August 27, 2016

Gut microbiome in pre-Columbian mummies, spacecraft assembly cleanrooms, smokeless tobacco products, time series data, and a return of the Musical Microbes.

Human skin microbiome

Skin fungal community and its correlation with bacterial community of urban Chinese individuals – Marcus H. Y. Leung – Microbiome

Human oral microbiome

High-throughput quantitative method for assessing coaggregation among oral bacterial species – E. Levin-Sparenberg – Letters in Applied Microbiology

Human gut microbiome

Taxonomic and predicted metabolic profiles of the human gut microbiome in pre-Columbian mummies – Tasha M. Santiago-Rodriguez – FEMS Microbiology Ecology

Note: unclear definition of “redemption”; means that a medication prescription was filled. Broad-Spectrum Antibiotic Treatment and Subsequent Childhood Type 1 Diabetes: A Nationwide Danish Cohort Study – Tine D. Clausen – PLOS ONE

Animal experiments

Impact of dietary fibre:starch ratio in shaping caecal archaea revealed in rabbits – Y. Zhu – Journal of Animal Physiology and Animal Nutrition

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Endolithic microbial diversity in sandstone and granite from the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica – Stephen D. J. Archer – Polar Biology

Dry Season Constrains Bacterial Phylogenetic Diversity in a Semi-Arid Rhizosphere System – Rodrigo Gouvêa Taketani – Microbial Ecology

Review: Bacteria in decomposing wood and their interactions with wood-decay fungi – Sarah R. Johnston – FEMS Microbiology Ecology

Water microbiome

Multitaxon activity profiling reveals differential microbial response to reduced seawater pH and oil pollution – Francisco J. R. C. Coelho – Molecular Ecology

High-throughput metabarcoding of eukaryotic diversity for environmental monitoring of offshore oil-drilling activities – Anders Lanzén – Molecular Ecology

Microbial source tracking in impaired watersheds using PhyloChip and machine-learning classification – Eric A. Dubinsky – Water Research

Spacecraft microbiome

Functional metagenomics of spacecraft assembly cleanrooms: Presence of virulence factors associated with human pathogens – Mina Bashir – Frontiers in Microbiology

Tobacco microbiome

Bacterial Populations Associated with Smokeless Tobacco Products – Jing Han – Applied and Environmental Microbiology

Bacteria in smokeless tobacco products may be a health concern – American Society for Microbiology
http://www.asm.org/index.php/journal-press-releases/94525-bacteria-in-smokeless-tobacco-products-may-be-a-health-concern
Proteomics

Development of an Integrated Pipeline for Profiling Microbial Proteins from Mouse Fecal Samples by LC-MS/MS – Jing Wu – Journal of Proteome Research

Bioinformatics, metagenomics, and statistics

Modeling time-series data from microbial communities – Benjamin J Ridenhour – bioRxiv

Improving ancient DNA genome assembly – Alexander Seitz – PeerJ Preprint

More microbiology

The Musical Microbes are back! Influence of a mono-frequency sound on bacteria can be a function of the sound-level – Vijay Kothari – bioRxiv

Microbes in the news

Focus: California drought reducing beach bacteria: Reduced runoff has meant fewer health advisories, data show – Daniel Wheaton – San Diego Union Tribune
Mystery Solved: How Lyme Disease Bacteria Spread Around the Body – Rachael Rettner – LiveScience

In sub-Saharan Africa, cancer can be an infectious disease – ScienceDaily

#BacteriaHysteria: You Should Never Ask For a Slice Of Lemon In Your Drink – Alice Sholl – Yahoo

Science, publishing, and career

There Was A Huge Outpouring Of Support For This Little Girl Who Got Bullied For Loving Bugs. Let Sophia play with her bugs! – Ishmael N. Daro – BuzzFeed

August 23, 2016

The bagpipe microbiome, antibiotic disturbance and diabetes risk, tubeworm metamorphosis, and immune tolerance to intestinal bacteria.

Jobs

Assistant or Associate Professor in Immunology (Tenure Track), Division of Immunology of the Department of Microbiology & Immunobiology at Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA

Assistant/Associate/Professor of Microbiology and Infectious Disease, Lincoln Memorial University, Harrogate, TN

Respiratory microbiome

Bagpipe lung; a new type of interstitial lung disease? – Jenny King – Thorax

Human gut microbiome / bioinformatics

Bioinformatics support for the Tübiom community gut microbiome project – Sina Beier- PeerJ Preprint

Review: Eosinophils, probiotics, and the microbiome – Helene F. Rosenberg – Journal of Leukocyte Biology

Animal experiments

Antibiotic-mediated gut microbiome perturbation accelerates development of type 1 diabetes in mice – Alexandra E. Livanos – Nature Microbiology

Antibiotic Therapy During Infancy Increases Type 1 Diabetes Risk in Mice – Alison F. Takemura – The Scientist

Life Inside an Acorn: How Microclimate and Microbes Influence Nest Organization in Temnothorax Ants – Joseph Karlik – Ethology

Stepwise metamorphosis of the tubeworm Hydroides elegans is mediated by a bacterial inducer and MAPK signaling – Nicholas J. Shikuma – PNAS

