October 15, 2015

Upcoming Reddit AMA with Jessica Richman, oral microbiome transplants, meta-analysis of the indoor environment, African gut microbiota, corals, lichens, and more.

Events

Ask Me Anything (AMA) with Jessica Richman from uBiome on Reddit. October 16 from 10-11am PT

Human oral microbiome

Towards microbiome transplant as a therapy for periodontitis: an exploratory study of periodontitis microbial signature contrasted by oral health, caries and edentulism – Alex E. Pozhitkov – BMC Oral Health

Human gut microbiome

Inflammation, Antibiotics, and Diet as Environmental Stressors of the Gut Microbiome in Pediatric Crohn’s Disease – James D. Lewis – Cell Host & Microbe

Variation in rural African gut microbiota is strongly correlated with colonization by Entamoeba and subsistence – Elise R Morton – BioRxiv

The Gut Microbiome Contributes to a Substantial Proportion of the Variation in Blood Lipids – Jingyuan Fu – Circulation Research

Animal models

Analysis of Bacterial Communities during Clostridium difficile Infection in the Mouse – Ekaterina G. Semenyuk – Infection and Immunity

Structural & Functional Consequences of Chronic Psychosocial Stress on the Microbiome & Host – Aadil Bharwani – Psychoneuroendocrinology

Animal microbiome

Pyrosequencing of the bacteria associated with Platygyra carnosus corals with skeletal growth anomalies reveals differences in bacterial community composition in apparently healthy and diseased tissues – Jenny C. Ng – Frontiers in Microbiology

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Microbiome change by symbiotic invasion in lichens – Mats Wedin – Environmental Microbiology

Species coexistence in simple microbial communities: unravelling the phenotypic landscape of co-occurring Metschnikowia species in floral nectar – María I. Pozo – Environmental Microbiology

Fungal Biodiversity in the Alpine Tarfala Valley – Claudia Coleine – Microorganisms

Effects of long-term drainage on microbial community composition vary between peatland types – Zuzana Urbanová – Soil Biology and Biochemistry

Geological connectivity drives microbial community structure and connectivity in polar, terrestrial ecosystems – Belinda C. Ferrari – Environmental Microbiology

Soil organic matter quantity and quality shape microbial community compositions of subtropical broadleaved forests – Junjun Ding – Molecular Biology

Built environment microbiome

Microbiota of the indoor environment: a meta-analysis – Rachel I. Adams – Microbiome

Microbial ecology

Private benefits and metabolic conflicts shape the emergence of microbial interdependencies – Sylvie Estrela – Environmental Microbiology

Techniques

Every base matters: assessing small subunit rRNA primers for marine microbiomes with mock communities, time series and global field samples – Alma E. Parada – Environmental Microbiology

Microbes in the news

Metagenomics Digs Up Microbiome Riches: Researchers Are Consulting Metagenomic Maps and Equipping Themselves with Computational Models and Analytical Tools – GenEnNews

Differences in treatment effect on out-of-balance microbiome in Crohn’s disease – EurekAlert

Pets and Owners May Share MRSA Bacteria – Rachael Rettner – LiveScience

Cultural Riches: Researchers devise new techniques to facilitate growing bacteria collected from the environment – Anna Azvolinsky – The Scientist

This could be our best defense against the antibiotic apocalypse: Carl Zimmer on phage therapy – Lydia Ramsey – Business Insider

Bacteria Hysteria

Millions of mattresses are swarming with bacteria and mould that ‘trigger skin infections, asthma and allergies’ – Fiona Macrae – Daily Mail

Microbiology and art

These Photos Reveal How Magnificent Our World Is On The Micro Level: The award-winning images represent some of the best microphotography from around the world – Jacqueline Howard – Huffington Post

How Lining Yao adapted bacteria into living clothing and biomaterials – Matt Kamen – Wired

[hr]

October 14, 2015

Gut microbes and the brain, transgenic goats, Salmonella infection of pigs, viral infection in honey bees, and a catalogue of microbial culture media.

