August 29, 2016

Breast milk protects against GBS colonization, niche segregation in the gut, drug detection and effects in streams, reconstruction of metabolic networks.

Pregnancy and birth

Role of human milk oligosaccharides in Group B Streptococcus colonisation – Nicholas J Andreas – Clinical & Translational Immunology

Press: Breast Milk Sugar May Protect Newborns Against Deadly Bacterial Infection – Dianne Depra – Tech Times

Human skin microbiome

News and Views: Microbiome: Ecology of eczema – Ian D. Odell – Nature Microbiology

Human respiratory microbiome

Changes in the prevalence and biofilm formation of Haemophilus influenzae and Haemophilus parainfluenzae from the respiratory microbiota of patients with sarcoidosis – Urszula Kosikowska – BMC Infectious Diseases

Human vaginal microbiome

The cervico-vaginal microbiota in women notified for Chlamydia trachomatis infection: A case-control study at the STI outpatient clinic in Amsterdam, the Netherlands – C van der Veer – Clinical Infectious Diseases

Human gut microbiome

Transcriptional interactions suggest niche segregation among microorganisms in the human gut – Damian Rafal Plichta – Nature Microbiology

Review: Alzheimer’s disease and gut microbiota – Xu Hu – Science China Life Sciences

Review: In Sickness and in Health: The Relationships Between Bacteria and Bile in the Human Gut – A.J. Hay – Advances in Applied Microbiology

Animal experiments

Enterococcus faecalis readily colonizes the entire gastrointestinal tract and forms biofilms in a germ-free mouse model – Aaron M.T. Barnes – Virulence

Animal microbiome

Distinct Bacterial Microbiomes in Sexual and Asexual Potamopyrgus antipodarum, a New Zealand Freshwater Snail – Cristina Takacs-Vesbach – PLOS ONE

Water and extremophile microbiome

Occurrence and Potential Biological Effects of Amphetamine on Stream Communities – Sylvia S. Lee – Environmental Science & Technology

Press: Ecological consequences of amphetamine pollution in urban streams – Cary Institute
Your drain on drugs: Amphetamines seep into Baltimore’s streams – Jen Christensen – CNN
Comment from PubMed Commons by Daniel Himmelstein 

Diversity of culturable bacteria recovered from Pico Bolívar’s glacial and subglacial environments, at 4950 m, in Venezuelan tropical Andes – Johnma Rondón – Canadian Journal of Microbiology

Metabolomics

Efficient Reconstruction of Predictive Consensus Metabolic Network Models – Ruben G. A. van Heck – PLOS Computational Biology

Bioinformatics and Metagenomics

Review: Toward Accurate and Quantitative Comparative Metagenomics – Stephen Nayfach – Cell

Techniques

Thousands of primer-free, high-quality, full-length SSU rRNA sequences from all domains of life – Soeren M Karst – bioRxiv

A method for assessing efficiency of bacterial cell disruption and DNA release – Olle M. de Bruin – BMC Microbiology

Microbes in the news

Findings from the American Physiological Society’s Inflammation, Immunity and Cardiovascular Disease conference: Targeting gut bacteria to reduce weight gain – Science Daily

Microbes at work in your Kimchi – Jennifer – The Microbial Menagerie

Artist’s 46-year-old loo paper to be studied: Billy Apple’s decades-old lavatory paper is now part of a scientific study at Auckland University – Jamie Morton – NZ Herald

BacteriaHysteriaThe ultimate embodiment of modern day germophobia: Squix – Jonathan Eisen – MicroBEnet

Science misconduct

Leading scientist suspended amid misconduct claims: Robert Ryan, award-winning Scottish microbiologist now under investigation – Victoria Weldon – Herald Scotland

August 24, 2016

Revisiting obesity and microbiome links, movies of Vibrio growing in biofilms, and decomposing chickens (yum)!

My apologies for not having had a lot of time to keep up with the literature. I’m now running all searches after work hours. This week we have friends over from Europe, and after 7 pm, my friends go before work ! Here is what I have so far, but it’s not as recent as I would like it to be. Hopefully I will have some time in the weekend to catch up.

Jobs and events

Postdoc Position in Bioinformatics, Metagenomics and the Human Microbiome – Jeroen Raes group, Leuven, Belgium

Human Microbiome Journal Club, Friday August 26: What is the most appropriate method for associating microbiome data with health and disease?

Human gut microbiome

Previously on bioRxiv, now publishedLooking for a Signal in the Noise: Revisiting Obesity and the Microbiome – Marc A. Sze, Patrick D. Schloss – mBio

No, your gut bacteria ISN’T making you fat: Scientists find ‘no difference’ between the microbes in obese and thin people’s stomachs – Daily Mail

Effect of Fecal Microbiota Transplantation on Recurrence in Multiply Recurrent Clostridium difficile Infection: A Randomized Trial – Colleen R. Kelly – Annals of Internal Medicine

Systematic Review: Adverse Events of Fecal Microbiota Transplantation – Sinan Wang – PLOS ONE

Animal microbiome

Nutrition mediates the expression of cultivar–farmer conflict in a fungus-growing ant – Jonathan Z. Shik – PNAS

Water microbiome

Distinct bacterial communities in surficial seafloor sediments following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon blowout – Tingting Yang – Frontiers in Microbiology

Microbiome of death

Effect of Substrate on Identification of Microbial Communities in Poultry Carcass Composting and Microorganisms Associated with Poultry Carcass Decomposition – Jie Wang – Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry

Bioinformatics and metagenomics

Using Dendritic Heat Maps to Simultaneously Display Genotype Divergence with Phenotype Divergence – Matthew Kellom – PLOS ONE

Microbial Ecology

Review: Biotic Interactions in Microbial Communities as Modulators of Biogeochemical Processes: Methanotrophy as a Model System – Adrian Ho – Frontiers in Microbiology

More microbiology

Vibrio cholerae biofilm growth program and architecture revealed by single-cell live imaging – Jing Yan – PNAS

Comparative genomics of biotechnologically important yeasts – Robert Riley – PNAS

Microbes in the news

Great Moments in Science: The microscopic high-tech wizardry of bacteria – Karl Kruszelnicki – ABC Australia

Bacteria are the probably cause of barnacles sticking to boats – battling biofouling with biology – Mary Beth Griggs – PopSci

Bacteria Hysteria

Your Bed Is A Hotbed Of Bacteria – Joy D’Souza – Huffington Post Canada
Bacteria in your Bed – “study” sponsored by AmeriSleep (huge CoI)

Science, publishing, and career

Including Diverse Voices in Science Stories –  Christina Selby – The Open Notebook

 

July 19, 2016

Gut microbial translocation and liver cirrhosis, cockatiel microbiome, human thanatomicrobiome, and the Pokémon microbiome.

Human gut microbiome

Gut microbial translocation corrupts myeloid cell function to control bacterial infection during liver cirrhosis – Carl-Philipp Hackstein – Gut

Press: Fighting life-threatening bacteria without antibiotics. Researchers discover the cause of infections in patients with cirrhosis of the liver – Science Daily

Review: Emerging Technologies for Gut Microbiome Research – Jason W. Arnold – Trends in Microbiology

Review: Gut Microbiome and Liver Disease – Naga S. Betrapally – Translational Research

Human vaginal microbiome

Review:  Does the vaginal microbiota play a role in the development of cervical cancer?
Maria Kyrgiou – Translational Research

Animal experiments

Arsenic Dysbiosis to the Zebrafish Microbiome: An Ecological or Physiological Response?
Jonathan Michael Von Reusner – Bard College

Commensal Bacteria Aid Mate-selection in the Fruit Fly, Bactrocera dorsalis – Kamala Jayanthi Pagadala Damodaram – Microbial Ecology

Animal microbiome

Cockatiel (Nymphicus hollandicus) gut microbiomes, bacterial inhabitants of a worldwide distributed pet – Luis David Alcaraz – PeerJ Preprint

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Long-term effects of imbalanced fertilization on the composition and diversity of soil bacterial community – Jinu Eo – Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment

Built environment microbiome

Protocol: Protocols for Investigating the Microbial Communities of Oil and Gas Reservoirs – Nicolas Tsesmetzis – Springer Protocols Handouts

Thesis: A Metagenomic Analysis of Hurricane Sandy Flood-Borne Bacteria – Isabel Anna Keddy-Hector – Bard College

Microbiome of death

Human Thanatomicrobiome Succession and Time Since Death – Gulnaz T. Javan – Scientific Reports

Techniques

Impact of Sample Type and DNA Isolation Procedure on Genomic Inference of Microbiome Composition – Berith E Knudsen – bioRxiv

Microbes in the news

Pokébiome: A call for Research Participants – Sea Germ – Megabiome (satire)

Understanding the microbiome of the Boston subway – BioBE

Studies Offer Fresh Hope in Fight Against HIV/AIDS in South AfricaCertain bacteria put some women at greater risk of infection and make treatment less effective – Betsy McKay – The Wall Street Journal
How vaginal bacteria could be stoking HIV cases and blocking prevention – Heather Boerner – PBS Newshour
Vaginal bacteria species can raise HIV infection risk and undermine prevention – Jon Cohen – Science

The Wild Life of Showerheads: Another great #CitizenMicrobiology project from ‏@RobRDunn – Jonathan Eisen – MicroBEnet

How Bacteria May Have Jumpstarted the First Animal Life – Heather Goldstone – Cape and Islands

Scientists grow bacteria that breathe greenhouse gases – Christoph Keuschnig – Science Nordic

QIIME 2 alpha release is now live! – Greg Caporaso – MicroBEnet

Bacteria Hysteria

How much faecal bacteria is on YOUR shopping trolley? Tests reveal unhealthy levels on trolleys and baskets at Coles and Aldi – Daily Mail

July 4, 2016

Happy 4th! Since most folks in the US are firing up the BBQ today, here is a very short Digest. Make sure to read Alexandra Carmichael’s piece on the connection between microbes and Independence Day.

