Author Archives: Feargal

February 24, 2023

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Human and General Microbiome

Review: Gut microbiome lipid metabolism and its impact on host physiology – Brown et al. Cell Host & Microbe

Review: Modelling human immune responses using microbial exposures in rodents – Li and Baldridge. Nature Microbiology

Gut commensal Parabacteroides distasonis alleviates inflammatory arthritis – Sun et al. Gut

An open label, non-randomized study assessing a prebiotic fiber intervention in a small cohort of Parkinson’s disease participants – Hall et al. Nature Communications

Antibiotic use and inflammatory bowel disease: number needed to harm? – Ludvigsson. Gut

Oral & Respiratory Microbiome

Oral mucosal breaks trigger anti-citrullinated bacterial and human protein antibody responses in rheumatoid arthritis – Brewer et al. Science Translational Medicine

Sputum bacterial load and bacterial composition correlate with lung function and are altered by long-term azithromycin treatment in children with HIV-associated chronic lung disease – Abotsi et al. Microbiome

Animal experiments

Genetic mapping of microbial and host traits reveals production of immunomodulatory lipids by Akkermansia muciniphila in the murine gut – Zhang et al. Nature Microbiology

Microbe-mediated intestinal NOD2 stimulation improves linear growth of undernourished infant mice – Schwarzer et al. Science

Gamma-delta T cells modulate the microbiota and fecal micro-RNAs to maintain mucosal tolerance – Rezende et al. Microbiome

Phages and viruses

Review: Bacteriophage discovery to advance biotechnology and biotherapeutics – Mu and Lawley Nature Reviews Microbiology

Bioinformatics

Impact of microbial genome completeness on metagenomic functional inference – Eisenhofer et al. ISME

Pharokka: a fast scalable bacteriophage annotation tool – Bouras et al. Bioinformatics

Non Microbiome Picks

A systems immunology study comparing innate and adaptive immune responses in adults to COVID-19 mRNA and adenovirus vectored vaccines – Ryan et al. Cell Reports Medicine

Influenza-trained mucosal-resident alveolar macrophages confer long-term antitumor immunity in the lungs – Wang et al. Nature Immunology

January 27, 2023

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General Microbiome

Questioning the fetal microbiome illustrates pitfalls of low-biomass microbial studies – Kennedy et al. Nature

Microbial foods for improving human and planetary health – Jahn et al. Cell

A tissue atlas of ulcerative colitis revealing evidence of sex-dependent differences in disease-driving inflammatory cell types and resistance to TNF inhibitor therapy – Mayer et al. Science Advances

Associations of the skin, oral and gut microbiome with aging, frailty and infection risk reservoirs in older adults – Larson et al. Nature Aging

Bacteriophage / Virome

Phage therapy: From biological mechanisms to future directions – Strathdee et al. Cell

Mining metatranscriptomes reveals a vast world of viroid-like circular RNAs – Lee et al. Cell

Water and extremophile microbiome

High-resolution metagenomic reconstruction of the freshwater spring bloom – Kavagutti et al. Microbiome

Closed genomes uncover a saltwater species of Candidatus Electronema and shed new light on the boundary between marine and freshwater cable bacteria – Sereika et al. ISME

Bioinformatics

Enhanced correlation-based linking of biosynthetic gene clusters to their metabolic products through chemical class matching – Louwen et al. Microbiome

PLSDA-batch: a multivariate framework to correct for batch effects in microbiome data – Wang & Cao. Briefings in Bioinformatics

Genome-scale metabolic reconstruction of 7,302 human microorganisms for personalized medicine – Heinken et al. Nature Biotechnology

Non-Microbiome picks

Infection infidelities drive innate immunity – Kagan. Science

Functional T cells are capable of supernumerary cell division and longevity – Soerens et al. Nature

Genetic adaptation to pathogens and increased risk of inflammatory disorders in post-Neolithic Europe – Kerner et al. Cell Genomics

July 8, 2022

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A selection of some great microbiome research and I’ve highlighted some resources for spatial transcriptomics for my non-microbiome picks.

General microbiome

Host control and the evolution of cooperation in host microbiomes – Sharp & Foster. Nature Communications

Effect of Helicobacter pylori Eradication on Gastric Cancer Prevention: Updated Report From a Randomized Controlled Trial With 26.5 Years of Follow-up – Yan et al. Gastroenterology

Gut microbiome

Antibiotic exposure prevents acquisition of beneficial metabolic functions in the preterm infant gut microbiome – Xu et al. Microbiome

Long-Term Effects of Developmental Exposure to Oxycodone on Gut Microbiota and Relationship to Adult Behaviors and Metabolism – Lyu et al. mSystems

Biogeographic variation and functional pathways of the gut microbiota in celiac disease – Constante et al. Gastroenterology.