Human gut microbiome

Feature: The tantalizing links between gut microbes and the brain – Peter Andrey Smith – Nature

Animal models

Changes in the Porcine Intestinal Microbiome in Response to Infection with Salmonella enterica and Lawsonia intracellularis – Klaudyna A. Borewicz – PLOS ONE

The Effects of GH Transgenic Goats on the Microflora of the Intestine, Feces and Surrounding Soil – Zekun Bao – PLOS ONE

Research highlight: Culinary traditions—revealing the effect of travel and diet on gut microbiota and motility – Gillian Patman – Nature Gastroenterology & Hepatology

Animal microbiome

No apparent correlation between honey bee forager gut microbiota and honey production – Melissa A. Horton – PeerJ

Four Categories of Viral Infection Describe the Health Status of Honey Bee Colonies – Esmaeil Amiri – PLOS ONE

Variable genetic architectures produce virtually identical molecules in bacterial symbionts of fungus-growing ants – Clarissa S. Sit – PNAS

More microbes

Harnessing the landscape of microbial culture media to predict new organism–media pairings – Matthew A. Oberhardt – Nature Communications

Single-Cell Analysis of RNA Virus Infection Identifies Multiple Genetically Diverse Viral Genomes within Single Infectious Units – Marine Combe – Cell Host & Microbe

Microbes in the news

What does your gut microbiome look like? – Katherine Harmon Courage – Popular Science

Microbiome May Predict Colon Cancer Tumor Mutational Status – Neil Osterweil – Medscape

“Studying sanitation is not always the sexiest topic” Stanford study on the effects of toilet facilities on child health in rural Africa – Stanford News

NDSU researcher, students study how bacteria adapts to survive – North Dakota State University

[hr]

October 13, 2015

Tongue coating microbiota, fecal microbiota in Tibetan and Chinese Han, the gut mycobiome in obesity, and the Hoopoe’s uropygial gland.

Pregnancy and birth

Review: Neonatal Gut Microbiota and Human Milk Glycans Cooperate to Attenuate Infection and Inflammation – David S Newburg – Clinical Obstetrics & Gynecology

Research highlight: Early life dysbiosis increases asthma risk – Naomi Attar – Nature Reviews Microbiology

Review: Gut Microbiome and the Development of Food Allergy and Allergic Disease – Benjamin T. Prince – Pediatric Clinics of North America

Human oral microbiome

Variations of Tongue Coating Microbiota in Patients with Gastric Cancer – Jie Hu – BioMed Research International

Review: Microbial Nucleic Acid Sensing in Oral and Systemic Diseases – K.E. Crump – Journal of Dental Research

Human respiratory microbiome

Review: The microbiome at the pulmonary alveolar niche and its role in Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection – Alexander J. Adami – Tuberculosis

Human gut microbiome

Comparative analyses of fecal microbiota in Tibetan and Chinese Han living at low or high altitude by barcoded 454 pyrosequencing – Long Li & Xin Zhao – Scientific Reports

Obesity changes the human gut mycobiome – M. Mar Rodríguez – Scientific Reports

Review: Understanding Luminal Microorganisms and Their Potential Effectiveness in Treating Intestinal Inflammation – Ince, M. Nedim – Inflammatory Bowel Diseases

Review: Brain-gut-microbiota axis in Parkinson’s disease – Agata Mulak, Bruno Bonaz – World Journal of Gastroenterology

Research Highlight: In transit – Denise Waldron – Nature Reviews Microbiology

Review: Gut microbiota and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease [PDF]-  Paraskevas Gkolfakis – Hepatobiliary Pancreat Dis Int

Animal microbiome

The Hoopoe’s Uropygial Gland Hosts a Bacterial Community Influenced by the Living Conditions of the Bird – Sonia M. Rodríguez-Ruano – PLOS ONE

Assessment of a 16S rRNA amplicon Illumina sequencing procedure for studying the microbiome of a symbiont-rich aphid genus – E. Jousselin – Molecular Ecology Resources

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Molecular Analysis of Methanogen Richness in Landfill and Marshland Targeting 16S rDNA Sequences – Shailendra Yadav – Archaea

Waste treatment microbiology

The Relationship between Microbial Community Evenness and Function in Slow Sand Filters – Sarah-Jane Haig – mBio

Metagenomics and bioinformatics

Microbial metabolic networks in a complex electrogenic biofilm recovered from a stimulus-induced metatranscriptomics approach – Shun’ichi Ishii – Scientific Reports

Exact approaches for scaffolding – Mathias Welle – BMC Bioinformatics

Comprehensive Meta-analysis of Ontology Annotated 16S rRNA Profiles Identifies Beta Diversity Clusters of Environmental Bacterial Communities – Andreas Henschel – PLOS Computational Biology

Viruses and phages

A classification system for virophages and satellite viruses – Mart Krupovic – Virology Division News

Microbial Ecology

Research Highlight: Single-locus changes perturb community structure – Denise Waldron – Nature Review Genetics
Single gene locus changes perturb complex microbial communities as much as apex predator loss – Deirdre McClean – Nature Communications

Microbes in the news

New intro biology lab tests for germs on campus – Sydney Schaedel – The Daily Pennsylvanian

A Whale of a Tale: Gut microbiome of right whales and other baleen species shares characteristics with those of both cows and meat-eating predators – Bioscience Technology

Science and art

Artist Jennifer Angus Covers the Smithsonian’s Walls With Bugs – Lauren Palmer – ArtNet

[hr]

October 12, 2015

A nice and short digest today. Happy Columbus Day!

