Category Archives: Animal microbiome

April 24, 2020

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Events

Virtual Podium 2020 – Session 5 (Microbiome) – April 24, 2020

Scientific career and work-life balance – April 24, 2020

World Malaria Day – April 25, 2020 – Draws attention to the impact of the disease and (re)urges us to find a way to overcome it once and for all.
Join the #talkingmalaria tweetchat on April 24, 2020 at 12 noon BST.

COVID-19

GRAND CHALLENGE: A billion molecules against COVID-19 – Joint European Disruptive Initiative

General microbiome

Reversibility of propionic acid inhibition to anaerobic digestion: Inhibition kinetics and microbial mechanism – Youl Han – Chemosphere

Responses of microbial structures, functions, metabolic pathways and community interactions to different C/N ratios in aerobic nitrification – Hongwei Sun – Bioresource Technology

PERSPECTIVE: Cultivating fungal research – Heidi H. Kong – Science

Human microbiome

REVIEW: Microbiota–immune interactions in asthma pathogenesis and phenotype – Nicholas W.Lukacs – Current Opinion in Immunology

CANCER IN TRANSLATION: Microbiome genomics for cancer prediction – Lorenz Adlung – Nature Cancer

Human skin microbiome

BOOK CHAPTER: The wound microbiome – Aayushi Uberoi – In: Wound Healing, Tissue Repair, and Regeneration in Diabetes.

Human gut microbiome

BOOK CHAPTER: Dietary Fiber and Gut Microbiota – Carolina Senés-Guerrero – In: Science and Technology of Fibers in Food Systems

Animal experiments

Effect of in feed administration of different butyrate formulations on Salmonella Enteritidis colonization and cecal microbiota in broilers – Lonneke Onrust – Veterinary Research

Stochasticity constrained by deterministic effects of diet and age drive rumen microbiome assembly dynamics – Ori Furman – Nature Communications

Sequence variant analysis reveals poor correlations in microbial taxonomic abundance between humans and mice after gnotobiotic transfer – Farnaz Fouladi – ISME Journal

Temporal changes in microbial communities attached to forages with different lignocellulosic compositions in the cattle rumen – Javad Gharechahi – FEMS Microbiology Ecology

Animal microbiome

Host-microbiota interaction helps to explain the bottom-up effects of climate change on a small rodent species – Guoliang Li – ISME Journal

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Tapping into the maize root microbiome to identify bacteria that promote growth under chilling conditions – Stien Beirinckx – Microbiome

Regulatory relationship between quality variation and environment of Cistanche deserticola in three ecotypes based on soil microbiome analysis – Xiao Sun – Scientific Reports

Effects of biodegradable plastic film mulching on soil microbial communities in two agroecosystems – Sreejata Bandopadhyay – PeerJ

Water microbiome

Total Microbial Activity and Sulfur Cycling Microbe Changes in Response to the Development of Hypoxia in a Shallow Estuary – Yunjung Park – Ocean Science Journal

Built environment

Associations Between Respiratory Infections and Bacterial Microbiome in Student Dormitories in Northern China – Xi Fu – Indoor Air

Bacterial community analysis of floor dust and HEPA filters in air purifiers used in office rooms in ILAS, Beijing – Jianguo Guo – Scientific Reports

Microbes in space

The influence of spaceflight on the astronaut salivary microbiome and the search for a microbiome biomarker for viral reactivation – Camilla Urbaniak – Microbiome

Food microbiology

Insights into the Microbiological Safety of Wooden Cutting Boards Used for Meat Processing in Hong Kong’s Wet Markets: A Focus on Food-Contact Surfaces, Cross-Contamination and the Efficacy of Traditional Hygiene Practices – Patrick T. Sekoai – Microorganisms

Pre-print

MicrobioLink: An integrated computational pipeline to infer functional effects of microbiome-host interactions – Tahila Andrighetti – bioRxiv

Repeatability and reproducibility assessment in a large-scale population-based microbiota study: case study on human milk microbiota – Shirin Moossavi – bioRxiv

Mendelian randomization analysis revealed causal effects from gut microbiota to abdominal obesity – Qian Xu – bioRxiv

A quantitative measure of functional redundancy in microbial ecosystems – Taylor M Royalty – bioRxiv

Host association induces genome changes in Candida albicans which alters its virulence – Amanda C Smith – bioRxiv