Animal experiments

Akkermansia muciniphila prevents cold-related atrial fibrillation in rats by modulation of TMAO induced cardiac pyroptosis – Luo et al. eBioMedicine

Diet and feeding pattern modulate diurnal dynamics of the ileal microbiome and transcriptome – Machado et al. Cell Reports.

Virome

Gut virome profiling identifies a widespread bacteriophage family associated with metabolic syndrome – Jonge et al. Nature Communications

Respiratory microbiome

Host lung microbiota promotes malaria-associated acute respiratory distress syndrome – Mukherjee et al. Nature Communications

Bioinformatics

Super-taxon in human microbiome are identified to be associated with colorectal cancer – Dai et al. BMC Bioinformatics

Non-microbiome picks

As spatial transcriptomics grows in popularity you might be interested in some recent reviews & examples of the technology in use

An introduction to spatial transcriptomics for biomedical research – Williams et al. Genome Medicine

Deciphering tissue structure and function using spatial transcriptomics – Walker et al. Communications biology

Method of the Year: spatially resolved transcriptomics – Marx. Nature Methods

Spatiotemporal transcriptomic atlas of mouse organogenesis using DNA nanoball-patterned arrays – Chen et al. Cell (The recent famous Cell cover using Stereo-Seq)

Museum of spatial transcriptomics – Moses & Pachter. Nature Methods

June 24, 2022

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Today we have a report in Science on bacterium which is 1cm long, a great review of the gut virome in human health, and a meta-analysis of mycobiota signatures in colorectcal cancer among some other great papers.

General microbiology

A centimeter-long bacterium with DNA contained in metabolically active, membrane-bound organelles – Volland et al. – Science

Virome

Filamentous bacteriophage delays healing of Pseudomonas-infected wounds – Bach et al. – Cell Reports Medicine

[REVIEW] The gut virome: A new microbiome component in health and disease – Cao et al. – eBioMedicine

Gut Microbiome

Presence of Blastocystis in gut microbiota is associated with cognitive traits and decreased executive function – Mayneris-Perxachs et al. – ISME

Altered mycobiota signatures and enriched pathogenic Aspergillus rambellii are associated with colorectal cancer based on multi-cohort fecal metagenomic analyses – Lin et al. – Gastroenterology

[REVIEW] Small molecules in the big picture of gut microbiome-host cross-talk – Ma et al. – eBioMedicine

Maternal gut microbiome–induced IgG regulates neonatal gut microbiome and immunity – Sanidad et al. – Science Immunology

Non-Microbiome picks

Time for better time-restricted eating trials to lessen the burden of metabolic diseases – Taub and Panda – Cell Reports Medicine

What SARS-CoV-2 does to our brains – Aschman et al. – Immunity

June 10, 2022

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Several great microbiome papers out today including a review on rethinking healthy eating in Cell Host & Microbe, a large population study on the development of the infant gut microbiome (n=1900) in Science, and two studies showcasing metabolomics predictive value for recurrent CDI and NAFLD.  

Gut Microbiome

[REVIEW] Rethinking healthy eating in light of the gut microbiome – Armet et al. Cell Host & Microbe.

Gut metabolites predict Clostridioides difficile recurrence – Dawkins et al. Microbiome

Robust variation in infant gut microbiome assembly across a spectrum of lifestyles – Olm et al. Science

Risk assessment with gut microbiome and metabolite markers in NAFLD development. Leung et al. Science Translational Medicine.

Profiling Fusobacterium infection at high taxonomic resolution reveals lineage-specific correlations in colorectal cancer – Bi et al. Nature Communications

Impact of a 7-day homogeneous diet on interpersonal variation in human gut microbiomes and metabolomes – Guthrie et al. Cell Host & Microbe

Animal experiments

Nisin probiotic prevents inflammatory bone loss while promoting reparative proliferation and a healthy microbiome – Gao et al. npj Biofilms & Microbiomes

Donor-dependent fecal microbiota transplantation efficacy against necrotizing enterocolitis in preterm pigs – Hui et al. npj Biofilms & Microbiomes

Virome

A catalog of 48,425 nonredundant viruses from oral metagenomes expands the horizon of the human oral virome – Li et al. iScience

Bioinformatics

Phylogeny-guided microbiome OTU-specific association test (POST) – Huang et al. Microbiome

May 3, 2022

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General microbiome

Longitudinal multi-omics analyses link gut microbiome dysbiosis with recurrent urinary tract infections in women – Worby et al. Nature Microbiology. 2022

Human gut microbiome

Unfavourable intrauterine environment contributes to abnormal gut microbiome and metabolome in twins – Yang et al. Gut