Strange experimentGut microbiota can transfer fiber characteristics and lipid metabolic profiles of skeletal muscle from pigs to germ-free mice – Honglin Yan – Scientific Reports

pH drop impacts differentially skin and gut microbiota of the Amazonian fish tambaqui (Colossoma macropomum) – François-Étienne Sylvain – Scientific Reports

Immune tolerance to an intestine-adapted bacteria, Chryseobacterium sp., injected into the hemocoel of Protaetia brevitarsis seulensis – Jiae Lee – Scientific Reports

Alternative for antibiotics: Predatory bacteria are nontoxic to the rabbit ocular surface – Eric G. Romanowski – Scientific Reports

Animal microbiome

Multi-marker metabarcoding of coral skeletons reveals a rich microbiome and diverse evolutionary origins of endolithic algae – Vanessa Rossetto Marcelino – Scientific Reports

Techniques
Common methods for fecal sample storage in field studies yield consistent signatures of individual identity in microbiome sequencing data – Ran Blekhman – Scientific Reports

Microbes in the news

Why We Sit on One Type of Stool but, Ideally, Not on Another – Julie Taylor – uBiome Blog
Gene-modified soil bacteria promise eco-friendly computing. The US Navy is creating nanowires from one of the most renewable resources on the planet – Jon Fingas – EnGadget

Inaugural ACS Infectious Diseases Young Investigator Awards Winners Announced: Audrey Odom, Timothy Wencewicz, Marcos Pires – ACS Axial

Ghent scientist uses bacteria to remove methane from air – Andy Furniere – Flanders Today

Microbes are More Social Than You Think, But Not Always in a Good Way – Jeffrey Marlow – Discover

Science, publishing, and career

More Faculty Diversity, Not on Tenure Track – Colleen Flaherty – InsideHigherEd

 

the Macroscope – a Big Picture view of Planet Earth… articles, essays, and photographs by Jonathan Foley

August 19, 2016

Gingivitis and periodontitis in Malawian cohort, gut Bifidobacteria during aging, picornaviruses in rats from 2 locations.

Jobs and events

QIIME 2 workshop Nov 4-5 (just prior to SSSA meeting) in Phoenix, AZ – Greg Caporaso – Microbe.net

Three postdoctoral researchers and one Ph.D. student: role of microbes in post-fire soil organic matter dynamics – University of Wisconsin-Madison

Human oral microbiome

Distinguishing the Signals of Gingivitis and Periodontitis in Supragingival Plaque: A Cross-Sectional Cohort Study in Malawi – Liam Shaw – Applied and Environmental Microbiology

Press: Investigators chart microbial ecology of gingivitis, periodontitis – EurekAlert

Association of metabolic syndrome and chronic periodontitis in Colombians – Adriana Jaramillo – Clinical Oral Investigations

Microbial Signatures of Oral Dysbiosis, Periodontitis and Edentulism Revealed by Gene Meter Methodology – M Colby Hunter – bioRxiv

Human gut microbiome

Review: Gut Bifidobacteria Populations in Human Health and Aging – Silvia Arboleya – Frontiers in Microbiology

Review: Correlations of host genetic and gut microbiome composition – Krystyna Dabrowska – Frontiers in Microbiology

Review: Gut Microbiota: a contributing factor to obesity – Steve M. Harakeh – Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology

Animal microbiome

High diversity of picornaviruses in rats from different continents revealed by deep sequencing – Thomas Arn Hansen – Emerging Microbes & Infections

Composition of Ileal Bacterial Community in Grazing Goats Varies across Non-rumination, Transition and Rumination Stages of Life – Jinzhen Jiao – Frontiers in Microbiology

Spatial and temporal dynamics of Pacific oyster hemolymph microbiota across multiple scales – Ana Lokmer – Frontiers in Microbiology

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Unexpectedly high beta-diversity of root-associated fungal communities in the Bolivian Andes – Christopher J. Barnes – Frontiers in Microbiology

Fungal Assemblages in Different Habitats in an Erman’s Birch Forest – Teng Yang – Frontiers in Microbiology

Water microbiome

Chronic Polyaromatic Hydrocarbon (PAH) Contamination Is a Marginal Driver for Community Diversity and Prokaryotic Predicted Functioning in Coastal Sediments – Mathilde Jeanbille – Frontiers in Microbiology

Microbes in space

The theory and application of space microbiology: China’s experiences in space experiments and beyond – Changting Liu – Environmental Microbiology

Bioreactor microbiology

Colonic Transit Time Is a Driven Force of the Gut Microbiota Composition and Metabolism: In Vitro Evidence – William Tottey – Journal of Neurogastroenterology and Motility

Bioinformatics

Resolving microbial membership using Abundance and Variability In Taxonomy (‘AVIT ) – Anirikh Chakrabarti – Scientific Reports