Shirin’s non-microbiology picks

CAREER FEATURE: Safely conducting essential research in the face of COVID-19 – Virginia Gewin – Nature

Reaching a Large Urban Undergraduate Population through Microbial Ecology Course-Based Research Experiences – Samantha Parks – Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education

POLICY FORUM: Against pandemic research exceptionalism – Alex John London – Science

WORLD VIEW: On the 50th Earth Day, take collective action for the planet – Emma Marris – Nature

BEHIND THE PAPER: Annotating the unknown: Functional Gene Annotation using Untargeted Metabolomics – Robert Jansen – Nature Microbiology Community

April 23, 2020

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The wave of new microbe enthausiasts keeps coming and with it a light digest for today.  I am writing to you from Bremen, Germany, with a selection including a wheat fungi that changes the wheat leaf microbiome and antimicrobial resistance genes identified by whole metagenome shotgun study of nasopharyngal colonization in South Africa.

There is also an interesting article about species identification errors occurring in context of large sequence collection platforms.
And to mix things up a little bit, at the end of a list you find a paper with amazing microscopy featuring the beautiful parasite Trypanosoma brucei and answering the endless question to how this parasite colonizes its insect host, the tsetse fly.

Human respiratory microbiome

Longitudinal changes in the nasopharyngeal resistome of South African infants using shotgun metagenomic sequencing – Rendani I. Manenzhe – PLOS ONE

Human gut microbiome

Resident microbial communities inhibit growth and antibiotic-resistance evolution of Escherichia coli in human gut microbiome samples – Michael Baumgartner – PLOS BIOLOGY

Animal experiments

Preprint: Comparative analysis of beneficial effects of Vancomycin treatment on Th1- and Th2-biased mice and role of gut microbiota – Pratikshya Ray – bioRxiv

Assessment of dietary supplementation with galactomannan oligosaccharides and phytogenics on gut microbiota of European sea bass (Dicentrarchus Labrax) fed low fishmeal and fish oil based diet – Simona Rimoldi – PLOS ONE

Lactobacillus reuteri attenuated allergic inflammation induced by HDM in the mouse and modulated gut microbes – Lingzhi Li – PLOS ONE

Animal microbiome

Occurrence of Mycoplasma gallisepticum in wild birds: A systematic review and meta-analysis – Anna Sawicka – PLOS ONE

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

A fungal pathogen induces systemic susceptibility and systemic shifts in wheat metabolome and microbiome composition – Heike Seybold – Nature Communications

Phages and viruses

SMOOT libraries and phage-induced directed evolution of Cas9 to engineer reduced off-target activity – Derek Cerchione – PLOS ONE

Bioinformatics

BOLD and GenBank revisited – Do identification errors arise in the lab or in the sequence libraries? – Mikko Pentisaari – PLOS ONE

Science, publishing, and career

A pedagogical approach to science outreach – Marni B. McClure – PLOS BIOLOGY

Judith’s non-microbiology picks

Trypanosoma brucei colonizes the tsetse gut via an immature peritrophic matrix in the proventriculus – Clair Rose – Nature Microbiology

April 22, 2020

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Welcome to another post from a new volunteer! I’m a Ph.D student studying the infant gut microbiome and I’m excited to be volunteering with Microbiome Digest.

There are several preprints today, including another great study from the CHILD cohort. This one is on maternal consumption of artificially sweetened beverages and the infant gut microbiota. There is also a preprint calling for improvement in scientific conferences. Both are highlighted in green.

Pregnancy and early life

Preprint: Consumption of artificially sweetened beverages during pregnancy impacts infant gut microbiota and body mass index – Isabelle Laforest-Lapointe — bioRxiv

Oral microbiome

Preprint: Genotypic and phenotypic characterization of Streptococcus mutans isolated from dental caries – Mohammad Shahnoor Hossain – bioRxiv

Pyruvate secretion by oral streptococci modulates hydrogen peroxide dependent antagonism – Sylvio Redanz – ISME Journal

Synergism between Corynebacterium and Streptococcus sanguinis reveals new interactions between oral commensals – Puthayalai Treerat – ISME Journal

Animal experiments

The gut microbiota response to helminth infection depends on host sex and genotype – Fei Ling – ISME Journal

Animal microbiome

Lipids and small metabolites provisioned by ambrosia fungi to symbiotic beetles are phylogeny-dependent, not convergent – Yin-Tse Huang – ISME Journal