Dosing a synbiotic of human milk oligosaccharides and B. infantis leads to reversible engraftment in healthy adult microbiomes without antibiotics – Button et al. Cell Host & Microbe

Gut microbial similarity in twins is driven by shared environment and aging – Vilchez-Vargas et al. eBioMedicine

Gut Microbiome Alterations Associated with Diabetes in Mexican Americans in South Texas. Kwan et al. mSystems

Human respiratory & oral microbiome

Metagenomic sequencing reveals time, host, and body compartment-specific viral dynamics after lung transplantation – Widder et al. Microbiome

Polymicrobial Interactions of Oral Microbiota: a Historical Review and Current Perspective – Zhang et al. mBio

Animal experiments

Effects of ‘Healthy’ Fecal Microbiota Transplantation against the Deterioration of Depression in Fawn-Hooded Rats – Hu et al. mSystems

Water/Extremophile microbiome

Metagenome-assembled genomes of phytoplankton microbiomes from the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans – Duncan et al. Microbiome

Bioinformatics

Compositionally Aware Phylogenetic Beta-Diversity Measures Better Resolve Microbiomes Associated with Phenotype – Martino et al. mSystems

BiomeHorizon: Visualizing Microbiome Time Series Data in R – Fink et al. mSystems

Comparative Analysis and Data Provenance for 1,113 Bacterial Genome Assemblies. Yarmosh et al. mSphere

Non microbiome picks

Ancestry-inclusive dog genomics challenges popular breed stereotypes – Morrill et al. Science. 

Dietary fibre in hypertension and cardiovascular disease management: systematic review and meta-analyses – Reynolds et al. BMC Medicine

March 25, 2022

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Human gut microbiome

In Vitro and In Silico Based Approaches to Identify Potential Novel Bacteriocins from the Athlete Gut Microbiome of an Elite Athlete Cohort – Wosinska et al. Microorganisms

Cancer pharmacomicrobiomics: targeting microbiota to optimise cancer therapy outcomes – Ting et al. Gut

Human respiratory microbiome

Inhibition of lung microbiota-derived proapoptotic peptides ameliorates acute exacerbation of pulmonary fibrosis – D’Alessandro-Gabazza et al. Nature Communications

Probiotics

Gut microbiota and fermentation-derived branched chain hydroxy acids mediate health benefits of yogurt consumption in obese mice – Daniel et al. Nature Communications

Animal experiments

Gut microbiota determines the social behavior of mice and induces metabolic and inflammatory changes in their adipose tissue – Agranyoni et al. npj biofilms and microbiomes

The microbiota restrains neurodegenerative microglia in a model of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis – Cox et al. Microbiome

Water & Extremophile microbiome

Spatial organization of the kelp microbiome at micron scales – Ramirez-Puebla et al. Microbiome

Metagenomics reveals global-scale contrasts in nitrogen cycling and cyanobacterial light-harvesting mechanisms in glacier cryoconite – Murakami et al. Microbiome.

Virome

Phages and their satellites encode hotspots of antiviral systems – Rousset et al. Cell Host & Microbe

Fungi

Fungal sensing enhances neutrophil metabolic fitness by regulating antifungal Glut1 activity – Li et al. Cell Host & Microbe

The primate gut mycobiome-bacteriome interface is impacted by environmental and subsistence factors – Sharma et al. npj Biofilms and microbiomes

Bioinformatics

Swapping Metagenomics Preprocessing Pipeline Components Offers Speed and Sensitivity Increases – Armstrong et al. mSystems

February 21, 2022

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Today’s digest features two excellent metagenome – metabolome association studies in Nature Medicine and a great article in Genome Biology showing that the sustained software development is what you should look for in a bioinformatic software, not what journal it was published in.

Human gut microbiome

Metabolomic and microbiome profiling reveals personalized risk factors for coronary artery disease – Talmor-Barkan et al. Nature Medicine. 

Microbiome and metabolome features of the cardiometabolic disease spectrum – Fromentin et al. Nature Medicine

Gut metagenome associations with extensive digital health data in a volunteer-based Estonian microbiome cohort – Aasmets et al. Nature Communications

Animal Microbiome

Drivers of gut microbiome variation within and between groups of a wild Malagasy primate – Rudolph et al. Microbiome

Integrated meta-omics reveals new ruminal microbial features associated with feed efficiency in dairy cattle – Xue et al. Microbiome

The gut microbiome and antibiotic resistome of chronic diarrhea rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) and its similarity to the human gut microbiome – Yang et al Microbiome

Virome

Independent host- and bacterium-based determinants protect a model symbiosis from phage predation – Lynch et al. Cell Reports

Virome characterization of game animals in China reveals a spectrum of emerging pathogens – He et al. Cell

Water and extremophile microbiome

Microeukaryotic gut parasites in wastewater treatment plants: diversity, activity, and removal – Freudenthal et al. Microbiome

Bioinformatics

METABOLIC: high-throughput profiling of microbial genomes for functional traits, metabolism, biogeochemistry, and community-scale functional networks – Zhou et al. Microbiome

Sustained software development, not number of citations or journal choice, is indicative of accurate bioinformatic software – Gardner et al. Genome Biology

Non-Microbiome picks

If you’ve listened to The Dropout podcast you might like this editorial.  

