Category Archives: Animal microbiome

April 07, 2021

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General microbiome

Primate phageomes are structured by superhost phylogeny and environment – Gogarten et al. – PNAS

Fungal‐induced glycolysis in macrophages promotes colon cancer by enhancing innate lymphoid cell secretion of IL‐22 – Zhu et al. – The EMBO Journal

A method for detection of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in healthy human stool: a validation study – Coryell et al. – The Lancet Microbe

The Ocular Microbiome and Microbiota and their Effects on Ocular Surface Pathophysiology and Disorders – Aragona et al. – Survey of Ophthalmology

Human oral microbiome

Multi-dimensional study of the oral microbiome, metabolite, and immunologic environment in peanut allergy – Ho et al. – Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology

Human skin microbiome

Temporal Variation in Staphylococcus aureus Protein A Genotypes from Nose and Skin in Atopic Dermatitis Patients – van Mierlo et al. – Dermatology

Sex‐Based Differences in Fecal Short‐Chain Fatty Acid and Gut Microbiota in Irritable Bowel Syndrome Patients – Sun et al. – Journal of Digestive Diseases

Human gut microbiome

[REVIEW]Ecological and evolutionary responses to antibiotic treatment in the human gut microbiota – Pennycook & Scanlan – FEMS Microbiology Reviews

Animal microbiome (for animals in the wild)

The Fecal and Serum Metabolomics of Giant Pandas Based on Untargeted Metabolomics – Yang et al. – Zoological Scienc

Microbes in space

Astrobiology of life on Earth – Hallsworth et al. – Environmental Microbiology
Mars’ surface is not universally biocidal – Hallsworth – Environmental Microbiology

Bioinformatics

Draft Genome Sequences and Antimicrobial Profiles of Three Staphylococcus epidermidis Strains from Neonatal Blood Samples – Afeke et al. – Microbiology Resource Announcements

CoCoNet: An Efficient Deep Learning Tool for Viral Metagenome Binning – Arisdakessian et al. – Bioinformatics

Techniques

Rank normalization empowers a t-test for microbiome differential abundance analysis while controlling for false discoveries – Davis, Huang & Wang – Briefings in Bioinformatics

Discovering multiple types of DNA methylation from bacteria and microbiome using nanopore sequencing – Tourancheau et al. – Nature Methods

April 2, 2021

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Good morning and happy Friday!

In my last blog post I requested reader contributions and many of you reached out! Below are some of the highlights which include a commentary on phylogenetic core groups, a preprint on viral RNA methylation in Wolbachia, a database for the murine oral bacterial community, and a research article on fungal modification in the leaf-cutter ant fungal garden ecosystem.

Events and jobs

Biological Sciences Laboratory Instructor Position at Smith College in Northampton, MA

General microbiome

***Commentary: Phylogenetic Core Groups: a promising concept in search of a consistent methodological framework – Pascual-García – Microbiome

Animal microbiome

***Preprint: Differential viral RNA methylation contributes to pathogen blocking in Wolbachia-colonized arthropod – Bhattacharya et al. – bioRxiv

Preprint: Isolation and characterization of a novel Wolbachia bacteriophage from Allonemobius socius crickets in Missouri – Fischer et al. – bioRxiv

***From plants to ants: Fungal modification of leaf lipids for nutrition and communication in the leaf-cutter ant fungal garden ecosystem – Khadempour et al. – mSystems

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Preprint: Experimental evolution-driven identification of Arabidopsis rhizosphere competence genes in Pseudomonas protegens – Zhang et al. – bioRxiv

Built environment

Metagenomic profile of microbial communities in a drinking water storage tank sediment after sequential exposure to monochloramine, free chlorine, and monochloramine – Gomez-Alvarez et al. – ACS EST Water

Bioinformatics

***A 16S rRNA gene and draft genome database for the murine oral bacterial community – Joesph et al. – mSystems

April 1, 2021

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General microbiome

Viral genomic, metagenomic and human transcriptomic characterization and prediction of the clinical forms of COVID-19 – Rodrigez et al. – PLOS Pathogens