Human gut microbiome

Relationship Between Microbiota of the Colonic Mucosa vs Feces and Symptoms, Colonic Transit, and Methane Production in Female Patients With Chronic Constipation – Gopanandan Parthasarathy – Gastroenterology

Ecology of bacteria in the human gastrointestinal tract—identification of keystone and foundation taxa – Pål Trosvik and Eric Jacques de Muinck – Microbiome

Review: The Gut Microbiota as a Therapeutic Target in IBD and Metabolic Disease: A Role for the Bile Acid Receptors FXR and TGR5 – Annemarie Baars – Microorganisms

Review: Microbiota in Inflammatory Bowel Disease Pathogenesis and Therapy
Is It All About Diet? – Daniela Elena Serban – Nutrition in Clinical Practice

Review: Role of the Gut Microbiome in Obesity and Diabetes Mellitus – Gillian M. Barlow – Nutrition in Clinical Practice

Animal models

Functional analysis of the relationship between intestinal microbiota and the expression of hepatic genes and pathways during the course of liver regeneration – Hui-Xin Liu – Journal of Hepatology

Metagenomics and Bioinformatics

SUPER-FOCUS: A tool for agile functional analysis of shotgun metagenomic data – Genivaldo Gueiros Z. Silva – Bioinformatics

Viruses and phages

Research Highlight: Phages’ box of tricks for CRISPR – Naomi Attar – Nature Reviews Microbiology

Microbes and art

Microbial masterpieces! Scientists ‘paint’ detailed works of art by growing bacteria from human skin and even faeces in petri dishes – Victoria Woollaston – Daily Mail
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3269542/Microbial-masterpieces-Scientists-paint-detailed-works-art-growing-bacteria-petri-dishes.html

Microbes in the news

University of New Haven professor’s research focuses on ‘horrible’ Lyme disease – Mark Zaretsky – New Haven Register

Repeat from earlier podcast: The Bacterial Cloud We All Carry Could Be As Unique As A Fingerprint – Rob Stein – NPR

Antibiotics ban: California first state to outlaw routine use of bacteria-fighting drugs in livestock – Jessica Calefati – Mercury News

Desperate Families in Delhi as Dengue Overwhelms Hospitals – Nida Najar – New York Times

Novel mathematical method may help reduce development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria – News Medical

Bacteria Hysteria

Concerned about germs on shopping trolley handles? Cleaning gadget beats bacteria – Hannah Bouckley – BT

[hr]

October 10, 2015

The Eukaryome of the human gut, core microbiome in rumen, overweight kitties, and viral metagenomics of a hot spring.

Human gut microbiome

Repertory of Eukaryotes (Eukaryome) in the Human Gastrointestinal Tract: Taxonomy and Detection Methods – Ibrahim Hamad – Parasite Immunology

Diversity of Duodenal and Rectal Microbiota in Biopsy Tissues and Luminal Contents in Healthy Volunteers – Gangping Li – Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology

Role of the Gut Microbiome in Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease – Bashar Aqel, John K. DiBaise – Nutrition in Clinical Practice

Review: Gut Microbiome: What We Do and Don’t Know – Gail A. Cresci and Emmy Bawden – Nutrition in Clinical Practice

Editorial: Contribution of Gut Bacteria to Lipid Levels Another Metabolic Role for Microbes? – Hooman Allayee, Stanley L. Hazen

Human vaginal microbiome

Enhanced Trapping of HIV-1 by Human Cervicovaginal Mucus Is Associated with Lactobacillus crispatus-Dominant Microbiota – Kenetta L. Nunn – mBio

Models of microbiome research

Microbiota-Dependent Sequelae of Acute Infection Compromise Tissue-Specific Immunity
Denise Morais da Fonseca – Cell

Animal microbiome

Overweight and the feline gut microbiome – a pilot study – I. N. Kieler – Journal of Animal Physiology and Animal Nutrition

