microbes.

BioArt : Nurit Bar-Shai’s ‘Chemical Tweets’ and the Social Life of Bacteria – LaBiotech

Nurit Bar-Shai is an artist and co-founder of bio-hacking lab Genspace. She is showing how bacteria communicate and socialize – and shaping it with sound (…) The bacteria was cultured in agar, where the bacteria grows in colonies, creating beautiful and intriguing images.

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Art and natural world collide at Open Space gallery – Adrian Chamberlain – Times Colonist

And there’s the Algae Organ, a working organ equipped with an algae incubator, soon to be bicycled around the streets of Victoria. It’s all part of Natural Science, a new exhibition at Open Space gallery. Jennifer Willet, a visual arts professor at the University of Windsor, is the artist responsible for these whimsical creations. Willet specializes in bioart, art that incorporates living organisms, such as bacteria.

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June 23, 2016

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Red snow microbiomes and melting glaciers, effect of earthworms on microbes, microbiome in COPD.

Pregnancy and birth

Early Gut Microbiota Perturbations Following Intrapartum Antibiotic Prophylaxis to Prevent Group B Streptococcal Disease – Giuseppe Mazzola – PLOS ONE

Human respiratory microbiome

Editorial: Early life nasal microbiota in infants with cystic fibrosis – Fiona J Whelan – The Lancet Respiratory Medicine

Review: Understanding the role of the microbiome in COPD: Principles, Challenges and Future Directions – Yvonne J. Huang – Translational Research

Human gut microbiome

Anaerococcus rubiinfantis sp. nov., isolated from the gut microbiota of a Senegalese infant with severe acute malnutrition – Maryam Tidjani Alou – Anaerobe

Review: Understanding the mechanisms of faecal microbiota transplantation – Alexander Khoruts – Nature Reviews Gastroenterology & Hepatology

Review: Microbe-host interactions: Influence of the gut microbiota on the enteric nervous system – Niall P. Hyland – Developmental Biology

Systematic review: Probiotic supplementation can positively affect anxiety and depressive symptoms: a systematic review of randomized controlled trials – Meysam Pirbaglou – Nutrition Research

Animal experiments

Maternal gut and fetal brain connection: Increased anxiety and reduced social interactions in Wistar rat offspring following peri-conceptional antibiotic exposure – Stéphanie Degroote – Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry

A human gut ecosystem protects against C. difficile disease by targeting TcdA – Sarah Lynn Martz – Journal of Gastroenterology

Animal microbiome

Species-specific effects of earthworms on microbial communities and the fate of litter-derived carbon – Chih-Han Chang – Soil Biology and Biochemistry

Diversity of natural product biosynthetic genes in the microbiome of the deep sea sponges Inflatella pellicula, Poecillastra compressa and Stelletta normani – Alan D. Dobson – Frontiers in Microbiology

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Tree species select diverse soil fungal communities expressing different sets of lignocellulolytic enzyme-encoding genes – Florian Barbi – Soil Biology and Biochemistry

Repeated annual glyphosate applications may impair beneficial soil microorganisms in temperate grassland – M. Druille – Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment

Water and extremophile microbiome

 The biogeography of red snow microbiomes and their role in melting arctic glaciers – Stefanie Lutz – Nature Communications

Press: The Arctic’s pretty but alarming strawberry-pink snow – Ben Guarino – Washington Post
This Pink Snow Does Not Bode Well For Our Future – Maddie Stone – Gizmodo

Effects of heap-bioleaching plant on microbial community of the nearby river – Mingjiang Zhang – International Biodeterioration & Biodegradation

Molecular Characterization of Aquatic Bacterial Communities in Dinaric Range Caves – Pleše, Bruna – Water Environment Research

Air microbiome

High-throughput sequencing reveals unprecedented diversities of Aspergillus species in outdoor air – Seungeun Lee – Letters in Applied Microbiology

Food microbiology

Changes in the microbiota of lamb packaged in a vacuum and in modified atmospheres during chilled storage analysed by high-throughput sequencing – Taojun Wang – Meat Science

Microbial Diversity of Type I Sourdoughs Prepared and Back-Slopped with Wholemeal and Refined Soft (Triticum aestivum) Wheat Flours – Manuela Taccari – Journal of Food Science

Added ingredients affect the microbiota and biochemical characteristics of durum wheat type-I sourdough – Fabio Minervini – Food Microbiology

Fungal diversity and ecosystem function data from wine fermentation vats and microcosms – Primrose J. Boynton – Data in Brief

The phenotypic characterization of yeast strains to stresses inherent to wine fermentation in warm climates – M. García – Journal of Applied Microbiology