A multiomics approach to identify host-microbe alterations associated with infection severity in diabetic foot infections: a pilot study – Radzieta – et al. – NPJ Biofilms and Microbiomes

Pregnancy and early life

Interactions between gut microbiota and metabolites modulate cytokine network imbalances in women with unexplained miscarriage – Liu et al. – NPJ Biofilms and Microbiomes

Developmental trajectory of the healthy human gut microbiota during the first 5 years of life – Roswall et al. – Cell Host & Microbiome

Human gut microbiome

Compositional change of gut microbiome and osteocalcin expressing endothelial progenitor cells in patients with coronary artery disease – Toya et al. – PLOS One

Stool metabolome-microbiota evaluation among children and adolescents with obesity, overweight, and normal-weight using 1H NMR and 16S rRNA gene profiling – Jaimes et al. – PLOS One

Gut dysbiosis and mortality in hemodialysis patients – Lin et al. – NPJ Biofilms and Microbiomes

[REVIEW]The Interplay between Diet, Gut Microbes, and Host Epigenetics in Health and Disease – Shock et al. – The Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry

[REVIEW]Circadian rhythms and the gut microbiome synchronize the host’s metabolic response to diet – Lopez et al. – Cell Metabolism

Animal experiments (mouse/rat experiments, chickens/pigs on different diets)

Meta-analysis identifies the effect of dietary multi-enzyme supplementation on gut health of pigs – Ramani et al. – Scientific Reports

Silicon-containing water intake confers antioxidant effect, gastrointestinal protection, and gut microbiota modulation in the rodents – Wu et al. – PLOS One

Animal microbiome (for animals in the wild)

[PREPRINT]16S rRNA Amplicon Sequencing of Bagworm Metisa plana Walker (Lepidoptera: Psychidae) – Ting et al. – bioRxiv

Water and extremophile microbiome (sea, rivers, lakes, glaciers, permafrost, high-salt)

Metagenomic analysis exploring taxonomic and functional diversity of bacterial communities of a Himalayan urban fresh water lake – Ahmad et al. – PLOS One

Geochemical and metagenomics study of a metal-rich, green-turquoise-coloured stream in the southern Swiss Alps – Buetti-Dinh – PLOS One

Phages and viruses

[REVIEW]The human virome: assembly, composition and host interactions – Liang & Bushman – Nature Reviews Microbiology

[PREPRINT]Diverse viruses carrying genes for microbial extremotolerance in the Atacama Desert hyperarid soil – Hwang et al. – bioRxiv

Bioinformatics

MCPdb: The bacterial microcompartment database – Ochoa et al. – PLOS One
[Twitter]97% identity cutoff applied on humans and related species – Matthew Hahn

Techniques

Single strain control of microbial consortia – Fedorec et al. – Nature Communications

Microbes and Art

A Cultural Triumph: Microbiology Student Makes A Petri Dish Masterpiece – McCammon – npr

March 31, 2021

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Pregnancy and early life

Characterization of antimicrobial-resistant Gram-negative bacteria that cause neonatal sepsis in seven low- and middle-income countries – Sands et al. – Nature Microbiology

Human gut microbiome

The Gut Microbiome Is Altered in Postmenopausal Women With Osteoporosis and Osteopenia – Rettedal at al. – JBMR Plus
[Review]Ageing of the gut microbiome: potential influences on immune senescence and inflammageing – Conway & Duggal – Ageing Research Reviews

Human esophageal microbiome

Esophageal microbiome in active eosinophilic esophagitis and changes induced by different therapies – Laserna-Mendieta et al. – Scientific Reports

Animal experiments (mouse/rat experiments, chickens/pigs on different diets)

[PREPRINT]Establishment and Resilience of Transplanted Gut Microbiota in Aged Mice – Wang et al. – bioRxiv

Animal microbiome (for animals in the wild)

Termites Are Associated with External Species-Specific Bacterial Communities – Soukup et al. – Applied and Environmental Microbiology

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Assessment of fungal diversity in soil rhizosphere associated with Rhazya stricta and some desert plants using metagenomics – Noor et al. – Archives of Microbiology

The temperature sensitivity of soil: microbial biodiversity, growth, and carbon mineralization – Wang et al. – The ISME Journal

Water and extremophile microbiome (sea, rivers, lakes, glaciers, permafrost, high-salt)

Recovery of freshwater microbial communities after extreme rain events is mediated by cyclic succession – Shabarova et al. – Nature Microbiology

Techniques

Reduced metagenome sequencing for strain-resolution taxonomic profiles – Snipen et al. – Microbiome

March 26, 2021

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Good morning from New Jersey! Tons of papers to share with you today, including three about the role of the microbiome in COVID-19 and multiple new analysis tools and techniques.