Bovine mastitis may be associated with the deprivation of gut Lactobacillus – C. Ma – Beneficial Microbes

Rumen microbial community composition varies with diet and host, but a core microbiome is found across a wide geographical range – Gemma Henderson – Scientific Reports

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Evaluating a multigene environmental DNA approach for biodiversity assessment
Alexei J. Drummond – GigaScience (via PMC)

Sheep grazing and soil bacterial diversity in shrublands of the Patagonian Monte, Argentina – Nelda L. Olivera – Journal of Arid Environments

Climatic conditions, soil fertility and atmospheric nitrogen deposition largely determine the structure and functioning of microbial communities in biocrust-dominated Mediterranean drylands – Raul Ochoa-Bon – Plant and Soil

The Bacterial and Fungal Diversity of an Aged PAH- and Heavy Metal-Contaminated Soil is Affected by Plant Cover and Edaphic Parameters – Amélia Bourceret – Microbial Ecology

Water and extremophile microbiome

Cable bacteria generate a firewall against euxinia in seasonally hypoxic basins – Dorina Seitaj – PNAS
Novel viral genomes identified from six metagenomes reveal wide distribution of archaeal viruses and high viral diversity in terrestrial hot springs – Sóley Ruth Gudbergsdóttir – Environmental Microbiology

Waste treatment microbiology

Characterization of microbial communities in water and biofilms along a large scale SWRO desalination facility: Site-specific prerequisite for biofouling treatments – Adi Levi – Desalination

Large variability of bathypelagic microbial eukaryotic communities across the world’s oceans – Massimo C Pernice – The ISME Journal

Metabolomics

A Global Metabolomic Analysis of a Mammalian Host Infected with Bacillus anthracis
Chinh T.Q. Nguyen – Infection and Immunity

Sequencing techniques

Bioinformatic Suggestions on MiSeq-Based Microbial Community Analysis
Tatsuya Unno – Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology

Bioinformatics and metagenomics

Differential analysis of biological networks – Da Ruan – BMC Bioinformatics

SPINGO: a rapid species-classifier for microbial amplicon sequences – Guy Allard – BMC Bioinformatics

DectICO: an alignment-free supervised metagenomic classification method based on feature extraction and dynamic selection – Xiao Ding – BMC Bioinformatics

Experimental Design and Bioinformatics Analysis for the Application of Metagenomics in Environmental Sciences and Biotechnology – Feng Ju and Tong Zhang – Environmental Science & Technology

A Comparison of Base-calling Algorithms for Illumina Sequencing Technology – Ashley Cacho – Briefings in Bioinformatics

Metabolomics

A Validated High Resolution Mass Spectrometry-based Approach for Metabolomic Fingerprinting of the Human Gut Phenotype – Julie Vanden Bussche – Analytical Chemistry

Microbes in the news

Should We Bank Our Own Stool? – Moises Velasquez-Manoff – New York Times

Researchers use gut bacteria composition to genetically classify colorectal tumors – EurekAlert

Bacteria take on stinky problem in Kenner – Christie Walton – Fox8Live

MSU faculty member earns grant award for biofilm methodology research: Darla Goeres was recently awarded a Burroughs Wellcome Innovation in Regulatory Science Award. – Montana State University

Biotech of the week: Enterome, the Leading French Microbiome Start-up – LaBiotech

Conference Coverage: ID week: Drug Resistance: What Happens Inside the Nose? – HCP Live

Antibiotic use and cancer risk: Repeat exposure poses harm: interview with Ben Boursi – Healio

[hr]

October 9, 2015

Microbes and midwives, gut-brain axis, gluten immunopathology, viruses from farm to fork, and handwashing in students.

Pregnancy and birth

Conference abstract: Seeding the infant microbiome: The midwife’s role – Asha McCurley – Women and Birth

Human skin microbiome

Poor hand hygiene by college students linked to more occurrences of infectious diseases, medical visits, and absence from classes – Kayla J. Prater – American Journal of Infection Control

Human gut microbiome

Gut microbiota interacts with brain microstructure and function – José-Manuel Fernandez-Real – The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism

Microbiota–Gut–Brain Axis: Yeast Species Isolated from Stool Samples of Children with Suspected or Diagnosed Autism Spectrum Disorders and In Vitro Susceptibility Against Nystatin and Fluconazole – A. Serda Kantarcioglu

Animal models

Intestinal Microbiota Modulates Gluten-Induced Immunopathology in Humanized Mice – Heather J. Galipeau – American Journal of Pathology