Microbes in the news

Trillions of Tiny Dictators. Microbes have taken over our bodies and maybe even our minds. What, exactly, are they? – Emily Willingham – The Wall Street Journal
With a little help from my friends. The microbiome gets a worthy biography – The Economist
Eating Yogurt Is Not Enough: Rebalancing The Ecosystem Of ‘The Microbes Within Us’ – Terry Gross – NPR Fresh Air (Transcript of interview with Ed Yong)

Prebiotics Take Front and Center Stage on the 700 Club – PR NewsWire

Uncovering the female body’s secret protection against HIV – Heather Boerner – PBS Newshour

Scientific Studies Using Mice May Be Hard to Replicate Due to Gut Microbes – Paul Ratner – BigThink

Scientists Investigate How Multidrug-Resistant Pathogens are Brought into Hospitals – SciCasts

MSU team shows biofilm and mineral-producing bacteria have potential for plugging oil and gas leaks – Marshall Swearingen – Montana State University

Montana Officials Close Yellowstone River To Fight Fish-Killing ParasiteMontana Officials Close Yellowstone River To Fight Fish-Killing Parasite – Richard Gonzales – NPR

Science, publishing, and career

Peer Review Week September 2016 #RecognizeReview – Alice Meadows – The Scholarly Kitchen

With Kate Rubins, a former PhD student in our lab: NASA Astronauts Successfully Install New Space Station Docking Port – Samantha Mathewson – Space.com

August 18, 2016

Human gut microbiome

Aberrant IgA responses to the gut microbiota during infancy precedes asthma and allergy development – Majda Dzidic – The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology

Plasmid metagenomics reveals multiple antibiotic resistance gene classes among the gut microbiomes of hospitalised patients – Tossawan Jitwasinkul – Journal of Global Antimicrobial Resistance

Review: The Role of the Microbiome in Gastrointestinal Cancer – Lydia E. Wroblewski – Gastroenterology Clinics of North America

Animal experiments

The Spectrum and Regulatory Landscape of Intestinal Innate Lymphoid Cells Are Shaped by the Microbiome – Meital Gury-BenAri – Cell

Animal microbiome

The Gut Microbiomes of Two Pachysoma MacLeay Desert Dung Beetle Species (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Scarabaeinae) Feeding on Different Diets – Philippa Z. N. Franzini – PLOS ONE

A different gut microbial community between larvae and adults of a wild bumblebee nest (Bombus pascuorum) – Anneleen Parmentier – Insect Science

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Plant Growth Promotion and Suppression of Bacterial Leaf Blight in Rice by Inoculated Bacteria – Sumera Yasmin – PLOS One

Bioinformatics

NCBI prokaryotic genome annotation pipeline – Tatiana Tatusova – Nucleic Acids Research

More microbiology

Design, synthesis, and testing toward a 57-codon genome – Nili Ostrov – Science

Microbes in the news

New polio cases in Nigeria spur massive response – Leslie Roberts – Science

Science, publishing, and career

This woman may know a secret to saving the brain’s synapses – Emily Underwood – Science

 

August 17, 2016

Beneficial bacteria in the nose suppress pathogenic bacteria,  gut microbiome and Entamoeba histolytica infection, viromes of the Earth.

Jobs

Assistant/Associate Professor in Microbiology & Immunology, University of Illinois at Chicago – Science Careers

Internship: Coral microbiome under ocean acidification – King Abdullah University of Science and Technology – Saudi Arabia

Pregnancy and birth

Microbiota in Breast Milk of Chinese Lactating Mothers – Olga Sakwinska – PLOS ONE

Human skin microbiome

ReviewFactors shaping the composition of the cutaneous microbiota – K. Szabó – British Journal of Dermatology

Human respiratory microbiome

Staphylococcus aureus Shifts toward Commensalism in Response to Corynebacterium Species – Matthew M. Ramsey – Frontiers in Microbiology

Press: New findings detail how beneficial bacteria in the nose suppress pathogenic bacteria– Science Daily

Human gut microbiome

Disease Severity and Immune Activity Relate to Distinct Interkingdom Gut Microbiome States in Ethnically Distinct Ulcerative Colitis Patients – Jordan S. Mar – mBio

Stool microbiome reveals diverse bacterial ureases as confounders of oral urea breath testing for Helicobacter pylori and Mycobacterium tuberculosis in Bamako, Mali – Mamoudou Maiga – Journal of Breath Research

Review: Antibiotics as deep modulators of gut microbiota: between good and evil – Gianluca Ianiro – Gut

Review: The Intestinal Bacterial Microbiome and E. histolytica Infection – Stacey L. Burgess – Curr Trop Med Reports

Review: The microbiome and immune regulation after transplantation – Tabibian, James H. – Transplantation

Review: Experimental design considerations in microbiota/inflammation studies – Robert J Moore – Clin Transl Immunology

Animal experiments

Wolbachia Endosymbionts Modify Drosophila Ovary Protein Levels in a Context-Dependent Manner – Steen Christensen – Applied and Environmental Microbiology

Composition of the Cockroach Gut Microbiome in the Presence of Parasitic Nematodes – Cláudia S. L. Vicente – Microbes and Environments

Animal microbiome

Link of a ubiquitous human coronavirus to dromedary camels – Victor M. Corman – PNAS