Human respiratory microbiome

Functional profiling of COVID-19 respiratory tract microbiomes, Niina Haiminen et al., Scientific Reports

[Preprint] Mild CF Lung Disease is Associated with Bacterial Community Stability, Thomas H. Hampton et al., bioRxiv

Human skin microbiome

[Preprint] On-person adaptive evolution of Staphylococcus aureus during atopic dermatitis increases disease severity, Felix M. Key et al., bioRxiv

Human gut microbiome

[Mini-Review] The Unique Impact of COVID-19 on Human Gut Microbiome Research, Ella Burchill et al., Frontiers in Medicine

Variability in digestive and respiratory tract Ace2 expression is associated with the microbiome, Koester and Li et al., PLOS ONE

[Review] Towards a mechanistic understanding of reciprocal drug–microbiome interactions, Michael Zimmermann et al., Molecular Systems Biology

[Review] The Microbiome Meets Nanotechnology: Opportunities and Challenges in Developing New Diagnostic Devices, Celia Fuentes‐Chust et al., Advanced Materials

[Preprint] The capacity to produce hydrogen sulfide (H2S) via cysteine degradation is ubiquitous in the human gut microbiome, Domenick J Braccia et al., bioRxiv

Model experiments

[Preprint] Species richness determines C. difficile invasion outcome in synthetic human gut communities, Susan Hromada et al., bioRxiv

Gut microbiota determines the social behavior of mice and induces metabolic and inflammatory changes in their adipose tissue, Oryan Agranyoni et al., npj Biofilms and Microbiomes

Improvement of loperamide-induced slow transit constipation by Bifidobacterium bifidum G9-1 is mediated by the correction of butyrate production and neurotransmitter profile due to improvement in dysbiosis, Yutaka Makizaki et al., PLOS ONE

Animal microbiome

A Preliminary Comparison on Faecal Microbiomes of Free-Ranging Large Baleen (Balaenoptera musculus, B. physalus, B. borealis) and Toothed (Physeter macrocephalus) Whales, Stefanie P. Glaeser et al., Microbial Ecology

Host–microbial systems as glass cannons: Explaining microbiome stability in corals exposed to extrinsic perturbations, Courtney M. Dunphy et al., Journal of Animal Ecology

Fish predation on corals promotes the dispersal of coral symbionts, Carsten G. B. Grupstra et al., Animal Microbiome

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Global analysis of the apple fruit microbiome: Are all apples the same?, Ahmed Abdelfattah et al., Environmental Microbiology

Evaluating domestication and ploidy effects on the assembly of the wheat bacterial microbiome, Wipf and Coleman-Derr, PLOS ONE

Water and extremophile microbiome

[Preprint] Uncharted biosynthetic potential of the ocean microbiome, Lucas Paoli et al., bioRxiv

The microbiome of the Black Sea water column analyzed by shotgun and genome centric metagenomics, Pedro J. Cabello-Yeves et al., Environmental Microbiome

Revealing taxon-specific heavy metal-resistance mechanisms in denitrifying phosphorus removal sludge using genome-centric metaproteomics, Yuan Lin et al., Microbiome

Bioinformatics

Forensic Microbiome Database: A Tool for Forensic Geolocation Meta-Analysis Using Publicly Available 16S rRNA Microbiome Sequencing, Singh and Clarke et al., Frontiers in Microbiology

ProgPerm: Progressive permutation for a dynamic representation of the robustness of microbiome discoveries, Liangliang Zhang et al., BMC Bioinformatics

Model-Based Microbiome Data Ordination: A Variational Approximation Approach, Yanyan Zeng et al., Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics

Techniques

Blue poo: impact of gut transit time on the gut microbiome using a novel marker, Francesco Asnicar et al., Gut

Benchmarking DNA isolation kits used in analyses of the urinary microbiome, Lisa Karstens et al., Scientific Reports

Choice of library preparation affects sequence quality, genome assembly, and precise in silico prediction of virulence genes in shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli, Julie Haendiges et al., PLOS ONE

March 24, 2021

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Human gut microbiome

[OPINION]Targeting the Gut Microbiome to Mitigate Immunotherapy-Induced Colitis in Cancer – Chang et al – Trends in Cancer

Direct impact of commonly used dietary emulsifiers on human gut microbiota – Naimi et al. – Microbiome

Animal experiments (mouse/rat experiments, chickens/pigs on different diets)

[REVIEW]Establishing causality in Salmonella-microbiota-host interaction: The use of gnotobiotic mouse models and synthetic microbial communities – Stecher – International Journal of Medical Microbiology

Gut microbiota dysbiosis promotes age-related atrial fibrillation by lipopolysaccharide and glucose-induced activation of NLRP3-inflammasome – Zhang et al. – Cardiovascular Research

Animal microbiome (for animals in the wild)

Composition and structure of the skin microbiota of rorquals off the Eastern South Pacific – Toro et al. – FEMS Microbiology Ecology

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

[PREPRINT]Neural networks and extreme gradient boosting predict multiple thresholds and trajectories of microbial biodiversity responses due to browning – Fontaine et al. – bioRxiv

Comparative microbial antibiotic resistome between urban and deep forest environments – Zheng et al. – Environmental Microbiology Reports

Bioinformatics

[PREPRINT]Genomic characterization of three novel Desulfobacterota classes expand the metabolic and phylogenetic diversity of the Phylum – Murphy et al. – bioRxiv

March 18, 2021

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Greetings from Pittsburgh!

Today’s digest has a lot of food and agriculture associated articles. Several articles focus on the effects of various pathogens on dairy cows, beef steers, and poultry breeds! For those of us who are more interested in plants, there is an article on biogas production from tomato waste and a preprint on how the microbial community of food waste changes during the composting process. Finally, I included a research article about social media during the pandemic since I’m sure I’m not the only one who has relied on it a little too heavily over the last year…

Happy reading!

General microbiome

Preprint: Toward quantifying the adaptive role of bacterial pangenomes during environmental perturbations – Conrad et al. – bioRxiv

BlueFeather, the singleton that wasn’t: Shared gene content analysis supports expansion of Arthrobacter phage Cluster FE – Demo et al. – PLOS ONE

Review: The gut microbiota–brain axis in behaviour and brain disorders – Morais et al. – Nature Reviews Microbiology

Preprint: Cross-species evolutionary rewiring in the enteric bacterium Campylobacter – Taylor et al. – bioRxiv

Human gut microbiome

Gut microbiota profiles in diarrheic patients with co-occurrence of Clostridioides difficile and Blastocystis – Vega et al. – PLOS ONE

Animal experiments

Preprint: Low pathogenic avian influenza virus infection retards colon microbiome diversification in two different chicken lines – Chrzastek et al. – bioRxiv

Preprint: Borrelia infection in rodent host has dramatic effects on the microbiome of ticks – Hamilton et al. – bioRxiv

Animal microbiome

Preprint: The discovery, distribution and diversity of DNA viruses associated with Drosophila melanogaster in Europe – Wallace et al. – bioRxiv

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Effects of precipitation change and nitrogen addition on the composition, diversity, and molecular ecological network of soil bacterial communities in a desert steppe – Jia et al. – PLOS ONE

Preprint: Changes and composition of microbial community during aerobic composting of household food waste – Jin et al. – bioRxiv

Preprint: What’s under the Christmas tree? Soil acidification alters fir tree rhizosphere bacterial and eukaryotic communities, their interactions, and functional traits – Steven et al. – bioRxiv

A comparative analysis of biogas production from tomato bio-waste in mesophilic batch and continuous anaerobic digestion systems – Szilágyi et al. – PLOS ONE