Animal microbiome

Habitat fragmentation is associated to gut microbiota diversity of an endangered primate: implications for conservation – Claudia Barelli – Scientific Reports

Profiling the Succession of Bacterial Communities throughout the Life Stages of a Higher Termite Nasutitermes arborum (Termitidae, Nasutitermitinae) Using 16S rRNA Gene Pyrosequencing – Michel Diouf – PLOS ONE

Built Environment microbiome

Microbial control of dental unit water: Feedback on different disinfection methods experience – Julie Lizon – American Journal of Infection Control

Food microbiology

Review: Fate of Foodborne Viruses in the “Farm to Fork” Chain of Fresh Produce – Dan Li – Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety

Metagenomics

Strain recovery from metagenomes – C Titus Brown – Nature Biotechnology

Science, publishing, and career

Peer Review Resources: tips and suggestions from experienced reviewers as well as externally prepared resources for the beginning peer reviewer – Publons

Funny and informative: So you think you want to run an environmental conservation meeting? Advice on the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune that accompany academic conference planning – E. C. M. Parsons – Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences

Microbes in the news

UNC-Chapel Hill researchers reveal type of vaginal bacteria that protects women from HIV – EurekAlert

When Evolution Is Infectious – How “probiotic epidemics” help wildlife—and us—survive – Moises Velasquez-Manoff – Nautilus
It takes a village of bacteria to help frogs fight deadly disease, Virginia Tech researchers say – Augusta Free Press

Dirty hospital equipment causes 11 people to become infected with bacteria that could lead to pneumonia – Daily Mail

Cat poop coffee goes biotech – Nature Biotechnology

Bad times for good bacteria: how modern life has damaged our internal ecosystems – The Conversation

Gut microorganisms cause gluten-induced pathology in mouse model of celiac disease – MedicalXpress

Bacteria Hysteria

Sponsored by Dettol: Most teddy bears are covered in food poisoning bacteria, tests reveal – Plymouth Herald
[hr]

October 8, 2015

Animal models

Impact of the gut microbiota on the neuroendocrine and behavioural responses to stress in rodents – Sylvie Rabot – OCL

Animal microbiome

Community Structure and Function of Amphibian Skin Microbes: An Experiment with Bullfrogs Exposed to a Chytrid Fungus – Jenifer B. Walke – PLOS ONE

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Contrasting microbial biogeographical patterns between anthropogenic subalpine grasslands and natural alpine grasslands – Roberto A. Geremia – New Phytologist

Disentangling the ‘brown world’ faecal–detritus interaction web: dung beetle effects on soil microbial properties – Eleanor M. Slade – Oikos

Molecular Characterization and Assessment of Phylogenetic Relationship among Tomato Rhizospheric Bacterial Population – Rabaila Riaz – Biologia (Pakistan)

Metagenomic analysis of microbial community in uranium-contaminated soil – Xun Yan – Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology

Water and extremophile microbiome

Periphytic and planktonic bacterial community structure in turbid and clear shallow lakes of the Pampean Plain (Argentina): a CARD-FISH approach – Sánchez, Laura María – Latin American Journal of Aquatic Research

Composition of ammonia-oxidizing archaea and their contribution to nitrification in a high-temperature hot spring – S. Chen – Biogeosciences Discussions

Waste treatment microbiology

Molecular Assessment of Microbial Species Involved in the Biodegradation of Crude Oil in Saline Niger Delta Sediments Using Bioreactors – Chioma Blaise Chikere – Bioremediation & Biodegradation

Exploring antibiotic resistance genes and metal resistance genes in plasmid metagenomes from wastewater treatment plants – An-Dong Li – Frontiers in Microbiology

Metagenomics and bioinformatics

Higher Classification Accuracy of Short Metagenomic Reads by Discriminative Spaced k-mers – Rachid Ounit, Stefano Lonardi – Algorithms in Bioinformatics

Microbes in the news

From Bacteria to Mold, Health Concerns Abound in Aftermath of South Carolina Flooding – Associated Press

Researchers team up with Illumina to speed-read your microbiome – Medical Xpress

I Sent a Sample of My Poop to uBiome – Sarah Scoles – Discover Magazine

Video: Where are The Most Bacteria-Filled Places In Your Life? – Discover

A ‘bacterial condom’ could help prevent HIV – Alexandra Ossola – Popular Science

Wrap up of talk by Norm Pace on “Metagenomics and the Tree of Life” – Jonathan Eisen – MicroBEnet