Built environment microbiology

Contamination of healthcare workers’ mobile phones by epidemic viruses – S. Pillet – Clinical Microbiology and Infection

Press: Mobile devices of healthcare workers often contaminated by viral RNA – News Medical

No access for me, but intriguing title: Show research into the human microbiome can be used to solve crimes – Kyle Nothern – Southern California Interdisciplinary Law Journal

Microbes in the news
Video: Citizen Science and Mapping the Microbiome – Eric J. Topol interviews Jessica Richman – Medscape

Mapping the subway’s microbiome. Barcelona takes part in the international research project Metasub, which aims to map the microbiome of public transit systems in 54 cities worldwide – EurekAlert

Biology professor helps author free textbook, saving students hundreds: OpenStax Microbiology – Lainie Mazzullo – Wichita State University

Science, publishing, and career

At 31, she runs one of the hottest biotech companies in the country, with Rachel Haurwitz, CEO of Caribou Biosciences – Andrew Joseph – STAT news

Stem cell scientist Paolo Macchiarini suspected of involuntary manslaughter – STAT news

June 22, 2016

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Nipple aspirate, CNS infections, fiber and food allergies, horses and honeybee bacteria, and a report from the subway citizen science project.

General human microbiome

Commentary: Lessons Learned from Probing for Impacts of Triclosan and Triclocarban on Human Microbiomes – Rolf U. Halden – mSphere

Human nipple microbiome

Characterization of the microbiome of nipple aspirate fluid of breast cancer survivors – Alfred A. Chan – Scientific Reports

Human vaginal microbiome

Impact of Probiotic SYNBIO® Administered by Vaginal Suppositories in Promoting Vaginal Health of Apparently Healthy Women – Maria Cristina Verdenelli – Current Microbiology

Human gut microbiome

Alterations of Intestinal Microbiome by Antibiotic Therapy in Hospitalized Children – Miriam R. Fernandes – Microbial Drug Resistance

Could gut microbiota serve as prognostic biomarker associated with colorectal cancer patients’ survival? A pilot study on relevant mechanism – Zhiliang Wei – Oncotarget

ASM Microbe 2016 abstract: Increased Akkermansia muciniphila and Bacteroides fragilis Group Abundance After Islamic Fasting – C. Erdogdu – ASM Microbe 2016

Press: Happy Ramadan From Your Microbiome! – Gastroenterology & Endoscopy News

Review: Inflammation and the microbiome: implications for depressive disorders – Shawn Hayley – Current Opinion in Pharmacology

Review: Role of the microbiome, probiotics, and ‘dysbiosis therapy’ in critical illness.– Wischmeyer, Paul E. – Current Opinion in Critical Care

Infection and microbiology

Next-generation sequencing in neuropathologic diagnosis of infections of the nervous system – Steven L. Salzberg – Neurology Neuroimmunology & Neuroinflammation

Press: Diagnosing brain infections using metagenomics – Julian Harris – PHG Foundation

Animal experiments

Dietary Fiber and Bacterial SCFA Enhance Oral Tolerance and Protect against Food Allergy through Diverse Cellular Pathways – Jian Tan – Cell Reports

Press: Diet high in fiber and vitamin A key to preventing allergies to peanuts and other triggers – EurekAlert

Gut microbiota translocation to the pancreatic lymph nodes triggers NOD2 activation and contributes to T1D onset – Frederico R.C. Costa – Journal of Experimental Medicine

Cutting Edge: Commensal Microbiota Has Disparate Effects on Manifestations of Polyglandular Autoimmune Inflammation – Camilla H. F. Hansen – The Journal of Immunology

Fighting Off Wound Pathogens in Horses with Honeybee Lactic Acid Bacteria – Tobias C. Olofsson – Current Microbiology

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Local diversity of heathland Cercozoa explored by in-depth sequencing – Christoffer Bugge Harder – the ISME Journal

Press: Immense species richness of bacterial-eating microorganisms discovered in soil – Phys.org

Characterization of cadmium-resistant bacteria and their potential for reducing accumulation of cadmium in rice grains – Xiaoyan Lin – Science of The Total Environment
Editorial special issue: Soil, plants and endophytes – Stéphane Compant – Plant and Soil

Water and extremophile microbiome

Diverse Sulfur Metabolisms from Two Subterranean Sulfidic Spring Systems – Karen Rossmassler – FEMS Microbiology Letters

Metabolic potential of microbial mats and microbialites: autotrophic capabilities described by an in silico stoichiometric approach from shared genomic resources – Daniel Cerqueda-García – Journal of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology

Waste and pollution microbiology

Microbial contamination along the main open wastewater and storm water channel of Hanoi, Vietnam, and potential health risks for urban farmers – Samuel Fuhrimann – Science of The Total Environment

Isolation of Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus from a tropical wastewater treatment plant and predation of mixed species biofilms assembled by the native community members – Shugeng Feng – Environmental Microbiology

Microbial forensics

Microbial forensics: next‐generation sequencing as catalyst – Irene Kuiper – EMBO Reports

Bioinformatics and metagenomics

MEGAN Community Edition – Interactive Exploration and Analysis of Large-Scale Microbiome Sequencing Data – Daniel H. Huson – PLOS Computational Biology

Phages rarely encode antibiotic resistance genes: a cautionary tale for virome analyses – François Enault – The ISME Journal

More microbiology

Rates and mechanisms of bacterial mutagenesis from maximum-depth sequencing – Justin Jee – Nature

Press: Sequencing method precise enough to reveal mechanisms by which bacteria resist antibiotics – Phys.org

Darwinolide, a New Diterpene Scaffold That Inhibits Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus Biofilm from the Antarctic Sponge Dendrilla membranosa – Jacqueline L. von Salm – Organic Letters

Press: Antibiotics from a Sponge. Could a new compound from Antarctic sea sponges be the key to breaching MRSA’s impregnable barricades? – Michael Lucibella – Antarctic Sun

Microbes in the news

MetaSUB Citizen Science Project:
With video of researchers swabbing away: Biologists Study What Kind Of Bacteria Is On New York City Subways – CBS Local
Qiagen, CosmosID Join International Urban Microbiome Project – Genome Web

New Life Found That Lives Off Electricity. Scientists have figured out how microbes can suck energy from rocks. Such life-forms might be more widespread than anyone anticipated – Emily Singer – Quanta Magazine

High-tech program on microbiome-based research launched in Qingdao – Hu Qing – China Daily

Explained: flesh eating bacteria in the Gulf of Mexico – Dylan Baddour – Houston Chronicle

Science, publishing, and career

Your Science Conference Should Have a Code of Conduct – Brett Favaro – Frontiers in Marine Science

Science in China – A special issue looks at the country’s astonishing scientific trajectory as it seeks to secure its spot among the leaders in innovation – Nature
China by the numbers. Research capacity has grown rapidly, and now quality is on the rise – Richard Van Noorden – Nature

Global Research Council: Commit to equity for women researchers – France A. Córdova – Nature

June 21, 2016

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An invertebrate gets its amino acids from microbial symbionts, microbiota and allograft rejection, high-altitude Andes lakes, and determining absolute microbiota abundances by spiking-in bacteria.

Jobs and events

Postdoctoral Researcher Microbial Ecology & Bioinformatics – NIOO-KNAW, WUR, Wageningen, The Netherlands

Report from the Microbiome R&D and Business Collaboration Forum, April 11–12, 2016, London, UK – Duc H. Le – EBioMedicine

General microbiome

Review: Diversity at low abundance: The phenomenon of the rare bacterial biosphere – M. Yu. Skopina – Microbiology

Workshop report: Culture-Independent Diagnostics for Health Security – Doggett Norman A.- Health Security

Viewpoint: Addressing Infectious Disease Challenges by Investigating Microbiomes – Emily P. Balskus – ACS Infectious Diseases

Human oral microbiome

Molecular analysis of fungal populations in patients with oral candidiasis using next-generation sequencing – Yumi Imabayashi – Scientific Reports

Human reproductive tract microbiome

Review: Chlamydia trachomatis Genital Tract Infections: When Host Immune Response and the Microbiome Collide – Noa Ziklo – Trends in Microbiology

Human gut microbiome

Review: Microbes, Immunity and Behaviour: Psychoneuroimmunology Meets the Microbiome – Timothy G Dinan – Neuropsychopharmacology

Review: Emerging roles for antigen presentation in establishing host–microbiome symbiosis – Nicholas J. Bessman – Immunological Reviews

Book Chapter: The Effect of H. pylori Infection on the Gastric Microbiota – Hyun Jin Jo – Helicobacter Pylori (Springer book)

Animal and in vitro experiments

The composition of the microbiota modulates allograft rejection – Yuk Man Lei – The Journal of Clinical Investigation

Press: Microbiota affect the rate of transplant acceptance and rejection – MedicalXpress

Maternal Metabolic Syndrome Programs Mitochondrial Dysfunction via Germline Changes across Three Generations – Jessica L. Saben – Cell Reports

Press, extrapolated conclusion: Obese Pregnant Women With Poor Diets May Worsen The Childhood Obesity Epidemic: Study – Samantha Olson – Medical Daily