Comparative genomics: Dominant coral-bacterium Endozoicomonas acroporae metabolizes dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP) – Kshitij Tandon – ISME Journal

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Active sulfur cycling in the terrestrial deep subsurface – Emma Bell – ISME Journal

Preprint: An antagonistic driver of the microbial phyllosphere suppresses infection of Arabidopsis thaliana by the oomycete pathogen Albugo laibachii via a secreted hydrolase – Katharina Eitzen – bioRxiv

Preprint: Grapevine pruning time affects natural wound colonization by wood-invading fungi – Maria del Pilar Martinez-Diz – bioRxiv

Water and extremophile microbiome

Mixotrophy in marine picocyanobacteria: use of organic compounds by Prochlorococcus and Synechococcus – M.C. Muñoz-Marín – ISME Journal

Food microbiology

Preprint: Antibiotic-resistant Salmonella species and Escherichia coli in broiler chickens from farms, abattoirs and open markets in selected districts of Zambia – Nelson Phiri – bioRxiv

Microbes in the news

Breastfeeding may lead to fewer human viruses in infants
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/04/200415110452.htm

Science, publishing, and career

Preprint: Evaluating features of scientific conferences: A call for improvements – Sarvenaz Sarabipour – bioRxiv

April 21, 2020

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Hello all from another new Microbiome Digest volunteer! This post is coming to you straight from the heart of New York City – being surrounded everywhere by COVID-19 (and related research!), it’s been good to get back into the microbiome world 🙂 I love all things microbiology but am partial to bacteria, especially multidrug-resistant pathogens and communities involved in biological nutrient removal/recovery from waste.

Today’s roundup is heavy on the soil and environmental microbiomes and some interesting preprints, with some unique finds – indigenous yeasts in winemaking, gut microbiomes after dietary interventions in adult dogs, and much more!

Human gut microbiome

Characterization of Gut Microbiota in Hospitalized Patients with Clostridioides difficile Infection – Bahareh Vakili – Current Microbiology

Animal experiments
Genetic and metabolic links between the murine microbiome and memory – Jian-Hua Mao – Microbiome

A human-origin probiotic cocktail ameliorates aging-related leaky gut and inflammation via modulating microbiota-taurine-tight junction axis
Shokouh Ahmadi – JCI Insight

Animal microbiome

Preprint: CoproID predicts the source of coprolites and paleofeces using microbiome composition and host DNA content – Maxime Borry – bioRxiv

Phylogenetic analysis of intestinal microbiota reveals novel Mycoplasma phylotypes in salmonid species – Brenda Mora-Sánchez – Microbial Pathogenesis

Rapid Reconstitution of the Faecal Microbiome after Extended Diet-Induced Changes Indicate a Stable Gut Microbiome in Healthy Adult Dogs – David Allaway – Applied and Environmental Microbiome

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Review: Harnessing rhizosphere microbiomes for drought-resilient crop production – Franciska T. de Vries – Science

Book Chapter: Endophytic Actinomycetes-Mediated Modulation of Defense and Systemic Resistance Confers Host Plant Fitness Under Biotic Stress Conditions – Waquar Akhter Ansari – Microbial Versatility in Varied Environments

Elevated CO2 mitigates the negative effect of CeO2 and Cr2O3 nanoparticles on soil bacterial communities by alteration of microbial carbon use – Jipeng Luo – Environmental Pollution

Periodic waterlogging consistently shapes agricultural soil microbiomes by promoting specific taxa – Florian Gschwend – Applied Soil Ecology

Food microbiology

Review:Indigenous yeasts: Emerging Trends and Challenges in winemaking – Iliada K. Lappa – Current Opinion in Food

Ecology of lactobacilli present in Italian cheeses produced from raw milk
Christian Milani – Applied and Environmental Microbiology

Probiotics / prebiotics
Probiotic supplementation improves cognitive function and mood with changes in gut microbiota in community-dwelling elderly: A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multicenter trial – Chong-Su Kim – The Journals of Gerontology

Phages and viruses
Intestinal microbiome‐macrophage crosstalk contributes to cholestatic liver disease by promoting intestinal permeability – Anna Isaacs-Ten – Hepatology

Bioinformatics
Preprint: hogwash: Three Methods for Genome-Wide Association Studies in Bacteria – Katie Saund – bioRxiv