Frog Microbes May Help Fight Disease: Commensal skin bacteria adjusted their community structure when frogs were exposed to chytrid fungus in a recent study – Karen Zusi – The Scientist

[hr]

October 7, 2015

Human oral microbiome

The Microbiome in Populations with a Low and High Prevalence of Caries – I. Johansson – Journal of Dental Research

Human gut microbiome

Use of the second-generation antipsychotic, risperidone, and secondary weight gain are associated with an altered gut microbiota in children – S. M. Bahr – Translational Psychiatry

Geriatric respondents and non-respondents to probiotic intervention can be differentiated by inherent gut microbiome composition – Suja Senan – Frontiers in Microbiology

Review: Intestinal microbiota and the innate immune system – a crosstalk in Crohn’s disease pathogenesis – Lea-Maxie Haag – Frontiers in Immunology

Review: The human gut virome: a multifaceted majority – Lesley A. Ogilvie – Frontiers in Microbiology

Review: Microbiota and host immune responses: a love-hate relationship –
Sarah Tomkovich – Immunology

Conference report: Gut microbiota and brain function: An evolving field in neuroscience – Jane A. Foster – International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology

Animal microbiome

French invasive Asian tiger mosquito populations harbor reduced bacterial microbiota and genetic diversity compared to Vietnamese autochthonous relatives – G. Minard – Frontiers in Microbiology

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Deterministic processes vary during community assembly for ecologically dissimilar taxa – Jeff R. Powell – Nature Communications

A meta-analysis approach for assessing the diversity and specificity of belowground root and microbial volatiles – Denis Schenkel – Frontiers in Plant Science

Mining the phytomicrobiome to understand how bacterial coinoculations enhance plant growth – Maskit Maymon – Frontiers in Plant Science

Water microbiome

Contribution of cyanobacterial alkane production to the ocean hydrocarbon cycle
David J. Lea-Smith – PNAS

Review: Next-generation sequencing (NGS) for assessment of microbial water quality: current progress, challenges, and future opportunities – BoonFei Tan – Frontiers in Microbiology

Extremophile microbiome

Metagenomic analysis reveals that modern microbialites and polar microbial mats have similar taxonomic and functional potential – Richard Allen White III – Frontiers in Microbiology

Built environment microbiology

Typo in title, some plagiarized text, and poor English but still including here: Metagenomic Human Repiratory Air in a Hospital Environment – Yi Yu Lai – PLOS ONE

Food microbiology

Lactic acid bacterium and yeast microbiotas of sixteen French traditional sourdoughs – Emilie Lhomme – International Journal of Food Microbiology

Waste microbiology

Assessment of Bacterial Community Assembly Patterns and Processes in Pig Manure Slurry – Priyanka Kumari – PLOS ONE

Phages and viruses

Mammalian Host-Versus-Phage immune response determines phage fate in vivo – Katarzyna Hodyra-Stefaniak – Scientific Reports

Microbial Ecology

Review: Microbiomes: unifying animal and plant systems through the lens of community ecology theory – Natalie Christian – Frontiers in Microbiology

Metagenomics and bioinformatics

Host-Associated Metagenomics: A Guide to Generating Infectious RNA Viromes
Sarah Temmam – PLOS ONE

Microbes in the news

“revolutionary poop platform”: Biomiic’s Platform Will Give People Microbiome Data From Crap: How Joseph Moon, Koji Yasuda and Soohong Kim are changing genomics Harvard iLab – Bostinno

Get To Know Your Poop Bacteria With This New iPhone App – Stephanie M. Lee – BuzzFeed

Could This Tough Bacteria Survive on Mars? – Irene Klot – Discovery

Bacteria in the world’s oceans produce millions of tonnes of hydrocarbons each year – Phys.org

Archaea: A headline on the front page of the New York Times for November 3, 1977, read “Scientists Discover a Way of Life That Predates Higher Organisms”. – Laura Eme, W. Ford Doolittle – Current Biology

The science of retweets – Science Daily
[hr]

October 6, 2015

Human gut microbiome

Intersections between Microbiome and Heart Failure: Revisiting the Gut Hypothesis
Yuji Nagatomo – Journal of Cardiac Failure

Phenolic compounds from red wine and coffee are associated with specific intestinal microorganisms in allergic subjects – Adriana Cuervo – Food and Function

Review: The Human Microbiota: Composition, Functions, and Therapeutic Potential – Rick Conrad, Alexander V. Vlassov – Medical Science Review