Human gut microbiome

Gut Microbiota Developments With Emphasis on Inflammatory Bowel Disease: Report From the Gut Microbiota for Health World Summit 2016 – Hester Eppinga – Gastroenterology

Review: Targeting the ecology within: The role of the gut–brain axis and human microbiota in drug addiction – Patrick D. Skosnik – Medical Hypotheses

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Biogeographic distribution patterns of bacteria in typical Chinese forest soils – Zongwei Xia – Frontiers in Microbiology

A diverse soil microbiome degrades more crude oil than specialized bacterial assemblages obtained in culture – Terrence H. Bell – Applied and Environmental Microbiology

Crown galls of grapevine (Vitis vinifera) host distinct microbiota – Hanna Faist – Applied and Environmental Microbiology

Water microbiome

Environmental Breviatea harbour mutualistic Arcobacter epibionts – Emmo Hamann – Nature

Press: Research discovery may lead to new ways to treat bacterial disease. University researchers Marc Strous and Emmo Hamann part of international team exploring how microbes can be both friend and foe – Mark Lowey – UCalgary

Techniques

Effects of Specimen Collection Methodologies and Storage Conditions on the Short-Term Stability of Oral Microbiome Taxonomy – Ting Luo – Applied and Environmental Microbiology

Microbes in the news

The microbes that mark Independence Day – Alexandra Carmichael – uBiome

Subway system laden with harmless bacteria, researchers say. ‘I wouldn’t recommend licking the seats any time soon,’ Harvard professor says – Amina Zafar – CBC News

Bacteria ‘gardeners’ farm algae to harvest when food runs out – Andy Coghlan – New Scientist

More flour recalled as the FDA doubles down on cookie dough warning – Ars Technica

Bacteria Hysteria

Your Cell Phone is Covered in Germs! 5 Tips to Keep It Clean – Ryan Reed – HGTV

May 3, 2016

Counting the microbial species on Earth, goat rumen microbiome development, red kangaroos who died a tragic death, fungi in burgundy vineyards, Archaea in  Yellowstone, and image irregularities at a Pfizer lab in La Jolla.

Jobs and Events

Postdoctoral Fellowship Opportunity: Microbiology of the Built Environment – Sloan Foundation

Bioinformatics for the Microbiome, May 27 – Stanford Center for Genomics and Personalized Medicine, $49

General microbiology

Scaling laws predict global microbial diversity: Earth is home to as many as 1 trillion (10exp12) microbial species – Kenneth J. Locey – PNAS

Pregnancy and birth

Impact of Prematurity and Perinatal Antibiotics on the Developing Intestinal Microbiota: A Functional Inference Study – Silvia Arboleya – MDPI International Journal of Molecular Sciences

Review: Young microbes for adult obesity – M. Serino – Pediatric Obesity

Review: Microbial therapeutic interventions – Nicole G. Grady – Seminars in Fetal and Neonatal Medicine

Human oral microbiome

Microbiome of Deep Dentinal Caries Lesions in Teeth with Symptomatic Irreversible Pulpitis – Isabela N. Rôças – PLOS ONE

Human respiratory tract microbiome

Nasopharyngeal Microbiota, Host Transcriptome and Disease Severity in Children with Respiratory Syncytial Virus Infection – Wouter A.A. de Steenhuijsen Piters – Am J Respir Crit Care Med.

Human reproductive tract microbiome

Detection of DNA viruses in prostate cancer – Vitaly Smelov – Scientific Reports

Human gut microbiome

Effect of probiotic yoghurt on animal-based diet-induced change in gut microbiota: an open, randomised, parallel-group study – T. Odamaki – Beneficial Microbes

Fecal microbiota transplant for Clostridium difficile infection in older adults – William M. Tauxe – Therapeutic Advances in Gastroenterology

Review: Fine-tuning of the mucosal barrier and metabolic systems using the diet-microbial metabolite axis – Motoyoshi Nagai – International Immunopharmacology

Review: Gut Microbiome in CKD: challenges and opportunities – Anitha Nallu – Translational Research

Editorial: Transplanting a Microbial Organ: the Good, the Bad, and the Unknown – Dionysios A. Antonopoulos – mBio

Animal models
A polyphenol-rich fraction obtained from table grapes decreases adiposity, insulin resistance and markers of inflammation and impacts gut microbiota in high-fat-fed mice – Brian Collins – The Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry

Diet-induced obesity, energy metabolism and gut microbiota in C57BL/6J mice fed Western diets based on lean seafood or lean meat mixtures – Jacob Bak Holm – The Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry

Colonic Inflammation Accompanies An Increase of β-Catenin Signaling and Lachnospiraceae/Streptococcaceae in the Hind Gut of High-Fat Diet-Fed Mice – Huawei Zeng – The FASEB Journal

Gut commensal Bacteroides acidifaciens prevents obesity and improves insulin sensitivity in mice – J-Y Yang – Mucosal Immunology

Composition and Predicted Metabolic Capacity of Upper and Lower Airway Microbiota of Healthy Dogs in Relation to the Fecal Microbiota – Aaron C. Ericsson – PLOS ONE

Cultivation and qPCR Detection of Pathogenic and Antibiotic-Resistant Bacterial Establishment in Naive Broiler Houses – J. P. Brooks – Journal of Environmental Quality

Exploring the Goat Rumen Microbiome from Seven Days to Two Years – Lizhi Wang – PLOS ONE

Bacteriocin from epidemic Listeria strains alters the host intestinal microbiota to favor infection – Juan J. Quereda – PNAS

Animal microbiome

Spatial dynamics of the bacterial community structure in the gastrointestinal tract of red kangaroo (Macropus rufus) – Meirong Li – World Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology

Assessment of Bacterial Communities in Thirteen Species of Laboratory-Cultured Domestic Mites (Acari: Acaridida) – Jan Hubert – Journal of Economic Entomology

Bacterial community in Haemaphysalis ticks of domesticated animals from the Orang Asli communities in Malaysia – Jing-Jing Khoo – Ticks and Tick-borne Diseases