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Changes in the composition of the RNA virome mark evolutionary transitions in green plants – Arcady Mushegian – BMC Biology

ReviewIdentifying the role of soil microbes in plant invasions – Wayne Dawson – Journal of Ecology

Water microbiome

Uncovering Earth’s virome – David Paez-Espino – Nature

Press: Unveiled: Earth’s Viral Diversity. Environmental datasets help researchers double the number of microbial phyla known to be infected by viruses.- Joint Genome Institute
Researchers complete unprecedented study of the global virome – Katherine Lindemann – Research Gate Blog

290 Metagenome-assembled Genomes from the Mediterranean Sea: Ongoing Effort to Generate Genomes from the Tara Oceans Dataset – Benjamin J Tully – bioRxiv

The Microbiome and Mental Health: Looking Back, Moving Forward with Lessons from Allergic Diseases – Alan C. Logan

Extremophile microbiome

Yeasts from macroalgae and lichens that inhabit the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica
Alysson Wagner Fernandes Duarte – Environmental Microbiology Reports

Bioinformatics and metagenomics

Comparison of bacterial genome assembly software for MinION data and their applicability to medical microbiology – Kim Judge – Microbial Genomics

Fast comparison of genomic and meta-genomic reads with alignment-free measures based on quality values – Matteo Comin – BMC Medical Genomics

Gifted microbes for genome mining and natural product discovery – Richard H. Baltz – Journal of Industrial Microbiology & Biotechnology

Microbial Ecology

Biodiversity at multiple trophic levels is needed for ecosystem multifunctionality – Santiago Soliveres – Nature

Extrapolating abundance curves has no predictive power for estimating microbial biodiversity – Amy Willis – PNAS

Synergistic elimination of bacteria by phage and the immune system – Chung Yin (Joey) Leung – bioRxiv

Microbes in the news

The Counterintuitive Way That Microbes Survive in Antarctica – And what it could mean for the search for life on other worlds – Ed Yong – The Atlantic

Human Cells Make Up Only Half Our Bodies. A New Book Explains Why – Jonathan Weiner – New York Times

Journalist Edmund Soon-Weng Yong awarded 2016 Byron H. Waksman Award for excellence in the public communication of Life Sciences – NewsWise

Mouse microbes may make scientific studies harder to replicate – Kelly Servick – Science Mag

Biome, Genome, Microbiome…Houdinisome? – Jason Tetro – Germ Guy

Tiny Stanford invention purifies water in minutes using the sun – CNET

The importance of quality pre-analytical factors and their impact on microbiome analysis – Lisa Gamwell – DNA Genotek’s Microbiome Collection and Stabilization Blog

Behind paywall: Brazilian Researchers Profile Microbiome of Rio Before, During, After Olympic Games – Genome Web
Rio 2016 organizers are confident everything is fine. I’m not reassured – Sally Jenkins – Washington Post

Science, publishing, and career

Stanford programs prepare underrepresented high schoolers for careers in science, engineering and medicine – Victoria Chesley – Stanford News

August 16, 2016

Gut microbiome and drug metabolism, bacteria and concrete, transposons in metagenomes.

Note: My lab does not longer allow me to run this blog under work hours, so I will do all my literature searches in my free time from now on. 😦 Not sure how this will affect the contents and frequency, but this is such a sad development. My sincere apologies! I will still strive to have a good representation of the new literature in the microbiome field, even it this means I will have to prepare this post at 1 AM (as I do now)

Pregnancy and birth

Review: The human gut microbiota in perinatology and neonatology – Josef Neu – Seminars in Fetal and Neonatal Medicine

Human oral microbiome

PCR-based detection of composite transposons and translocatable units from oral metagenomic DNA – Supathep Tansirichaiya – FEMS Microbiology Letters
Animal microbiome

Insights into Symbiont Population Structure among Three Vestimentiferan Tubeworm Host Species at Eastern Pacific Spreading Centers – Maëva Perez – Applied and Environmental Microbiology

Human gut microbiome

Review: Gut Microbiome Interactions with Drug Metabolism, Efficacy and Toxicity – Ian D. Wilson – Translational Research

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Methyl Mercury Formation in Hillslope Soils of Boreal Forests: The Role of Forest Harvest and Anaerobic Microbes – Rose-Marie Kronberg – Environmental Science & Technology

Divergent habitat filtering of root and soil fungal communities in temperate beech forests – Kezia Goldmann – Scientific Reports

Extremophile microbiome

First insight into microbial diversity and ion concentration in the Uyuni salt flat, Bolivia – Cesar A. Perez-Fernandez – Caribbean Journal of Science

Built environment microbiome

Analysis of bacterial communities in and on concrete – Julia A. Maresca – Materials and Structures

Metagenomics

Exploring divergent antibiotic resistance genes in ancient metagenomes and discovery of a novel beta-lactamase family – Nicolás Rascovan – Environmental Microbiology Reports

Microbes in the news

Book Review: Multitudes of Praises for Ed Yong’s “I Contain Multitudes” – Anne Estes – Mostly Microbes

The Slow Growth Movement – Or Why Microbiologists May Have Been Doing it All Wrong – Jeffrey Marlow – Discover Magazine

Discharge pipe could be source of bacteria at Oxford treatment plant – Zach Tyler – The Anniston Star

August 11, 2016

Association between gut microbiome and cardiovascular disease risk, Arctic glacial surface habitats.