Food microbiology

Red seaweed (Asparagopsis taxiformis) supplementation reduces enteric methane by over 80 percent in beef steers – Roque et al. – PLOS ONE

Prevalence and distribution of multilocus sequence types of Staphylococcus aureus isolated from bulk tank milk and cows with mastitis in Pennsylvania – Thomas et al. – PLOS ONE

Multidrug-resistant enterobacteria in newborn dairy calves in Germany – Waade et al. – PLOS ONE

Phages and viruses

Review: Viral and host heterogeneity and their effects on the viral life cycle – Jones et al. – Nature Review Microbiology

Bioinformatics

Dcmd: Distance-based classification using mixture distributions on microbiome data – Shestopaloff et al. – PLOS Computational Biology

Kara’s non-microbiology pick

Don’t put all social network sites in one basket: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and their relations with well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic – Masciantonio et al. – PLOS ONE

March 12, 2021

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Today’s digest is HUGE.

Read about the healthy urogenital microbiome profiling by culturomics, gutSMASH (Specialized Primary Metabolite Analysis From Anaerobic Bacteria), (sub)strains evolution in mice, and AMPSphere (a comprehensive catalog of antimicrobial peptides).

There are interesting results of a new metaanalysis of the neonatal microbiome, maternal strain inheritance, and persistence into adolescence, evaluation of the effect of long-term freezing storage temperature on fecal samples, and estimation of the bioinformatic carbon footprint using the freely available Green Algorithms calculator. Find out more about statistics & challenges in molecular microbiology (with a reproducible research appendix!).

NEWS: The Transbiome project is a community driven research program using crowdfunding and co-creation to discover the diversity of the neo-vaginal microbiome. You can support the project here.

Check out a list of awesome webinars, courses and podcasts. Happy Friday!

Gut microbiome

*A systematic analysis of metabolic pathways in the human gut microbiota – Victòria Pascal Andreu – bioRxiv

*Strain inheritance and neonatal gut microbiota development: A meta-analysis – Daniel Podlesny and W. Florian Fricke – International Journal of Medical Microbiology

Adaptive ecological processes and metabolic independence drive microbial colonization and resilience in the human gut – Andrea R. Watson – bioRixv

Effect of fecal microbiota transplantation on neurological restoration in a spinal cord injury mouse model: involvement of brain-gut axis – Yingli Jing – Microbiome

Review: Association between antibiotics and gut microbiome dysbiosis in children: systematic review and meta-analysis – Lucy McDonnell – Gut Microbes

Review: Salmonella versus the Microbiome – Andrew W. L. Rogers – Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews

Respiratory microbiome

Strain-Resolved Dynamics of the Lung Microbiome in Patients with Cystic Fibrosis – Marija Dmitrijeva – mBio

Oral microbiome

Review: Resilience of the oral microbiome – William G. Wade – Periodontology 2000

Skin microbiome

Skin microbiota and clinical associations in Netherton sindrome – Veera Sillanpää – JID Innovations

Urogenital microbiome

*Long-term stability of the urogenital microbiota of asymptomatic European women – Magdalena Ksiezarek – BMC Microbiology

Limosilactobacillus urinaemulieris sp. nov. and Limosilactobacillus portuensis sp. nov. isolated from urine of healthy women – Magdalena Ksiezarek – International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology

Vaginal microbiome

The structure and diversity of strain-level variation in vaginal bacteria – Brett A. Tortelli – Microbial Genomics

Obesity is associated with lower bacterial vaginosis prevalence in menopausal but not pre-menopausal women in a retrospective analysis of the Women’s Interagency HIV Study – Elizabeth Daubert – PlosOne

Bacterial biofilm formation on vaginal ring pessaries used for pelvic organ prolapse – Felicity G. Gould – International Urogynecology Journal

Animal microbiome

*Long-term storage of feces at −80 °C versus −20 °C is negligible for 16S rRNA amplicon profiling of the equine bacterial microbiome – Stefan Gavriliuc – PeerJ

Differences in the gut microbiomes of dogs and wolves: roles of antibiotics and starch – Yuting Liu – BMC Veterinary Research