Mycobiome

Preprint: Mycobiome analysis in fungal Infected formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded tissues for identification of pathogenic fungi: A pilot study – Taebum Lee – bioRxiv

Host-Pathogen Interactions
Preprint: Human GBP1 differentially targets Salmonella and Toxoplasma to license recognition of microbial ligands and caspase-mediated death – Daniel Fisch – bioRxiv

Preprint: Mechanical competition triggered by innate immune signaling drives the collective extrusion of bacterially-infected epithelial cells – Effie E. Bastounis – bioRxiv

Microbes on the market

Genome & Company receives FDA IND clearance for GEN-001, its first anti-cancer microbiome therapeutic (Press Release, BioSpace)

April 20, 2020

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God morgon!

Good morning from Sweden. To all my friends who have lost the track of time during the quarantine, it is Monday and the beginning of a new week. Today’s digest is a very light one. However, it carries a super interesting preprint that studies the impact of the pandemic on publication speed of different medical journals. The study reports that, on average, the COVID-19 related papers were expedited through the peer-review process at a 49% (up to 80% in case of certain journals) higher pace than the mean pre-pandemic publishing speed (Yes, there is a pre-pandemic and, possibly, a post-pandemic era now). Although this is a controversial topic, I guess the preprint did a very good job of discussing the reasons behind and impact of accelerated publishing.

In my personal opinion, it is great to be able to get valuable scientific information as soon as it is produced. However, as the paper points out, there has to be some sort of trade-off between the quality of a publication and the time taken by the peer-review process. It could be argued that the quarantine measures might have made it easier for some reviewers to focus their attention on the peer-review, making it faster, but there is no information on ‘who’ reviewed these papers. Also, the article highlights what a lot of scholars have been warning about – the amount of post-publishing corrections that these papers would require (more work for Ms Bik!).

What do you think could be the reasons behind this unprecedented celerity of publishing? Could it be the availability of more spare time to review papers? or could this be an instance of politicization of science (as someone pointed out in the comments section of the article)? What could be the impact of this swiftness, both positive and negative, on the scientific realm? Would it be possible, or advisable, to keep up this trend of swift publishing in the post-pandemic era? Let’s discuss in the comments section.

Apart from this highly thought-provoking article, there is another interesting article on the identification of bacterial strains that may promote maize (corn, for my American friends) growth in chilling conditions.

There is another interesting article that tries to establish a link between the gut microbiome and memory. The study focused on microbiome-specific genetic and metabolomic changes that may impact memory. The study was performed in mice.

Enjoy the articles, have a great week, and stay safe!

COVID 19

Preprint: Pandemic Publishing: Medical journals drastically speed up their publication process for Covid-19 – Serge P.J.M. Horbach

Preprint: Coronavirus Infection and PARP Expression Dysregulate the NAD Metabolome: A Potentially Actionable Component of Innate Immunity – Collin D Heer, et al.

Animal microbiome

Genetic and metabolic links between the murine microbiome and memory – Jian-Hua Mao, et al. – Microbiome

Plant root-soil microbiome

Tapping into the maize root microbiome to identify bacteria that promote growth under chilling conditions – Stien Beirinckx, et al. – Microbiome

Microbial interactions

Preprint: Expanding the diversity of bacterioplankton isolates and modeling isolation efficacy with large scale dilution-to-extinction cultivation – Michael W. Henson, et al.

 

April 19, 2020

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Hello from the Sonoran Desert! It is a lovely morning here in Tucson, Az. I am excited to send my first contribution to Microbiome Digest! There is a lot of diversity in today’s digest, but if microbes thriving in all kinds of strange, extreme conditions are your area of interest, you’ll be interested in the book compiling the latest studies on extremophiles. Each chapter focuses on a particular environment, ranging from deserts to deep-sea hydrothermal vents, and explores the mechanisms allowing microbes to survive these incredible conditions.

If like me, you are a computational biology enthusiast and a machine learning addict, you should enjoy reading the last entry, a short perspective paper examining how machine learning algorithms can help predict antibiotic resistance!

Have a great Sunday!