Metabolomics of reef benthic interactions reveals a bioactive lipid involved in coral defence – Robert A. Quinn – Proceedings of the Royal Society B

Taxonomic and functional diversity of the culturable microbiomes of epigeic earthworms and their prospects in agriculture – Arjun Singh – Journal of Basic Microbiology

Methanogen Diversity in Indigenous and Introduced Ruminant Species on the Tibetan Plateau – Xiao Dan Huang – Archaea

Horse Species Symposium abstracts: Journal of Animal Science
Recent advances in the microbiome and physiology of the hindgut of the horse and dog – F. Camargo
Canine intestinal microbiology and metagenomics: From phylogeny to function – B. C. Guard – Journal of Animal Science
The microbiome of the horse hindgut: History and current knowledge – V. Julliand

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Bacterial diversity and composition in major fresh produce growing soils affected by physiochemical properties and geographic locations – Jincai Ma – Science of the Total Environment

Microbial diversity limits soil heterotrophic respiration and mitigates the respiration response to moisture increase – Fen-Guo Zhang – Soil Biology and Biochemistry

Total and active microbial communities and phoD as affected by phosphate depletion and pH in soil – Sabine A. Ragot – Plant and Soil

Genetically modified WYMV-resistant wheat exerts little influence on rhizosphere microbial communities – Zhenhua Zhang – Applied Soil Ecology

Loss of testate amoeba functional diversity with increasing frost intensity across a continental gradient reduces microbial activity in peatlands – Vincent E.J. Jassey – European Journal of Protistology

Regional-scale analysis of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi: the case of burgundy vineyards – Marie-Lara Bouffaud – Oeno One

Review: Role of Plant Growth Promoting Rhizobacteria in Agricultural Sustainability—A Review – Pravin Vejan – MDPI Molecules

Chapter: Mycorrhizas in Agroecosystems – Marcela C. Pagano – Recent Advances on Mycorrhizal Fungi

Water and extremophile microbiome

Next-Generation Sequencing Assessment of Eukaryotic Diversity in Oil Sands Tailings Ponds Sediments and Surface Water – Maria Aguilar – The Journal of Eukaryotic Microbiology

Drift in ocean currents impacts intergenerational microbial exposure to temperature – Martina A. Doblin – PNAS

Low Genome Content Diversity of Marine Planktonic Thaumarchaeota – Haiwei Luo – Environmental Microbiology Reports

The distribution, diversity and function of predominant Thermoproteales in high-temperature environments of Yellowstone National Park – Zackary J. Jay – Environmental Microbiology

Multidrug resistance phenotypes are widespread over different bacterial taxonomic groups thriving in surface water – Carlos Narciso-da-Rocha – Science of the Total Environment

A 150-year record of phytoplankton 1 community succession controlled by hydroclimatic variability in a tropical lake – Kweku Afrifa Yamoah – Biogeosciences

Review: Hydrothermal Vents and Methane Seeps: Rethinking the Sphere of Influence – Lisa A. Levin – Frontiers in Marine Science

ReviewMicrobial associations with macrobiota in coastal ecosystems: patterns and implications for nitrogen cycling – Orissa M Moulton – Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment

Book: Biotechnology of Extremophile – Springer

Waste and pollution microbiology

Revealing colonisation and biofilm formation of an adherent coal seam associated microbial community on a coal surface – Silas H.W. Vick – International Journal of Coal Geology

Enhanced Degradation of Diesel in the Rhizosphere of Lupinus luteus after Inoculation with Diesel-Degrading and Plant Growth-Promoting Bacterial Strains – María Balseiro-Romero – Journal of Environmental Quality

Built environment microbiology

Urban Microbiomes and Urban Agriculture: What Are the Connections and Why Should We Care? – Gary M. King – Sowing Seeds in the City

Bioinformatics, transcriptomics, metagenomics

rnaQUAST: a quality assessment tool for de novo transcriptome assemblies – Elena Bushmanova – Bioinformatics

Feature: Microbiology: the road to strain-level identification – Vivien Marx – Nature Methods

Protocol BookData Mining Techniques for the Life Sciences – Springer
Bacterial Genomic Data Analysis in the Next-Generation Sequencing Era – Massimiliano Orsini
Update on Genomic Databases and Resources at the National Center for Biotechnology Information – Tatiana Tatusova
Big Data, Evolution, and Metagenomes: Predicting Disease from Gut Microbiota Codon Usage Profiles – Maja Fabijanić

More microbiology

Riches of phenotype computationally extracted from microbial colonies – Tzu-Yu Liu – PNAS

Microbes in the news

UB’s microbiome hunters. These are exciting times at UB as its work on the human genome and microbiome matures. – Research Foundation for The State University of New York

Video: How Your City Has Its Own Unique Microbiome – Discovery News – YouTube

Wrapping up multiple sclerosis at UCSF – Claire Conway – UC San Francisco

Stalking Cave Bacteria to Make Secret Weapons Against Superbugs: Dr. Naowarat Cheeptham – Sam Grobart – Bloomberg

Seres Therapeutics Announces Achievement of Target Enrollment of SER-109 Phase 2 Study for the Prevention of Recurrent Clostridium difficile Infection – Business Wire

Bacteria use traffic-cop-like mechanism to infect gutWSU scientists discover mechanism critical to pathogens’ success – EurekAlert

Tesla’s Bioweapon Defense Mode can protect you from bacteria, and reduce pollution
Cars. Tesla’s AC unit is available on the Model X and the new Model S – Alphr

Bacteria Hysteria

This odor-fighting, bacteria-killing underwear is made with pure silver – Christian de Looper – Yahoo Digital Trends
Millions of people are drinking mold and bacteria with their coffee. This is how to avoid it! – David Wolfe

Science, publishing and career

Image integrity concerns in papers from a Pfizer lab – Leonid Schneider – For Better Science

April 5, 2016

Differences in myelination and gene expression in prefrontal cortex between GF and conventional mice, migratory passerines, metagenomics of probiotics, and megaviromes.