Models of microbiome research

Inflammation-associated alterations to the intestinal microbiota reduce colonization resistance against non-typhoidal Salmonella during concurrent malaria parasite infection – Jason P. Mooney – Scientific Reports

Protocols for the Use of Gut Models to Study the Potential Contribution of the Gut Microbiota to Human Nutrition Through the Production of Short-Chain Fatty Acids
Andrew J McBain – Springer Protocols Handbooks

Salami? Cecum microbial communities from steers differing in feed efficiency – P. R. Myer – Journal of Animal Science

Animal microbiome

Dholes are a species of wild dog: First report on the bacterial diversity in the distal gut of dholes (Cuon alpinus) by using 16S rRNA gene sequences analysis – Lei Chen – Journal of Applied Genetics

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Diversity of fungi associated with plants growing in geothermal ecosystems and evaluation of their capacities to enhance thermotolerance of host plants – Wen-Na Zhou – Journal of Plant Interactions

Forage crops alter soil bacterial and fungal communities in an apple orchard – Sijun Qin – Acta Agriculturae Scandinavica, Section B — Soil & Plant Science

Bacterial communities estimated by pyrosequencing in the soils of chinampa, a traditional sustainable agro-ecosystem in Mexico – Salvador Embarcadero-Jiménez – Journal of Soils and Sediments

Water microbiome

Bacterial diversity and community composition from seasurface to subseafloor – Emily A Walsh – The ISME Journal

Modelling the effects of hydrodynamic regimes on microbial communities within fluvial biofilms: combining deterministic and stochastic processes – Yi Li – Environmental Science & Technology

A new tool for long-term studies of POM-bacteria interactions: overcoming the century-old Bottle Effect – Danny Ionescu – Scientific Reports

Book chapter: Protistan Diversity in Environmental Molecular Surveys – Ramon Massana – Marine Protists

Book chapter: Diversity of Microbial Eukaryotes in Deep Sea Chemosynthetic Ecosystems Illuminated by Molecular Techniques – Kiyotaka Takishita – Marine Protists

Extremophile microbiome

Metagenomic and metatranscriptomic analyses of Lake Vostok accretion ice – Yury M. Shtarkman – Bowling Green State University

Metabolic networks, proteomics

Gastrointestinal symptoms and altered intestinal permeability induced by combat-training are associated with distinct metabotypic changes – Lee Cheng Phua – Journal of Proteome Research

Review: Roles of Indole as an Interspecies and Interkingdom Signaling Molecule – Jin-Hyung Lee – Trends in Microbiology

Bioinformatics and metagenomics

Comparison of three clustering approaches for detecting novel environmental microbial diversity – Dominik Forster – PeerJ Preprints

MG-RAST, a Metagenomics Service for the Analysis of Microbial Community Structure and Function – Elizabeth M. Glass, Folker Meyer – Springer Protocols Handbook

Improved OTU-picking using long-read 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing and generic hierarchical clustering – Oscar Franzén – Microbiome

Techniques

An extended single-index multiplexed 16S rRNA sequencing for microbial community analysis on MiSeq illumina platforms – Hooman Derakhshani – Journal of Basic Microbiology

More microbiology

This paper contains large amounts of plagiarism and confusing images, but here it is: Microbial Forensics in Legal Medicine – Pankaj Shrivastava – SAS Journal of Medicine

Microbes in the news

Georgia State Researcher Gets $1.35 Million to Study Effects of Common Food Additive on Body – Georgia State University
[hr]

October 1, 2015

October already! Today I’ve got two microbiome symposia for you, microbiome imaging, early antibiotics and asthma risk, and virome sequencing.

Events

Second Annual Microbiome Symposium – October 28-29 – CHMI / Penn Vet Center for Host Microbial Interactions – Philadelphia, USA (click on tab “Symposium 2015 at the bottom part), featuring talks by Handelsman, Relman, Grice, Dominguez-Bello, Mills, and Gewirtz.