General microbiology

Preprint: Interspecies interactions in bacterial colonies are determined by physiological traits and the environment – Booth – BioRxiv

Human gut and mouth microbiome

Bacterial colonization reprograms the neonatal gut metabolome – Bittinger – Nature microbiology

Salivary Factors that Maintain the Normal Oral Commensal Microflora – Carpenter – Journal of dental research

Preprint: Metagenomic Next-Generation Sequencing of Rectal Swabs for the Surveillance of Antimicrobial Resistant Organisms on the Illumina Miseq and Oxford MinION Platforms – Yee – bioRxiv

Animal microbiome

Preprint: Mortality of native and invasive ladybirds co-infected by ectoparasitic and entomopathogenic fungi – Haelewaters – bioRxiv

Built environment

Preprint: The Microbes Found in the Honey of New York City Beehives – Weiss – BioRxiv

Correlation between autochthonous microbial communities and key odorants during the fermentation of red pepper (Capsicum annuum L.) – Xu – Food Microbiology

Water and extremophile microbiome

Book: Microbial Versatility in Varied Environments: Microbes in Sensitive Environments – collective – Springer Nature

The seasonal variation of microbial communities in drinking water sources in Shanghai – Guo – Journal of Cleaner Production

Plant, root and soil microbiome

LDPE microplastics significantly alter the temporal turnover of soil microbial communities –  Wang – Science of the total environment

High abundance of Ralstonia solanacearum changed tomato rhizosphere microbiome and metabolome – Wen – BMC Plant Biology

Phages and viruses

Preprint : First evidence of virus-like particles in the bacterial symbionts of Bryozoa – Vishnyakov – BioRxiv

Microbial community development on model particles in the deep sulfidic waters of the Black Sea – Suominen – Environmental microbiology

The stepwise assembly of the neonatal virome is modulated by breastfeeding – Liang – Nature

Bioinformatics

Preprint: Bayesian classification, anomaly detection, and survival analysis using network inputs with application to the microbiome – Josephs – arXiv

Techniques

Preprint: Expanding the diversity of bacterioplankton isolates and modeling isolation efficacy with large scale dilution-to-extinction cultivation – Henson – bioRxiv

Catalyzing rapid discovery of gold-precipitating bacterial lineages with university students – Riley – PeerJ

COVID-19 and career

Science-ing from home – Powell – Nature

My non-microbiology pick

Perspective: Lean, mean, learning machines – Wheeler – Nature review microbiology

April 16, 2020

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Greetings from Pittsburgh, PA! I’ve been following Microbiome Digest for several years, but this is my first contribution. Although my research is in a different subject area now, my PhD work focused on host-associated microbiota. That topic still has a special place in my heart, so below you’ll find research articles focused on the microbiota of calves, honey bees, dogs, giant clams, mosquitos, and bats! If host-associated microbiota isn’t your topic of interest, I’ve also included other articles so you can learn “WhatsGNU” in microbiology!

General microbiome

Review: A benchmark of algorithms for the analysis of pooled CRISPR screens – Bodapati et al. – Genome Biology

Animal experiments

Comparison of the ruminal and fecal microbiotas in beef calves supplemented or not with concentrate – Lourenco et al. – PLOS One

The trisaccharide melezitose impacts honey bees and their intestinal microbiota – Seeburger – PLOS One

Fecal shedding of Salmonella spp., Clostridium perfringens, and Clostridioides difficile in dogs fed raw meat-based diets in Brazil and their owners’ motivation – Viegas et al. – PLOS One

Mechanistic molecular responses of the giant clam Tridacna crocea to Vibrio coralliilyticus challenge – Xu et al. – PLOS One

Animal microbiome

Metagenomic analysis of Aedes aegypti and Culex quinquefasciatus mosquitoes from Grenada, West Indies – Ramos-Nino et al. – PLOS One

Detection of novel coronaviruses in bats in Myanmar – Valitutto et al. – PLOS One

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Plant microbiome analysis after Metarhizium amendment reveals increases in abundance of plant growth-promoting organisms and maintenance of disease-suppressive soil – Barelli et al. – PLOS One

The genome evolution and domestication of tropical fruit mango – Wang et al. – Genome Biology

Water and extremophile microbiome

Environmental control on the distribution of metabolic strategies of benthic microbial mats in Lake Fryxell, Antarctica – Dillion et al. – PLOS One

Preprint: Experimentally-validated correlation analysis reveals new anaerobic methane oxidation partnerships with consortium-level heterogeneity in diazotrophy – Metcalfe et al. – bioRxiv