Human oral microbiome

Review: Discuss the role of microorganisms in the aetiology and pathogenesis of periapical disease – Vincent Aw – Australian Endodontic Journal

Human respiratory microbiome

Environmental and mucosal microbiota and their role in childhood asthma – Lena T. Birzele – Allergy

FUT2 genotype influences lung function, exacerbation frequency and airway microbiota in non-CF bronchiectasis – Steven L Taylor – Thorax

Human vaginal microbiome

Review: Vaginal Microbiota and Lubricant Use During Labor. Implications for Nursing Research, Practice, and Policy – Katie G. McElroy – SAGE Open Nursing

Human gut microbiome

Gut Microbiome Associates With Lifetime Cardiovascular Disease Risk Profile Among Bogalusa Heart Study Participants – Tanika N Kelly – Circulation Research

Association of Intestinal Microbiota with Metabolic Markers and Dietary Habits in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes – Yamaguchi Y. – Digestion

Cardiorespiratory fitness as a predictor of intestinal microbial diversity and distinct metagenomic functions – Mehrbod Estaki – Microbiome

Bacterial invasion of the pancreas revealed after analyses of the pancreatic cyst fluids – Vilvapathy Narayanan – bioRxiv

Review: Insights into human evolution from ancient and contemporary microbiome studies – Stephanie L Schnorr – Current Opinion in Genetics & Development

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959437X1630096X

Review: An overview of the bacterial contribution to Crohn disease pathogenesis – Moftah H Alhagamhmad – Journal of Medical Microbiology

Animal experiments

Intestinal Microbial Metabolites Are Linked to Severity of Myocardial Infarction in Rats – Vy Lam – PLOS ONE

Gut Microbial Metabolites Fuel Host Antibody Responses – Myunghoo Kim – Cell Host & Microbe

Fap2 Mediates Fusobacterium nucleatum Colorectal Adenocarcinoma Enrichment by Binding to Tumor-Expressed Gal-GalNAc – Jawad Abed – Cell Host & Microbe

Editorial: When Mr. Fap Meets the Gals – Santosh K. Ghosh – Cell Host & Microbe

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Comparative metagenomic analysis reveals mechanisms for stress response in hypoliths from extreme hyperarid deserts – Phuong Thi Le – Genome Biology and Evolution

Review: Recent advances in actinorhizal symbiosis signaling – Emilie Froussart – Plant Molecular Biology

Water and extremophile microbiome

Marine and giant viruses as indicators of a marine microbial community in a riverine system – Lisa M. Dann – Microbiology Open

Linking microbial diversity and functionality of Arctic glacial surface habitats – Stefanie Lutz – Environmental Microbiology

More microbiology

Microbiology, philosophy and education – Maureen A. O’Malley – Microbiology Letters

Local adaptation of a bacterium is as important as its presence in structuring a natural microbial community – Pedro Gómez – Nature Communications

Review: Biofilms: an emergent form of bacterial life – Hans-Curt Flemming – Nature Reviews Microbiology

 

Microbes in the news

Mental Health, Free Will, and Your Microbiome – Maria Popova – BrainPickings

A grimy, black biofilm is starting to cover the Jefferson Memorial, and it can’t be killed – Michael E. Ruane – The Washington Post
NPS ready to battle grimy biofilm coating on Jefferson Memorial – Nick Iannelli – WTOP
The Jefferson Memorialome? The Jeffersonome? The Jefferson Microbiome? A biofilm by any other name … – Jonathan Eisen – MicroBEnet

Young Inventors Work On Secret Proteins To Thwart Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria – Joe Palca – NPR Shots

DRDO developing bacteria from Antarctica to aid setting up of bio-toilets in India – India TV News

How the world’s tiniest organisms explain our evolution, our health, and our eventual demise: Interview with Ed Yong about Leeuwenhoek and microbes – Julia Belluz

Could Earth Bacteria Survive on Mars? LSU MARSLIFE Researcher Noelle Bryan Recovers Bacteria from the Stratosphere – Paige Brown Jarreau – Vimeo

Microbiology: Mob rule – Adrian Woolfson examines four books on the microbiological universe that churns within us – Nature

The social network in your gut – Wudan Yan – New Yorker

Bik’s non-microbiology Picks

Exoskeletons and economics: indoor arthropod diversity increases in affluent neighbourhoods – Misha Leong – Biology Letters

Research Highlight: Insect mix high in rich areas – Nature

Ancient DNA: Muddy messages about American migration – Suzanne McGowan – Nature

Science, publishing, and career

NIH sets new postdoc stipend levels – Maggie Kuo – Science

Kudos for female Antarctic researchers: to inspire the roughly 60% of early-career polar scientists who are women – Jan Strugnell – Nature

Nominate influential female Antarctic researchers and those involved in supporting research, both past and present, to potentially be included in Wikibomb event

August 10, 2016

Maternal high-fat diet and infant gut microbiome.