Second Microbiome R&D and Business Collaboration Congress: Asia – Feb 29-March 1, 2016 – Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

General microbiome

Review: Microbial Malaise: How Can We Classify the Microbiome? – Robert G. Beiko – Trends in Microbiology

Review: Early Life Adversity and Brain Development: Is the Microbiome a Missing Piece of the Puzzle? – S.M. O’ Mahony – Neuroscience

Review: American Diabetes Association and JDRF Research Symposium: Diabetes and the Microbiome – Clay F. Semenkovich – Diabetes

Pregnancy and birth

Editorial: Asthma: Undoing millions of years of coevolution in early life? – Maria Gloria Dominguez-Bello and Martin J. Blaser – Science Translational Medicine
Belongs toEarly infancy microbial and metabolic alterations affect risk of childhood asthma – Marie-Claire Arrieta – Science Translational Medicine

Human skin microbiome

Review: The intersection of microbiome and host at the skin interface: genomic- and metagenomic-based insights – Elizabeth A. Grice – Genome Research

Human gut microbiome

Gut Microbiome of an 11th Century A.D. Pre-Columbian Andean Mummy – Tasha M. Santiago-Rodriguez – PLOS ONE

Review: The gut microbiome in NAFLD and ALD – Irina A. Kirpich – Clinical Liver Disease

Review: Prebiotic and Probiotic Regulation of Bone Health: Role of the Intestine and its Microbiome – Laura McCabe – Current Osteoporosis Reports

Animal models and bioreactors

Postnatal epigenetic regulation of intestinal stem cells requires DNA methylation and is guided by the microbiome – Da-Hai Yu – Genome Biology

Cultivation of stable, reproducible microbial communities from different fecal donors using minibioreactor arrays (MBRAs) – Jennifer M. Auchtung – Microbiome

Genetic and environmental control of host-gut microbiota interactions – Elin Org – Genome Research

Quantitative Imaging of Gut Microbiota Spatial Organization – Kristen A. Earle – Cell Host & Microbe

Increased Bacterial Load and Expression of Antimicrobial Peptides in Skin of Barrier-Deficient Mice with Reduced Cancer Susceptibility – Ken Natsuga – Journal of Investigative Dermatology

Animal Microbiome

Characterization of Bacterial, Archaeal and Eukaryote Symbionts from Antarctic Sponges Reveals a High Diversity at a Three-Domain Level and a Particular Signature for This Ecosystem – Susana Rodríguez-Marconi – PLOS ONE

Surveys for maternally-inherited endosymbionts reveal novel and variable infections within solitary bee species – Abiya Saeed – Journal of Invertebrate Pathology

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Assessing the ecological status of seagrasses using morphology, biochemical descriptors and microbial community analyses. A study in Halophila stipulacea (Forsk.) Aschers meadows in the northern Red Sea – Astrid Y. Mejia – Ecological Indicators

The effects of exotic weed Flaveria bidentis with different invasion stages on soil bacterial community structures – Chaohe Huangfu – African Journal of Biotechnology

Water microbiome

Biogeography and evolution of Thermococcus isolates from hydrothermal vent systems of the Pacific – Mark T. Price – Frontiers in Microbiology

Spatial–temporal variations and diversity of the bacterioplankton communities in the coastal waters of Kuwait – Awatef Almutairi – Marine Pollution Bulletin

Review: Substratum-Associated Microbiota: benthic algae and bacteria from a range of aquatic environments – Paula C. Furey – Water Environment Research

Waste and composting microbiology

Limited dissemination of the wastewater treatment plant core resistome – Christian Munck – Nature Communications

Neglected role of fungal community composition in explaining variation in wood decay rates – A. van der Wal – Ecology

Metagenomics

Enhanced virome sequencing through solution-based capture enrichment –
Todd N Wylie – Genome Research

Metabolic networks

The players may change but the game remains: network analyses of ruminal microbiomes suggest taxonomic differences mask functional similarity – Tasia M. Taxis – Nucleic Acids Research

Microbes in the news

Missing Microbes Provide Clues About Asthma Risk – Rob Stein – NPR (see above)
Study Links Asthma to Low Levels of Gut Bacteria in Newborns – Gautam Naik – Wall Street Journal

New test detects all viruses that infect people, animals – EurekAlert (see above)

Your gut development during infancy can have lifelong implications – Baylor College of Medicine – EurekAlert

Biologists Say Breeding Better Soil Microbes Can Help Grow Bigger Plants – Kiona Smith-Strickland – Gizmodo

Diets Rich in Vegetables May Reduce Heart Disease Risk Through Microbiome Changes – Medical Research

TU Delft students win on world stage with 3D bacteria printer – Materia

The headlines are getting weirder and weirder, but here we go: Ancient bacteria could be ‘elixir of life’ after it makes elderly mice ‘begin to dance’ and produce offspring – Andrew Griffin – Independent

Better Gut Microbiota Shift With Bypass vs Sleeve Gastrectomy – Becky McCall – Medscape

Sounds like trying to find a radio station on the wrong band: Scientists synthesise sound of single bacterium swimming – Bernie Hobbs – ABC Australia

[hr]