Built environment

A comparative analysis of drinking water employing metagenomics -Brumfield et al. – PLOS One

Prevalence and pollution characteristics of antibiotic resistant genes in one high anthropogenically-impacted river – Li and Zhang – PLOS One

Longitudinal survey of microbiome associated with particulate matter in a megacity – Qin et al. – Genome Biology

Phages and viruses

Ozone efficacy for the control of airborne viruses: Bacteriophage and norovirus models – Dubuis et al. – PLOS One

Bioinformatics

Decode-seq: a practical approach to improve differential gene expression analysis – Li et al. – Genome Biology

WhatsGNU: a tool for identifying proteomic novelty – Moustafa and Planet – Genome Biology

A Zipf-plot based normalization method for high-throughput RNA-seq data – Wang – PLOS One

April 11, 2020

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Happy Saturday morning, y’all! I’m excited for my first contribution to the digest, and hope you enjoy my picks over a luxurious weekend meal. Today’s digest starts with some preprints about COVID including research on a drug that may inhibit viral replication. Other research highlights include an examination of the relationship between the vaginal microbiome and pre-term birth, a preprint on the oral microbiome in space, and a potential new technique for low cost, high-throughput metagenome profiling. Scroll all the way to the end for information about a fun project by a University of Wyoming student called The Microbestiary.

COVID-19
Preprint: Genomic determinants of pathogenicity in SARS-CoV-2 and other human coronaviruses. Auslander, N. et al.

Preprint: Nelfinavir inhibits replication of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 in vitro. Yamamoto, N. et al.

Preprint: Understanding the B and T cells epitopes of spike protein of severe respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2: A computational way to predict the immunogens. Vashi, Y. et al.

General Microbiome
Preprint: From iron to antibiotics: Identification of conserved bacterial-fungal interactions across diverse partners. Pierce, EC. et al.

Human Gut Microbiome
Review: Unraveling Host-Gut Microbiota Dialogue and Its Impact on Cholesterol Levels. Villette R. et al. Frontiers in Pharmacology.

Metagenomics analysis reveals features unique to Indian distal gut microbiota. Kaur, K. et al. PLOS ONE.

Gut Microbiota Modulate CD8 T Cell Responses to Influence Colitis-Associated Tumorigenesis. Yu, A.I. et al. Cell Reports.

Human Oral Microbiome
Preprint: Characterization of the oral microbiome of medically controlled type-2 diabetes patients. Santos, A. et al.

Human Vaginal Microbiome
Cervicovaginal microbiome and natural history of HPV in a longitudinal study. Usyk, M. et al. PLOS Pathogens.

Meta-Analysis of Vaginal Microbiome Data Provides New Insights Into Preterm Birth. Kosti, I. et al. Frontiers in Microbiology.

Water and Extremophile Microbiome
Microbiota characterization of Exaiptasia diaphana from the Great Barrier Reef. Hartman, L.M. et al. Animal Microbiome.

Microbial Diversity and Metabolic Potential in the Stratified Sansha Yongle Blue Hole in the South China Sea. He, P. et al. Scientific Reports.

Metabolic versatility of freshwater sedimentary archaea feeding on different organic carbon sources. Compte-Port, S. et al. PLOS ONE.

Animal Experiments and Animal Microbiome
The skin microbiome facilitates adaptive tetrodotoxin production in poisonous newts. Vaelli, P.M. et al. eLife.

Metatranscriptomic virome assessment of Rhipicephalus microplus from Colombia. Gomez, G.F. et al. Ticks and Tick-borne Diseases.

Preprint: Metabolic differences between symbiont subpopulations in the deep-sea tubeworm Riftia pachyptila. Hinzke, T. et al.

Preprint: Similar gut bacterial microbiota in two fruit-feeding moth pests collected from different host species and locations. Gong, Q et al.

Plant, Root, and Soil Microbiome
The preceding root system drives the composition and function of the rhizosphere microbiome. Zhou, Y. et al. Genome Biology.

Microbial Co-Occurrence in Floral Nectar Affects Metabolites and Attractiveness to a Generalist Pollinator. Rering, C.C. et al. Journal of Chemical Ecology.

Impact of phages on soil bacterial communities and nitrogen availability under different assembly scenarios. Braga, L.P.P. et al. Microbiome.