Pregnancy and birth

The early infant gut microbiome varies in association with a maternal high-fat diet – Derrick M. Chu – Genome Medicine

Press: Maternal high-fat diet during pregnancy can affect baby’s gut microbesMaternal high-fat diet during pregnancy can affect baby’s gut microbes – Dipali Pathak – Baylor College of Medicine

Human gut microbiome

Review: Microbiota and Neurological Disorders: A Gut Feeling – Walter H Moos – BioResearch Open Access

Press: How do the bugs in your gut affect neurodegenerative and psychiatric diseases? – EurekAlert

Animal experiments

Midgut microbiota and host immunocompetence underlie Bacillus thuringiensis killing mechanism – Silvia Caccia – PNAS

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Yeast Biodiversity in Vineyard Environments Is Increased by Human Intervention –
João Drumonde-Neves – PLOS ONE

Microbes in the news

NIH grants $1.8 million for gut microbiome research in obesity, metabolic syndrome – Healio

How The Microbes Inside Us Went From Enemies To Purported Superhealers – Carolyn Beans – NPR

The poop scientist of Japan – and his dream toilet – Sanjena Sathian – Ozy

Gut Bacteria Mind Their Own Clock, Respond to Melatonin – Clinical Oncology

New model sheds light on secondary bacterial pneumonia – EurekAlert

Science, publishing, and career

Analysis of National Institutes of Health R01 Application Critiques, Impact, and Criteria Scores: Does the Sex of the Principal Investigator Make a Difference? – Anna Kaatz – Academic Medicine

The Government is Shortchanging Our Best Lady Scientists – Madison Pauly – Mother Jones

August 9, 2016

Climate change and increasing Vibrio species in North Atlantic, microbiome of the aging mouth, Antarctic soil around Little Auk colony.

Events

5th Exploring Human Host-Microbiome Interactions in Health and Disease – Welcome Genome Campus, Cambridge, UK, 7-9 September 2016

4th World Congress on Targeting Microbiota – Institut Pasteur, France, October 17-19, 2016

Hot topics in microbiology: Campden BRI conference – Campden BRI, Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire, UK, October 13-14

Today & tomorrow – live webcast – Standards for Microbiome Measurements @NIST – Jonathan Eisen – MicroBEnet

General microbiome

Note: includes 16S rRNA gene studies as well, so not metagenomic sensu stricto: An overview of major metagenomic studies on human microbiomes in health and disease – Hongfei Cui – Quantitative Biology

Brazil: A Step Forward to Empower Global Microbiome Research Through Local Leadership – Victor S. Pylro – Trends in Microbiology

Human oral microbiome

Distinct interacting core taxa in co-occurrence networks enable discrimination of polymicrobial oral diseases with similar symptoms – Takahiko Shiba – Scientific Reports

Oral microbial community typing of caries and pigment in primary dentition – Yanhui Li – BMC Genomics

Review: The subgingival periodontal microbiota of the aging mouth – Magda Feres – Periodonotology 2000

Human respiratory microbiome

Review: The microbiome in chronic inflammatory airway disease: A threatened species – Robin John Green – The South African Medical Journal

Review: Lung microbiome in human immunodeficiency virus infection – Homer L. Twigg IIIa – Translational Research

Human vaginal microbiome

Evaluation of the vaginal flora in pregnant women receiving opioid maintenance therapy: a matched case-control study – Alex Farr – BMC Pregnancy Childbirth

Human gut microbiome

Microbial Factors Associated with Postoperative Crohn’s Disease Recurrence – Emily K. Wright – Journal of Crohn’s and Colitis

The mucosal microbiota in a young child with severe non-Helicobacter gastritis – Geoffrey A. Preidis – Therapeutic Advances in Gastroenterology

Profile of Gut Microbiota Associated With the Presence of Hepatocellular Cancer in Patients With Liver Cirrhosis – M. Grąt – Transplantation Proceedings

Comparison of the gut microbial community between obese and lean peoples using 16S gene sequencing in a Japanese population – Akira Andoh – Journal of Clinical Biochemistry and Nutrition

Book Chapter: The Second Brain and Possible Interactions with the Heart – Rosa Sollazzo – Psychotherapy for Ischemic Heart Disease

Infection microbiology

Comparison of methods for the identification of microorganisms isolated from blood cultures – Aydir Cecília Marinho Monteiro – Annals of Clinical Microbiology and Antimicrobials

Animal experiments

Disturbance in the Mucosa-Associated Commensal Bacteria Is Associated with the Exacerbation of Chronic Colitis by Repeated Psychological Stress; Is That the New Target of Probiotics? – Sohei Arase – PLOS ONE

Role of the Gut Microbiome in Modulating Arthritis Progression in Mice – Xiaofei Liu – Scientific Reports

Salmonella Typhimurium utilizes a T6SS-mediated antibacterial weapon to establish in the host gut – Thibault G. Sana – PNAS