Events

NAS Meeting: Microbiomes of the Built Environment: From Research to Application – David Coil – MicroBEnet

Human oral microbiome

Impact of age and sex on the composition and abundance of the intestinal microbiota in individuals with and without enteric infections – Pallavi Singh – Annals of Epidemiology

Review [PDF]: Oral Microbial Shift: Factors affecting the Microbiome and Prevention of Oral Disease – Namrata Dagli – Journal of Contemporary Dental Practice

Human reproductive tract microbiome

Review: Incorporating microbiota data into epidemiological models: Examples from vaginal microbiota research – Janneke van de Wijgert – Annals of Epidemiology

Combined effect of diet and cervical microbiome on the risk of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia – Sang-Soo Seo – Clinical Nutrition

Human gut microbiome

Diversified mcr-1-Harbouring Plasmid Reservoirs Confer Resistance to Colistin in Human Gut Microbiota – Huiyan Ye – mBio

Animal models

Regulation of prefrontal cortex myelination by the microbiota – AE Hoban – Translational Psychiatry

Responses of fecal bacterial communities to resistant starch intervention in diabetic rats – Zhongkai Zhou – Starch

Resveratrol Attenuates Trimethylamine-N-Oxide (TMAO)-Induced Atherosclerosis by Regulating TMAO Synthesis and Bile Acid Metabolism via Remodeling of the Gut Microbiota – Ming-liang Chen – mBio

Commentary: Policing of gut microbiota by the adaptive immune system – Laurent Dollé – BMC Medicine

Animal microbiome

Sample processing impacts the viability and cultivability of the sponge microbiome – Ana I. Esteves – Frontiers in Microbiology

Characterization of the gut microbiota of migratory passerines during stopover along the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico – William B. Lewis – Journal of Avian Biology

Highlight: Microbes matter: herbivore gut endosymbionts play a role in breakdown of host plant toxins – Franziska Beran – Environmental Microbiology

Selective feeding by the giant barrel sponge enhances foraging efficiency – Steven E. McMurray – Limnology and Oceanography

PhD Thesis: Molecular investigation of Australian termites and their gut symbionts – Nurdyana Abdul Rahman – University of Queensland

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Distance-dependent effects of pathogenic fungi on seedlings of a legume tree: impaired nodule formation and identification of antagonistic rhizosphere bacteria –  Lan Liu – Journal of Ecology

Bacterial community dynamics during ensiling of perennial ryegrass at two compaction levels monitored by terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism – K. Graf – Journal of Applied Microbiology

Microsite differentiation drives the abundance of soil ammonia oxidizing bacteria along aridity gradients – Manuel Delgado-Baquerizo – Frontiers in Microbiology

Not exactly microbes but sounded interesting: Do tropical rain forest soils have greater nematode diversity than High Arctic tundra? A metagenetic comparison of Malaysia and Svalbard – Dorsaf Kerfahi – Global Ecology and Biogeography

Use of two spatially separated plant species alters microbial community function in horizontal subsurface flow constructed wetlands – Mark Button – Ecological Engineering

Water microbiome

Spatio-temporal interdependence of bacteria and phytoplankton during a Baltic Sea spring bloom – Carina Bunse – Frontiers in Microbiology

Protist-bacteria associations: Gammaproteobacteria and Alphaproteobacteria are prevalent as digestion-resistant bacteria in ciliated protozoa – Jun Gong – Frontiers in Microbiology

Particulate matter stoichiometry driven by microplankton community structure in summer in the Indian sector of the Southern Ocean – M. Rembauville – Limnology and Oceanography

Waste and pollution microbiome

Functional Metagenomics of a Biostimulated Petroleum-Contaminated Soil Reveals an Extraordinary Diversity of Extradiol Dioxygenases – Laura Terrón-González – Applied and Environmental Microbiology

Lateral Gene Transfer in a Heavy Metal-Contaminated-Groundwater Microbial Community – Christopher L. Hemme – mBio

Built environment microbiome

A novel, optical, on-line bacteria sensor for monitoring drinking water quality – Bo Højris – Scientific Reports

Food and probiotics microbiology

Culture-Independent Metagenomic Surveillance of Commercially Available Probiotics with High-Throughput Next-Generation Sequencing – Jennifer N. Patro – mSphere

Unravelling the effect of clostridia spores and lysozyme on microbiota dynamics in Grana Padano cheese: A metaproteomics approach – Alessio Soggiu – Journal of Proteomics

Viruses and phages / metagenomics

VIP: an integrated pipeline for metagenomics of virus identification and discovery – Yang Li – Scientific Reports

Antibiotic Resistome: Improving Detection and Quantification Accuracy for Comparative Metagenomics – Ali H. A. Elbehery – OMICS