A predatory myxobacterium controls cucumber Fusarium wilt by regulating the soil microbial community. Ye, X. et al. Microbiome.

A plant genetic network for preventing dysbiosis in the phyllosphere. Chen, T. et al. Nature.

Fungal communities differentially respond to warming and drought in tropical grassland soil. de Oliveira, T.B. et al. Molecular Ecology.

Built Environment
An in-depth survey of the microbial landscape of the walls of a neonatal operating room. Derilus, D. et al. PLOS ONE.

Microbes in Space
Preprint: Defining the resilience of the human salivary microbiota by a 520 days longitudinal study in confined environment: the Mars500 mission. Bacci, G. et al.

Phages and Viruses
Phage cocktail containing Podoviridae and Myoviridae bacteriophages inhibits the growth of Pectobacterium spp. under in vitro and in vivo conditions. Zaczek-Moczydłowska, M.A. et al. PLOS ONE.

Dynamic genome evolution and complex virocell metabolism of globally-distributed giant viruses. Moniruzzaman M., et al. Nature Communications.

Preprint: Infection with novel Bacteroides phage BV01 alters host transcriptome and bile acid metabolism in a common human gut microbe. Campbell, D.E. et al.

Bioinformatics
Preprint: Integrative and Conjugative Elements (ICE) and Associated Cargo Genes within and across Hundreds of Bacterial Genera. Kaufman, J. et al.

Techniques
A restriction enzyme reduced representation sequencing approach for low-cost, high-throughput metagenome profiling. Hess, M.K. et al. PLOS ONE.

Industrial Microbiome
Open microbiome dominated by Clostridium and Eubacterium converts methanol into i-butyrate and n-butyrate. Huang, S. et al. Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology.

Fun with Microbes
University of Wyoming masters student Erin Bentley was selected for an Arctic Circle Expedition in 2021 where she will characterize microbes and share her discoveries on The Microbestiary.
“The Microbestiary strives to show the public, in welcoming and memorable ways, that the microbial world is populated by strange and beautiful characters,” says Bentley in an article published on the UW website.

April 7, 2020

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Hi everyone! This is my first contribution to the daily digest, and I’ll follow others’ lead by starting with the latest preprints concerning Covid-19. Away from the ongoing pandemic, some of the highlights include a look at how commensal gut microbes interact with pathogens, and an insight into deep sea oceanic crust microbiomes.

It seems to be a relatively quiet day today, so I’ve included an article from the University of Bristol which looks at how nanoscopic pillars on the surface of some insect wings protect them against bacteria. Perhaps only loosely a microbiome paper, but it’s worth a read for its electron microscopy alone!

COVID-19

Structure of the SARS-CoV-2 spike receptor-binding domain bound to the ACE2 receptor – Lan et al. – Nature

Preprint: Atazanavir inhibits SARS-CoV-2 replication and pro-inflammatory cytokine production – Fintelman-Rodrigues et al.

Preprint: Amantadine disrupts lysosomal gene expression; potential therapy for COVID19 – Smieszek et al.

Preprint: Potent Antiviral Activities of Type I Interferons to SARS-CoV-2 Infection – Mantlo et al.

Human gut microbiome

Dissecting individual pathogen-commensal interactions within a complex gut microbiota community – Hassall and Unnikrishnan

Animal microbiome

Antibacterial effects of nanopillar surfaces are mediated by cell impedance, penetration and induction of oxidative stress – Jenkins et al. – Nature Communications

Water and extremophile microbiome

Deep microbial proliferation at the basalt interface in 33.5–104 million-year-old oceanic crust – Suzuki et al. – Communications Biology

Food microbiology

How does the microbiome impact pig health? – Sarah Mikesell – The Pig Site

Microbes in the news

Lifestyle trumps geography in determining makeup of gut microbiome – EurekAlert!

Microbes on the market

Gilead taps Second Genome for microbiome biomarker help in a potential $1.5B deal – Connor Hale – FierceBiotech.com

April 6, 2020

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God morgon!

Good morning from Sweden. This is my first post and following the current trend, it starts with some articles on the COVID19 pandemic. Today’s digest is headlined by some interesting preprints reporting inhibitors of SARS-CoV2 virus, followed by another interesting read suggesting the link between the gut microbiome and ADHD, some articles on our struggle against pathogenic bacteria, virus and fungi, and capped off with a small but informative news article on things one should not do during the COVID19 lockdown.