Animal microbiome

Does adaptive radiation of a host lineage promote ecological diversity of its bacterial communities? A test using gut microbiota of Anolis lizards – Tiantian Ren – Molecular Ecology

The gut microbiota of the pine weevil is similar across Europe and resembles that of other conifer-feeding beetles – Aileen Berasategui – Molecular Ecology

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

The Arctic soil bacterial communities in the vicinity of a little auk colony – Sylwia Zielinska – Frontiers in Microbiology

Soil Fungal:Bacterial Ratios Are Linked to Altered Carbon Cycling – Ashish A. Malik – Frontiers in Microbiology

Ancient landscapes and the relationship with microbial nitrification – Sasha N. Jenkins – Scientific Reports

Long-term antibiotic exposure in soil is associated with changes in microbial community structure and prevalence of class 1 integrons – David W. Cleary – FEMS Microbiology Ecology

Are Epiphytic Microbial Communities in the Carposphere of Ripening Grape Clusters (Vitis vinifera L.) Different between Conventional, Organic, and Biodynamic Grapes? – Elizabeth Kecskeméti – PLOS ONE

Bacterial communities in Antarctic lichens – Chae Haeng Park – Antarctic Science

Water and extremophile microbiome

Climate influence on Vibrio and associated human diseases during the past half-century in the coastal North Atlantic – Luigi Vezzulli – PNAS

Press: We’re trashing the oceans — and they’re returning the favor by making us sick – Chris Mooney – The Washington Post
Deadly Bacteria Spread across Oceans as Water Temperatures Rise. Cholera bacteria and others arise in more places and in greater abundance – Umair Irfan – Scientific American
Warming seas linked to rise in cholera bacteria in Europe and US – Brian Owens – New Scientist

Microbial community structure in hypolentic zones of a brine lake in a desert plateau, China – Wenzhen Yuan – Environmental Earth Sciences

Microbial diversity in sediment ecosystems (evaporites domes, microbial mats and crusts) of hypersaline Laguna Tebenquiche, Salar de Atacama, Chile – Ana B. Fernandez – Frontiers in Microbiology

Bioreactor microbiome

The full-scale anaerobic digestion microbiome is represented by specific marker populations – Jo De Vrieze – Water Research

Viruses and phages

Challenges in the analysis of viral metagenomes – Rebecca Rose – Virus Evolution

Metagenomics and bioinformatics

Bipartite graph analyses reveal inter-domain LGT involving ultrasmall prokaryotes and their divergent, membrane-related proteins – Alexander L. Jaffe – Environmental Microbiology

FARAO – The Flexible All-Round Annotation Organizer – Rickard Hammarén – Bioinformatics

Identifying wrong assemblies in de novo short read primary sequence assembly contigs – Vandna Chawla – Journal of Biosciences

A Bayesian Framework for the Classification of Microbial Gene Activity States – Craig Disselkoen – Frontiers in Microbiology

Techniques

Evaluation of 16S rRNA gene primer pairs for monitoring microbial community structures showed high reproducibility within and low comparability between datasets generated with multiple archaeal and bacterial primer pairs – Martin A. Fischer – Frontiers in Microbiology

More microbiology

Editorial: New insights into microbial ecology through subtle nucleotide variation – A M. Eren – Frontiers in Microbiology

Neisseria meningitides Can Survive in Corpses for At Least Eleven Days – Antonio Osculati – Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology

Microbes in the news

List of papers about bias in microbiome techniques: The unbearable madness of microbiome – Mick Watson – Opiniomics

Book Review: Follow your gut – The Enormous Impact of Tiny Microbes – Daniel K. Morais – Frontiers in Microbiology

Brito went to Fiji to study mobile genes in human microbiome – Tom Fleischman – Cornell Chronicle

MSU graduate awarded NSF fellowship to study disease affecting world’s citrus crops – Denise Hoepfner – Montana State University

Bacteria Could Aid Search for Creatures On Other Planets – Elizabeth Howell – Astrobiology Magazine

U.Va. scientists make important discovery about dangerous bacteria strains
Researchers pinpoint mechanisms of C. difficile strains – Daisy Xu – Cavalier Daily

Did farming practices in China create an antibiotic resistant bacteria that’s spreading around the world? – Alanna Shaikh – United Nations Dispatch

Science, publishing, and career

Dog eat dog: is a troubled expedition to Kenya causing the Smithsonian to devour its young?
A star scientist stands accused of misconduct, but colleagues say he’s being railroaded
– Michael Balter – The Verge

A “Scientific Diversity” Intervention to Reduce Gender Bias in a Sample of Life Scientists – Corinne A. Moss-Racusin – CBE Life Sciences Education

Bik’s non-microbiology Picks

Innate Immunity and Asthma Risk in Amish and Hutterite Farm Children – Michelle M. Stein – New England Journal of Medicine

August 5, 2016

Urinary tract microbiome, preterm gut microbiota and humanized mice, fungi of Crocus (Saffron plant), and bead-beating artefacts.