The post-Theranos world – Nature Biotechnology. 

February 2, 2022

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General microbiome

Genomic structure predicts metabolite dynamics in microbial communities – Gowda et al. – Cell 

Inhalable antibiotic resistomes emitted from hospitals: metagenomic insights into bacterial hosts, clinical relevance, and environmental risks – Wu et al. – Microbiome

Long-read metagenomic sequencing reveals shifts in associations of antibiotic resistance genes with mobile genetic elements from sewage to activated sludge – Dai et al. – Microbiome

Understanding microbiome alterations in autism – Nature Medicine

Human gut microbiome

3β-Hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase expressed by gut microbes degrades testosterone and is linked to depression in males – Li et al. – Cell Host & Microbe

Pregnancy and early life

Early-life viral infections are associated with disadvantageous immune and microbiota profiles and recurrent respiratory infections – Piters et al. – Nature Microbiology

Meconium Microbiome of Very Preterm Infants across Germany – Klopp et al. – mSphere

Water and extremophile microbiome

Comparative metabolomic analysis reveals shared and unique chemical interactions in sponge holobionts – Zhang et al. – Microbiome

A multi-omics approach unravels metagenomic and metabolic alterations of a probiotic and synbiotic additive in rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) – Rasmussen et al. – Microbiome

Bioinformatics

MUON: multimodal omics analysis framework – Bredikhin et al. – Genome Biology

Non Microbiome Picks

A Toast to All the Rejects – The Atlantic. An insightful article on celebrating your rejections in academia. 

January 18, 2022

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Today’s digest contains interesting gut-brain axis articles, developments in bioinformatic multi-omic analyses, and some recent developments in long COVID research highlighted under non microbiome picks below. 

General microbiome

Substantial overlap between symptomatic and asymptomatic genitourinary microbiota states – Adu oppong et al. – Microbiome 

Human gut microbiome

Gut Ruminococcaceae levels at baseline correlate with risk of antibiotic-associated diarrhea – Gu et al. – iScience

Home or hospital birth: the neonatal microbiota perspective – Stojanov et al. – The Lancet Microbe

A pilot exploration of multi-omics research of gut microbiome in major depressive disorders – Zhao et al – Translational Psychiatry

Post-ischemic protein restriction induces sustained neuroprotection, neurological recovery, brain remodeling, and gut microbiota rebalancing – de Carvalho et al. – Brain Behavior and Immunity

Bifidobacterium breve CCFM1025 attenuates major depression disorder via regulating gut microbiome and tryptophan metabolism: A randomized clinical trial – Tian et al.  – Brain Behavior and Immunity

Gestational insulin resistance is mediated by the gut microbiome-indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase axis – Priyadarshini et al. – Gastroenterology

A natural polyphenol exerts antitumor activity and circumvents anti-PD-1 resistance through effects on the gut microbiota – Messaoudene et al. – Cancer Discovery

Virome

[Research Highlight] Virome holds back a vaccine – York – Nature Reviews Microbiology

Plant & Soil microbiome

Genome-Resolved Metagenomics Reveals Distinct Phosphorus Acquisition Strategies between Soil Microbiomes – Wu et al. – mSystems

Bioinformatics

M&Ms: a versatile software for building microbial mock communities – García-García et al. – Bioinformatics

GraphOmics: an interactive platform to explore and integrate multi-omics data – Wandy & Daly – BMC Bioinformatics

Aristotle: stratified causal discovery for omics data – Mansouri et al.  – BMC Bioinformatics

Non Microbiome Picks

The last few weeks has seen several big studies of ‘long COVID’ published, as well as a letter in The Guardian, which I wanted to highlight

Immunological dysfunction persists for 8 months following initial mild-to-moderate SARS-CoV-2 infection – Phetsouphanh et al. – Nature Immunology

Long-term perturbation of the peripheral immune system months after SARS-CoV-2 infection – Ryan et al. BMC Medicine

Post-acute neurological consequences of COVID-19: an unequal burden – Nolen et al. – Nature Medicine 

Long COVID in children – Gurdasani et al. – The Lancet Child Adolescent Health
I’m leading a long Covid trial – it’s clear Britain has underestimated its impact – Amitava Banerjee – The Guardian