An Expanded Gene Catalog of Mouse Gut Metagenomes – Jiahui Zhu – mSphere

Animal experiments

*Long-term evolution and short-term adaptation of microbiota strains and sub-strains in mice – Bahtiyar Yilmaz – Cell Host & Microbe

The gut mycobiome of healthy mice is shaped by the environment and correlates with metabolic outcomes in response to diet – Tahliyah S. Mims – Communications Biology

Functional genetics of human gut commensal Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron reveals metabolic requirements for growth across environments – Hualan Liu – Cell Reports

Tea polyphenols regulate gut microbiota dysbiosis induced by antibiotic in mice – Jie Li – Food Research International

Plant microbiome

Designing a home for beneficial plant microbiomes – Chunxu Song – Current Opinion in Plant Biology

Food

Review: Polymicrobial interaction between Lactobacillus and Saccharomyces cerevisiae: coexistence-relevant mechanisms – Zhenbo Xu – Critical Reviews in Microbiology

Viruses and phages

Viromes outperform total metagenomes in revealing the spatiotemporal patterns of agricultural soil viral communities – Christian Santos-Medellin – The ISME Journal

Review: Biases in Viral Metagenomics-Based Detection, Cataloguing and Quantification of Bacteriophage Genomes in Human Faeces, a Review – Julie Callanan – Microorganisms

Techniques

High molecular weight DNA extraction strategies for long-read sequencing of complex metagenomes – Florian Trigodet – bioRxiv

Bioinformatics

*AMPSphere: the worldwide survey of prokaryotic antimicrobial peptides – Célio Dias Santos-Júnior – Zenodo

*A Statistical Perspective on the Challenges in Molecular Microbial Biology – Pratheepa Jeganathan and Susan P. Holmes – arXiv

*The carbon footprint of bioinformatics – Jason Grealey – bioRxiv

*Make Interactive Complex Heatmaps in R – Zuguang Gu and Daniel Huebschmann – bioRxiv

Machine learning applications in microbial ecology, human microbiome studies, and environmental monitoring – Ryan B.Ghannam and Stephen M.Techtmann – Computational and Structural Biotechnology Journal

Tutorial: assessing metagenomics software with the CAMI benchmarking toolkit – Fernando Meyer – Nature Protocols

STATegra: Multi-Omics Data Integration – A Conceptual Scheme With a Bioinformatics Pipeline – Nuria Planell – Frontiers in Genetics

Exploring bacterial diversity via a curated and searchable snapshot of archived DNA sequences – Grace A. Blackwell – bioRxiv

clinker & clustermap.js: automatic generation of gene cluster comparison figures – Cameron L M Gilchrist & Yit-Heng Chooi – Bioinformatics

gapseq: informed prediction of bacterial metabolic pathways and reconstruction of accurate metabolic models – Johannes Zimmermann – Genome Biology

Webinars

mSystems Thinking Series: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Microbiology – ASM – March 26

The Microbiome Centers Consortium Seminar Series – weekly seminars featuring early career researchers – Thursdays

Americas Webinar: Mother’s Milk & Baby’s Bacteria: Discoveries from the CHILD Cohort Study – Meghan Azad – April 14

Courses & Workshops

Get R Done: R Tutorials video series – Chad C. Williams

Machine Learning in Genomics: Tools, Resources, Clinical Applications and Ethics – the NHGRI Genomic Data Science Working Group of the National Advisory Council for Human Genome Research – April 13-14

Podcast

February 2021 Pod: Global Chang‪e‬ – Bengtsson-Palme Lab – Microbiology Lab Pod

Enhancers with Molly Gasperini – Jacob Schreiber – The Bioinformatics Chat

Matthew Schechter: Metagenomics History Part 1 and 2 – Leo Elworth – The Bioinformatics and Beyond Podcast

Ep. 33 Oyster Microbiome with Dr. Rachel Diner – Julie Laurin – Planet B612

Art

UMich Microbial Masterpieces – Community for microbe enthusiasts and artists – Erica Gardner, Anna Urso, Bruna Iunes Sanches
*Check out their giant Winogradsky Panel in the Duderstadt Center gallery

March 4, 2021

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Happy Thursday from San Francisco! Today’s Microbiome Digest includes: a paper by Marbouty et al. in which a large number of phages and their interacting bacteria were identified in the healthy human gut; a thorough examination by Zhu et al. of the composition and metabolic potential of cave-dwelling bacteria, including sequencing of 14 new bacterial species; and a study by Mu et al. which found that the maternally-derived microbe Lactobacillus reuteri promotes immunoglobulin A production in the neonatal gut.