Themed Issue of Current Opinion in Microbiology: Environmental microbiology/Megaviromes
Review: Giants among larges: how gigantism impacts giant virus entry into amoebae – Rodrigo Araújo Lima Rodrigues – Current Opinion in Microbiology
Review: Updating strategies for isolating and discovering giant viruses – Jacques Yaacoub Bou Khalil
Review, but not sure about what: Persistent virus and addiction modules: an engine of symbiosis – Luis P Villarreal

Metabolomics

In silico methods for linking genes and secondary metabolites: The way forward – Shradha Khater – Synthetic and Systems Biotechnology

Techniques and bioinformatics

It’s all relative: analyzing microbiome data as compositions – Gregory B. Gloor – Annals of Epidemiology

Not metagenomics but about a not-clearly defined 16S rRNA gene amplification pipeline. Not a good paper: Snapshot on a pilot metagenomic study for the appraisal of gut microbial diversity in mice, cat and men – Coline Plé – Gastroenterology Research and Practice

More microbiology

Expression of arsenic resistance genes in the obligate anaerobe Bacteroides vulgatus ATCC 8482, a gut microbiome bacterium – Jiajiao Li – Anaerobe

Cholesterol Analogs with Degradation-resistant Alkyl Side Chains Are Effective Mycobacterium tuberculosis Growth Inhibitors – Daniel J. Frank – The Journal of Biological Chemistry

Microbiology and art

This Artist Paints With Bacteria, And It’s Strangely Beautiful – Jacqueline Howard – Huffington Post

Microbes in the news

With a quote from me! Gut bacteria regulate nerve fibre insulation – Mo Costandi – The Guardian

Europe’s Microbiology Society’s Annual Conference 2016: the Twitter story – Microbepost

Antibiotic soap can alter a baby’s gut bacteria – Tim Sandle – Digital Journal

The fridge that detects bacteria in your food – NZ Herald

About COPD: Take a deep breath – your lung microbiome will appreciate it – GSK

Microbiome and the modern environment: a global drift toward dysbiosis? – Susan Prescott and Alan Logan – BioMed Central blog

Biofilm researcher: New Faces: Boo Shan Tseng: This Life Sciences professor is all about communities – University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Study by the University of Kaiserslautern: Viruses cause bacteria to produce pink pigments – AlphaGalileo

Promising new method inhibits TB–causing bacteria – Phys.org

Bacteria Hysteria

Do you know how clean your lean workout is? The DEADLY bacteria found in your gym mat – Kat Romero – Express

Bik’s Picks

Cellular telephone use during free-living walking significantly reduces average walking speed – Jacob E. Barkley – BMC Research Notes

So cool: The Cemetery as Archive: A 177-year-old cemetery is preparing to digitize millions of records that shed light on New York City’s shifting demographics – Jessica Leigh Hester

March 28, 2016

Oral microbiome and smoking, a bacterial genome from a germ-free mouse isolate, semi-arid soils, jellyfish, OTU picking methods, and the best hypervariable regions in the 16S rRNA gene.

Human oral microbiome

Cigarette smoking and the oral microbiome in a large study of American adults – Jing Wu – The ISME Journal

Human gut microbiome

Persisting changes of intestinal microbiota after bowel lavage and colonoscopy – Drago, Lorenzo – European Journal of Gastroenterology & Hepatology

Fecal Microbiota, Fecal Metabolome, and Colorectal Cancer Interrelations – Rashmi Sinha – PLOS ONE

Gut microbiome diversity in acute infective and chronic inflammatory gastrointestinal diseases in North India – Saurabh Kedia – Journal of Gastroenterology

Review: Gut Microbiota and Lifestyle Interventions in NAFLD – David Houghton – MDPI International Journal of Molecular Sciences

Review: Microbiota-gut-brain signalling in Parkinson’s disease: Implications for non-motor symptoms – Valeria D. Felice – Parkinsonism & Related Disorders

PhD Thesis: Development and analysis of molecular methods for functional metagenomics of the human gut microbiome – Kathy Lam – University of Waterloo

Animal models

Saturated and Unsaturated Dietary Fats Differentially Modulate Ethanol-Induced Changes in Gut Microbiome and Metabolome in a Mouse Model of Alcoholic Liver Disease – Irina A. Kirpich – The American Journal of Pathology

Complete Genome Sequence of Turicibacter sp. Strain H121, Isolated from the Feces of a Contaminated Germ-Free Mouse – T. A. Auchtung – Genome Announcements

Animal microbiome

Jellyfish-associated bacterial communities and bacterioplankton in Indonesian Marine lakes – Daniel F. R. Cleary – FEMS Microbial Ecology

Review: Use of Genomic Tools to Improve Cattle Health in the Context of Infectious Diseases – Mikolaj M. Raszek – Frontiers in Genetics

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Soil characteristics driving arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi communities in semiarid Mediterranean soils – Maria del Mar Alguacil – Applied and Environmental Microbiology

454-Pyrosequencing Reveals Variable Fungal Diversity Across Farming Systems – Elham A. Kazeeroni – Frontiers in Plant Science

Development of microbial community structure in vegetable-growing soils from open-field to plastic-greenhouse cultivation based on the PLFA analysis – Zhiyuan Yao – Journal of Soils and Sediments

Soil communities are affected by CO2 belowground emissions at a natural vent in Spain – I. Fernández-Montiel – Soil Biology and Biochemistry

No favorable effect of reduced tillage on microbial community diversity in a silty loam soil (Belgium) – Florine Degrune – Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment

Bacteria play a more important role than nutrients in the accumulation of tetracycline resistance in manure-treated soil – Shuang Peng – Biology and Fertility of Soils

Review: Towards an Enhanced Understanding of Plant–Microbiome Interactions to Improve Phytoremediation: Engineering the Metaorganism – Sofie Thijs – Frontiers in Microbiology

Water microbiome

Temperature and redox effect on mineral colonization in Juan de Fuca Ridge flank subsurface crustal fluids – Jean-Paul Baquiran – Frontiers in Microbiology

Streams: Regional and global elevational patterns of microbial species richness and evenness – Jianjun Wang – Ecography

Extremophile microbiome

Novel, Deep-Branching Heterotrophic Bacterial Populations Recovered from Thermal Spring Metagenomes – Daniel R. Colman – Frontiers in Microbiology

Phylogenetic and Functional Substrate Specificity for Endolithic Microbial Communities in Hyper-Arid Environments – Alexander Crits-Christoph – Frontiers in Microbiology

Bioinformatics and metagenomics

Application of database-independent approach to assess the quality of OTU picking methods – Patrick D Schloss – BioRxiv

MG-Digger: an automated pipeline to search for giant virus-related sequences in metagenomes – Jonathan Verneau – Frontiers in Microbiology

MEGAHIT v1.0: A Fast and Scalable Metagenome Assembler driven by Advanced Methodologies and Community Practices – Dinghua Li – Methods

Sensitivity and correlation of hypervariable regions in 16S rRNA genes in phylogenetic analysis – Bo Yang – BMC Bioinformatics

Absent words and the (dis)similarity analysis of DNA sequences: an experimental study – Mohammad Saifur Rahman – BMC Research Notes

Book chapter: Bidirectional Variable-Order de Bruijn Graphs – Djamal Belazzougui – LATIN 2016: Theoretical Informatics

Transcriptomics

Review: Translating RNA sequencing into clinical diagnostics: opportunities and challenges – Sara A. Byron – Nature Reviews Genetics

Techniques

Modification of a high- throughput automatic microbial cell enumeration system for ship board analyses – Christin M. Bennke – Applied and Environmental Microbiology

More microbiology

Rare-earth elementsRare-earth separation using bacteria – William Bonificio – Environmental Science & Technology Letters

Expression of HIV-1 Neutralizing Antibody Fragments Using Human Vaginal Lactobacillus – Angela Marcobal – AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses

Review: Studying Bacterial Multispecies Biofilms: Where to Start? – Henriette L. Røder – Trends in Microbiology

Microbes in the news

Osel scientists engineer vaginal lactobacillus to express neutralizing HIV-1 antibody fragments – EurekAlert

‘Good’ bacteria could save amphibians hit by fungal diseases – Adam Wernick – PRI

Forget Chocolate Rabbits: Microbiologists Celebrate Easter With Bacteria Bunny – ABC News

Psychobiotics Will Use Bacteria to Alter Your Brain Through Your Gut – Ben Guarino – Inverse

Low FODMAP diet may significantly improve IBS symptoms – Healio

Scientists to drill into dinosaur-killing blast – Eric Hand – Science

Rage Disorder Linked with Parasite Found in Cat Feces. Toxoplasmosis may alter brain chemistry is people exhibiting bouts of explosive anger – Christopher Wanjek – Scientific American

Bacteria Hysteria

Would you dare to bacteria-test your entire life? Katherine Keogh did … and the result will shock all house-proud readers – Katherine Keogh – Daily Mail

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February 20, 2016

Effects of ocean acidification, structural proteins in viral dark matter, and microbiome art. Also check out my new post at MicroBE.net with new papers on microbiome of the built environment.

Human respiratory tract microbiome

Review: How Recent Advances in Molecular Tests Could Impact the Diagnosis of Pneumonia – David Murdoch – Expert Review of Molecular Diagnostics

Microbiome models

In vitro fermentation of alginate and its derivatives by human gut microbiota – Miaomiao Li – Anaerobe

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Changes of soil prokaryotic communities after clear cutting in a karst forest: evidences for cutting-based disturbance promoting deterministic processes – Xiao Zhang – FEMS Microbiology Ecology

Use of mulberry–soybean intercropping in salt–alkali soil impacts the diversity of the soil bacterial community – Xin Li – Microbial Biotechnology

Distinct Habitats Select Particular Bacterial Communities in Mangrove Sediments – Lidianne L. Rocha – International Journal of Microbiology

Water and ice microbiome

Quantification of the effects of ocean acidification on sediment microbial communities in the environment: the importance of ecosystem approaches – Christiane Hassenrück – FEMS Microbiology Ecology

Bacterial communities from Arctic seasonal sea ice are more compositionally variable than those from multi-year sea ice – Ido Hatam – The ISME Journal

Bioreactor and waste microbiology

Biodegradation of different petroleum hydrocarbons by free and immobilized microbial consortia – Tiantian Shen – Environmental Science: Processes & Impacts

Bioinformatics and metagenomics

Recent Developments in Using Advanced Sequencing Technologies for the Genomic Studies of Lignin and Cellulose Degrading Microorganisms – Ayyappa kumar Sista Kameshwar – International Journal of Biological Sciences

DUDE-Seq: Fast, flexible, and robust denoising of nucleotide sequences – Byunghan Lee – Bioinformatics