Diet-dependent, microbiota-independent regulation of IL-10-producing lamina propria macrophages in the small intestine – Takanori Ochi – Scientific Reports

Characterization of Cimex lectularius (bedbug) defensin peptide and its antimicrobial activity against human skin microflora – Akanksha Kaushal – Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications

Variability of arsenic bioaccessibility and metabolism in soils by human gut microbiota using different in vitro methods combined with SHIME – Naiyi Yin – Science of The Total Environment

Transient activation of mucosal effector immune responses by resident intestinal bacteria in normal hosts is regulated by interleukin-10 signalling – Cong Wu – Immunology

Mining of hemicellulose and lignin degrading genes from differentially enriched methane producing microbial community – Prabhakar D. Pandit – Bioresource Technology

Review: Strategies to modulate the intestinal microbiota of Tilapia (Oreochromis sp.) in aquaculture: a review – Alyssa M. Haygood – Reviews in Aquaculture

Animal microbiome

Seasonality and Locality Affect the Diversity of Anopheles gambiae and Anopheles coluzzii Midgut Microbiota from Ghana – Jewelna Akorli – PLOS ONE

A Nightmare for Males? A Maternally Transmitted Male-Killing Bacterium and Strong Female Bias in a Green Lacewing Population – Masayuki Hayashi – PLOS ONE
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?

Testosterone levels are positively correlated with cloacal bacterial diversity and the relative abundance of Chlamydiae in breeding male rufous-collared sparrows
– Camilo Escallón – Functional Ecology

The dominant detritus-feeding invertebrate in arctic peat soils derives its essential amino acids from gut symbionts – Thomas Larsen – Journal of Animal Ecology

Genomic characterization of symbiotic mycoplasmas from the stomach of deep-sea isopod Bathynomus sp – Yong Wang – Environmental Microbiology

Review: Is gastrointestinal microbiota relevant for endogenous mercury methylation in terrestrial animals? – R.C. Rodríguez Martín-Doimeadios – Environmental Research

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Multi-targeted metagenetic analysis of the influence of climate and environmental parameters on soil microbial communities along an elevational gradient – Anders Lanzén – Scientific Reports

Integrated analysis of root microbiomes of soybean and wheat from agricultural fields – Nicolás Rascovan – Scientific Reports

Dark stains on rock surfaces in Driny Cave (Little Carpathian Mountains, Slovakia)
Rafał Ogórek – Extremophiles

Water and extremophile microbiome

Diversity of extremophilic bacteria in the sediment of high-altitude lakes located in the mountain desert of Ojos del Salado volcano, Dry-Andes – Júlia Margit Aszalós – Extremophiles

Microbial interactions lead to rapid micro-scale successions on model marine particles –
Manoshi S. Datta – Nature Communications

Bacteriophages in Arctic and Antarctic low-temperature systems – S. N. Filippova – Microbiology

Diversity of methanogenic archaea from the 2012 terrestrial hot spring (Valley of Geysers, Kamchatka) – A. Y. Merkel – Microbiology

Comparative analysis of prokaryotic diversity in solar salterns in eastern Anatolia (Turkey) – Seval Çınar – Extremophiles

Techniques

Adjusting microbiome profiles for differences in microbial load by spike-in bacteria – 
Frank Stämmler – Microbiome

Metagenomics and bioinformatics

Data Labours: How the Sequence Databases GenBank and EMBL-Bank Make Data – Tahani Nadima – Science as Culture

Principle, analysis, application and challenges of next-generation sequencing: a review – Khalid Raza – arXIv

Microbes in the news

Does a pipette work in space? with NASA Astronaut Dr Kate Rubins – Microbe Talk – Microbe Post

An Antarctic sponge offers new hope against deadly MRSA infection – Matt Windsor – UAB

Dental Microbes Not All in the Family. Kids often acquire cavity-causing bacteria from non-family members, researchers report at the American Society for Microbiology annual meeting – Tanya Lewis – The Scientist

Never-Before Human-Detected, Potentially Pathogenic Bacterium Found in Children With Acute Leukemia Human Microbiology Institute investigates potential role of previously unknown bacteria – PR Newswire

Geisinger’s Donna Wolk recognized for work in microbiology – Daily Item

Microbial mass extinctions were kicked off by human evolution – Andy Coghlan – New Scientist

Global Microbiome Initiative Explores Subways for Drug-Resistance Markers:
MetaSUB Consortium will collect DNA and RNA samples from high-traffic areas in subway systems, buses, and parks in 54 cities worldwide – GenEngNews