There is also a study by Serrano-Villar et al. which examined the use of fecal microbiota transplantation (FMTs) in HIV patients. The authors observed that FMT led to engraftment of two bacterial families–Lachnospiraceae and Ruminococcaceae–typically depleted in HIV-infected subjects and decreased levels of a plasma biomarker of intestinal permeability. While the findings are interesting, I remain skeptical of the appropriateness of FMTs in this context. Instead of an FMT–which requires donors and screening of their stool to ensure quality and safety–why not use a probiotic cocktail of Lachnospiraceae and Ruminococcaceae family members and perhaps include prebiotic factors to try to promote engraftment?

Additionally, there is a great article by Ras et al. discussing the results of a pilot study that successfully implemented microbiome-related bioinformatics courses across 11 African countries.

Pregnancy and Early Life
Distinct Changes Occur in the Human Breast Milk Microbiome Between Early and Established Lactation in Breastfeeding Guatemalan Mothers. – Gonzales, E. et al., Frontiers in Microbiology.

Human Skin Microbiome
Spermidine-induced recovery of human dermal structure and barrier function by skin microbiome. – Kim, G. et al. Communications Biology.

Human Vaginal Microbiome
Influence of dapivirine vaginal ring use on cervicovaginal immunity and functional microbiome in adolescent girls. – Farr Zuend, C. et al., AIDS.

Mapping the entire functionally active endometrial microbiota. – Sola-Leyva, A. et al., Human Reproduction.

Genomic relatedness and clinical significance of Streptococcus mitis strains isolated from the urogenital tract of sexual partners. – Mores, C.R. et al., Microbial Genomics.

Human Gut Microbiome
Identification of an N-acetylneuraminic acid-presenting bacteria isolated from a human microbiome. – Han, Z. et al., Scientific Reports.

Fecal microbiota transplantation in HIV: A pilot placebo-controlled study. – Serrano-Villar, S. et al., Nature Communications.

Gastrointestinal microbiota composition predicts peripheral inflammatory state during treatment of human tuberculosis. – Wipperman, M.F. et al., Nature Communications.

Animal Experiments
Regulation of neonatal IgA production by the maternal microbiota. – Mu, Q. et al., PNAS.

Lysates of Methylococcus capsulatus Bath induce a lean-like microbiota, intestinal FoxP3+RORγt+IL-17+ Tregs and improve metabolism. – Jensen, B.A.H., et al., Nature Communications.

Sex-dependent modulation of immune development by secretory IgA–coated Lactobacillus reuteri isolated from breast milk. – Qi, C. et al., Journal of Dairy Science.

Oral berberine improves brain dopa/dopamine levels to ameliorate Parkinson’s disease by regulating gut microbiota. – Wang, Y. et al., Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy.

Animal Microbiome
Lactobacillus reuteri-derived extracellular vesicles maintain intestinal immune homeostasis against lipopolysaccharide-induced inflammatory responses in broilers. – Hu, R. et al., Journal of Animal Science and Biotechnology.

Plant, Root, and Soil Microbiome
Dicer-like proteins influence Arabidopsis root microbiota independent of RNA-directed DNA methylation. – Kaushal, R. et al., Microbiome.

Succession of the Resident Soil Microbial Community in Response to Periodic Inoculations. – Wang, Z. et al., Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

Climate change alters temporal dynamics of alpine soil microbial functioning and biogeochemical cycling via earlier snowmelt. – Broadbent, A.A.D. et al., ISME Journal.

Water and Extremophile Microbiome
Microbial Community Structure Driven by a Volcanic Gradient in Glaciers of the Antarctic Archipelago South Shetland. – García-Lopez, E. et al., Microorganisms.