You might notice that today’s post is dominated by preprints. These preprints, while being an excellent way to disperse information as rapidly as it emerges, aren’t peer-reviewed. Hence, always read them with a pinch of salt!

COVID19

Preprint: In vitro screening of a FDA approved chemical library reveals potential inhibitors of SARS-CoV-2 replication – Franck Touret, et al.

Preprint: LY6E Restricts the Entry of Human Coronaviruses, including the currently pandemic SARS-CoV-2 – Xuesen Zhao, et al.

Preprint: Indomethacin has a potent antiviral activity against SARS CoV-2 in vitro and canine coronavirus in vivo – Tianhong Xu, et al.

Preprint: Potent Antiviral Activities of Type I Interferons to SARS-CoV-2 Infection – Emily K. Mantlo, et al.

Microbial interactions

Preprint: Enhanced nutrient uptake is sufficient to drive emergent cross-feeding between bacteria – Ryan K Fritts, et al.

Structure and function of the Arctic and Antarctic marine microbiota as revealed by metagenomics – Weipeng Zhang, et al. – Microbiome

Preprint: Accumulation of dead cells from contact killing facilitates coexistence in bacterial biofilms – Gabi Steinbach, et al.

Human microbiome

Preprint: Gut microbiota from persons with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder affects the brain in mice – Anouk C. Tengeler, et al.

Lung function and microbiota diversity in cystic fibrosis – Leah Cuthbertson, et al. – Microbiome

Animal microbiome

Preprint: Functional maturation of the gut microbiota at weaning is influenced by maternal environment in piglets – Martin Beaumont, et al.

Bacteria Hysteria

Preprint: The adaptive transcriptional response of pathogenic Leptospira to peroxide reveals new defenses against infection-related oxidative stress – Crispin Zavala-Alvarado, et al.

Preprint: Cytotoxicity of the effector protein BteA was attenuated in Bordetella pertussis by insertion of an alanine residue – Jan Bayram, et al.

Preprint: Antimicrobial peptide induced-stress renders Staphylococcus aureus susceptible to toxic nucleoside analogues – Alexandro Rodriguez-Rojas, et al.

Preprint: (p)ppGpp and malonyl-CoA set the pace for Staphylococcus aureus adaptation to FASII antibiotics and provide a basis for bi-therapy inhibition – Amit Pathania, et al.

Phages and viruses

Preprint: Viral RNA is a target for Wolbachia-mediated pathogen blocking – Tamanash Bhattacharya, et al.

Preprint: Synchronized infection identifies early rate-limiting steps in the hepatitis B virus life cycle – Anindita Chakraborty, et al.

Techniques

Preprint: Evaluation of DNA extraction protocols from liquid-based cytology specimens for studying cervical microbiota – Takeo Shibata, et al.

Preprint: Biotinylated surfome profiling identifies potential biomarkers for diagnosis and therapy of Aspergillus fumigatus infection – Lei-Jie Jia, et al.

Bioinformatics

Preprint: Interpretable machine learning framework reveals novel gut microbiome features in predicting type 2 diabetes – Wanglong Gou, et al.

Preprint: Comprehensive single cell analysis of pandemic influenza A virus infection in the human airways uncovers cell-type specific host transcriptional signatures relevant for disease progression and pathogenesis – Jenna N Kelly, et al.

MetaEuk—sensitive, high-throughput gene discovery, and annotation for large-scale eukaryotic metagenomics – Eli Levy Karin, et al. – Microbiome

Preprint: Whole genome sequences of multi-drug resistant Escherichia coli isolated in a Pastoralist Community of Western Uganda: Phylogenomic changes, virulence and resistant genes – Jacob Stanley Iramiot, et al.

Microbes in news

News article: Experts study banana disease in Tanzania – The Guardian

News article: What not to do while on COVID-19 lockdown – Jamaica Observer

I know a lot of my fellow researchers are unable to continue their experiments and are yearning to get back to their respective labs. It is a testing time and I believe that patience and perseverance are the biggest strengths of a researcher. So, let’s bank on our strength and hope to see each other on the other side of this global pandemic soon!

With new information emerging every day about COVID19, there is a plethora of misinformation and myths surrounding the virus and the disease. As science enthusiasts, it is pertinent for us to dispel these myths. Here is a small list that I complied a few days back. Check it out!