General microbiome

Introduction to special issue of Molecular MetabolismMicrobiota: ‘bugging’ insights into metabolic regulation – Thomas Schwarz-Romond – Molecular Metabolism

Human oral microbiome

Transcriptome Analysis of B Cell Immune Functions in Periodontitis: Mucosal Tissue Responses to the Oral Microbiome in Aging – Jeffrey L. Ebersole – Frontiers in Immunology

Human respiratory microbiome

Randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial with azithromycin selects for anti-inflammatory microbial metabolites in the emphysematous lung – Leopoldo N Segal – Thorax

Review: Microbiome in the pathogenesis of cystic fibrosis and lung transplant-related disease – Sushma K. Cribbs – Translational Research

Human urinary tract microbiome

Evaluation of the Urinary Microbiota of Women With Uncomplicated Stress Urinary Incontinence – Krystal J. Thomas-White – American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology

Human gut microbiome

Review: Microbiota as Mediator of Cancer Progression and Therapy – Jilian L. Pope – Translational Research

Review: The human microbiome in rheumatic autoimmune diseases: A comprehensive review – Patrick Coit – Clinical Immunology

Review: Human gut microbiota plays a role in the metabolism of drugs – Lenka Jourova – Biomed Pap Med Fac Univ Palacky Olomouc Czech Repub

Animal experiments

Preterm infant gut microbiota affects intestinal epithelial development in a humanized gnotobiotic mouse model – Yueyue Yu – American Journal of Physiology – Gastrointestinal and Liver Physiology

Symbiotic gut commensal bacteria act as host cathepsin S activity regulators – Alex Steimle – Journal of Autoimmunity

Research Highlight (but very harsh title): Gut microbiota: Microbiota and behaviour: visiting the sins of the mother – Paul Forsythe – Nature Reviews Gastroenterology & Hepatology

Animal microbiome

A high-resolution map of the gut microbiota in Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar): A basis for comparative gut microbial research – Karina Gajardo – Scientific Reports

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Molecular phylogeny, diversity, community structure and plant growth promoting properties of fungal endophytes associated with the corms of Saffron plant: an insight into the microbiome of Crocus sativus Linn – Zahoor Ahmed Wani – Fungal Biology

Leaf Treatments with a Protein-Based Resistance Inducer Partially Modify Phyllosphere Microbial Communities of Grapevine – Martina Cappelletti – Frontiers in Plant Science

The Resilience of Microbial Community under Drying and Rewetting Cycles of Three Forest Soils – Xue Zhou – Frontiers in Microbiology

Fungus-associated bacteriome in charge of their host behavior – Kristin Schulz-Bohm – Fungal Genetics and Biology

Microbiota Characterization of Compost Using Omics Approaches Opens New Perspectives for Phytophthora Root Rot Control – Josefa Blaya – PLOS ONE

Water and extremophile microbiome

Microbes on a Bottle: Substrate, Season and Geography Influence Community Composition of Microbes Colonizing Marine Plastic Debris Microbes on a Bottle: Substrate, Season and Geography Influence Community Composition of Microbes Colonizing Marine Plastic Debris – Sonja Oberbeckmann – PLOS ONE

Microbial Community Responses to Increased Water and Organic Matter in the Arid Soils of the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica – Heather N. Buelow – Frontiers in Microbiology

Microbial community structure shifts are associated with temperature, dispersants and nutrients in crude oil-contaminated seawaters – Long Meng – Marine Pollution Bulletin

Bioinformatics and metagenomics

Rapid resistome mapping using nanopore sequencing – Eric van der Helm – bioRxiv

Metabolomics

Metabolomics evaluation of the impact of smokeless tobacco exposure on the oral bacterium Capnocytophaga sputigena – Jinchun Sun – Toxicology in Vitro

Training in metabolomics research. II. Processing and statistical analysis of metabolomics data, metabolite identification, pathway analysis, applications of metabolomics and its future – S. Barnes – Journal of Mass Spectrometry

Techniques

Bead-beating artefacts in the Bacteroidetes to Firmicutes ratio of the human stool metagenome – Heidi C. Vebø – Journal of Microbiological Methods

Pipeline for amplifying and analyzing amplicons of the V1–V3 region of the 16S rRNA gene – Heather K. Allen – BMC Research Notes

A Single-Batch Fermentation System to Simulate Human Colonic Microbiota for High-Throughput Evaluation of Prebiotics – Risa Takagi – PLOS ONE

More microbiology

Metabolic engineering of microbial competitive advantage for industrial fermentation processes – A. Joe Shaw – Science

Microbes in the news

AGA establishes NIH-funded registry to track fecal microbiota transplants – EurekAlert

Maternal microbial inheritance—benefits of breastfeeding – Md Zohorul Islam

ASM Agar Art Calendar 2016/2017

Science, publishing, and career

What Is the Key Best Practice for Collaborating with a Computational Biologist? – Cell Systems

University of Waterloo boosts salaries of female faculty after discrepancy found – Paola Loriggio – CP24

Bik’s Non-Microbiology Picks

Circadian regulation of sunflower heliotropism, floral orientation, and pollinator visits – Hagop S. Atamian – Science
How do sunflowers follow the Sun—and to what end? – Winslow R. Briggs – Science