Effect of polymer type on the colonization of plastic pellets by marine bacteria. – Hansen, J. et al., FEMS Microbiology Letters.

Lifestyle of sponge symbiont phages by host prediction and correlative microscopy. – Jahn, M.T. et al., ISME Journal.

Bacteria and Metabolic Potential in Karst Caves Revealed by Intensive Bacterial Cultivation and Genome Assembly. – Zhue, H-Z et al., Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

Phages and Viruses
MetaHiC phage-bacteria infection network reveals active cycling phages of the healthy human gut. – Marbouty, M. et al., Elife.

Bioinformatics
On the evolutionary origins of host–microbe associations. – Sieber, M. et al., PNAS.

Ecology-guided prediction of cross-feeding interactions in the human gut microbiome. – Goyal, A. et al., Nature Communications.

Using a multiple-delivery-mode training approach to develop local capacity and infrastructure for advanced bioinformatics in Africa. – Ras, V. et al., PLoS Computational Biology.

Techniques
Amplicon-based skin microbiome profiles collected by tape stripping with different adhesive film dressings: a comparative study. – Ogai, K. et al., BMC Microbiology.

High-Resolution Differentiation of Enteric Bacteria in Premature Infant Fecal Microbiomes Using a Novel rRNA Amplicon. – Graf, J. et al., mBio.

February 27th, 2021

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Hyvää Päivää from Helsinki, Finland ! Today’s digest contains quite a lot of different topics. If you are interested in gut microbiomes, I recomment taking a look at the preprint by Weiss and collaborator. In this study, they explore bacteria-bacteria interactions, bacterial growth and metabolic interactions in a synthetic bacterial community: the Oligo-Mouse-Microbiota, which is increasingly used as model system in gut microbiome research.

Additionally, anyone interested in microbiome-based forensic tools should read the study from Sang You and collaborators.  They compared the composition of microbial communities in blood spot surfaces placed in different environments sampled across seasons and time points, in order to evaluate the environmental factors leading to variation in these microbial communities.

Today’s non-microbiology pick is a fascinating study looking at the prevalence of COVID-19 related misinformation among the Yemeni population and its association with vaccine acceptance and perceptions. From this study, the authors recommend the deployment of awareness campaigns to decrease misinformation before initiating any mass vaccination in Yemen.

Have a great Weekend!

Human gut microbiome

Review: The Multiomics Analyses of Fecal Matrix and Its Significance to Coeliac Disease Gut Profiling – Gangadoo et al. – International Journal of Molecular Sciences

Preprint: Exploring the interaction network of a synthetic gut bacterial community – Weiss et al. – BioRxiV

Animal experiments

Environmental concentrations of antibiotics alter the zebrafish gut microbiome structure and potential functions – Rehman Kayani et al. – Environmental Pollution

Fish farm effluents as a source of antibiotic resistance gene dissemination on Jeju Island, South Korea – Jo et al. – Environmental Pollution

Influence of environmental factors and bacterial community diversity in pond water on health of Chinese perch through Gut Microbiota change – Li et al. – Aquaculture Reports

Preprint: The diversity, composition, and metabolic pathways of archaea in pigs – Deng et al. – Preprints

Animal microbiome

Preprint: Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease biomarker bacteria identified in corals and overlying waters using a rapid field-based sequencing approach – Becker et al. – bioRxiV

Built environment

Microbial analyses of blood spot surfaces collected from a laboratory and the bathroom of a female single-person household under different environmental conditions – Sang You et al – FEMS Microbiology letters

Phages and viruses

Opinion paper: Rapid emergence of virus–host mutualism under stress – Dolja – PNAS

Patterns of virus growth across the diversity of life – Jin and Yin – Integrative biology

Techniques

Standard Bacteriophage Purification Procedures Cause Loss in Numbers and Activity – Carroll-Portillo et al. – Viruses

My non-microbiology picks

Preprint: Misinformation, Perceptions Towards COVID-19 and Willingness to be Vaccinated: A Population-Based Survey in Yemen – Naoras Bitar et al. – BioRxiV