HTSFinder: Powerful Pipeline of DNA Signature Discovery by Parallel and Distributed Computing – Ramin Karimi – Evolutionary Bioinformatics

FLDS: A Comprehensive dsRNA Sequencing Method for Intracellular RNA Virus Surveillance – Syun-ichi Urayama – Microbes and Environments

Based on my old discovery of the mycobacterial CRISPR: SpoTyping: fast and accurate in silico Mycobacterium spoligotyping from sequence reads – Eryu Xia – Genome Medicine

Microbial ecology

A tradeoff between the ecological and evolutionary stabilities of public goods genes in microbial populations – Joseph Rauch – BioRxiv

Agent Based Modeling of Human Gut Microbiome Interactions and Perturbations – Tatiana Shashkova – PLOS ONE

Proteomics

Illuminating structural proteins in viral “dark matter” with metaproteomics – Jennifer R. Brum – PNAS

Microbes in the news

‘Unhealthy’ Microbiomes Could Promote Metabolic Disease. UCSF Symposium Explores Vulnerability and Malleability of Microbes in Human Gut – Nicholas Weiler – University of California San Francisco

Unusual sugar in leafy greens may help gut bacteria protect health – Catharine Paddock – Medical News Today

One startup’s plan to grow more crops: put the germs back in. Indigo claims it can dramatically boost yields by restoring plant’s microbiome – Ben Popper – The Verge

The intestinal microbiota—a new ally for optimum growth – Medical Xpress

Bacteria In Contact Lenses May Cause Inflammatory Response Leading To Microbial Keratitis / Gross Science Video with Anna Rothschild – Lizette Borreli – Medical Daily

Bacteria Hysteria

Tea crawling with harmful bacteria and food trays covered in faeces: The horror health threats facing airline passengers – The Sun

Microbes and art

Faces of BioArt: Sonja Bäumel’s Microbiome Portraits and Bacterial Clothing – Labiotech

Science, publishing, and career

Put the “Ph” Back in PhD. We need big thinkers, but the current system teaches students to think small – Arturo Casadevall

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February 18, 2016

Two papers from the Gordon lab today about malnutrition and gut microbes, connecting gut microbes with host chitin, fur seals, and analyzing soil communities for forensic use.

Pregnancy and birth

(partly in miceGut bacteria that prevent growth impairments transmitted by microbiota from malnourished children – Laura V. Blanton – Science

Sialylated Milk Oligosaccharides Promote Microbiota-Dependent Growth in Models of Infant Undernutrition – Mark R. Charbonneau – Cell

Editorial: The right gut microbes help infants grow – Elizabeth Pennisi – Science

Stool bacterial load in preterm infants with necrotising enterocolitis – Bashir Abdulkadir – Early Human Development

Detection and sequencing of Zika virus from amniotic fluid of fetuses with microcephaly in Brazil: a case study – Guilherme Calvet – The Lancet Infectious Diseases

Human gut microbiome

Gut Microbiota Predict Pulmonary Infiltrates After Allogeneic Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation – Bianca Harris – Am J Respir Crit Care Med

Members of the Intestinal Microbiota Are Associated with Relapse after Allogeneic Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation – Jonathan U. Peled – Biology of Blood and Marrow Transplantation

Conference abstract: Fecal Microbiota Transplant Is a Potentially Safe and Effective Treatment for Clostridium Difficile Infection in Hematopoietic Stem Cell Recipients – Shannon Falconer – Biology of Blood and Marrow Transplantation

The impact of gut colonization by antibiotic-resistant bacteria on the outcomes of allogeneic hematopoietic stem-cell transplantation: a retrospective, single-center study – Jaroslaw Bilinski – Biology of Blood and Marrow Transplantation

 

PhD Thesis: Temporal Modulation of Gut Microbiome and Metabolome by Morphine – Fuyuan Wang – University of Minnesota

Research highlight: Frailty associated with gut microbiota – Iain Dickson – Nature Reviews Gastroenterology & Hepatology

Review: Exploring the Microbiome in Heart Failure – Takeshi Kitai – Current Heart Failure Reports

Perspective: The microbiome and development of allergic disease – Susan V. Lynch – Current Opinion in Allergy and Clinical Immunology

Hypothesis: The gut microbiota: A puppet master in the pathogenesis of endometriosis? – Matthias W. Laschke – American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology

Editorial: Microbiota, Obesity and Malnutrition – Didier Raoult – Microbial Pathogenesis

Review: Protective and Pro-Inflammatory Roles of Intestinal Bacteria – Cynthia Reinoso Webb – Pathophysiology

Models of microbiome

Mice: Hepatic circadian clock oscillators and nuclear receptors integrate microbiome-derived signals – Alexandra Montagner – Scientific Reports

Lactobacillus plantarum strain maintains growth of infant mice during chronic undernutrition – Martin Schwarzer – Science

Mice: Butyrate production from high-fiber diet protects against lymphoma tumor – Wei Wei – Leukemia & Lymphoma

Drosophila: Sex difference in pathology of the ageing gut mediates the greater response of female lifespan to dietary restriction – Jennifer C Regan – eLIFE

Mice: Treatment with a Monoclonal Anti-IL-12p40 Antibody Induces Substantial Gut Microbiota Changes in an Experimental Colitis Model – Josué Castro-Mejía – Gastroenterology Research and Practice

Mice: Diets enriched with cranberry beans alter the microbiota and mitigate colitis severity and associated inflammation – Jennifer M. Monk – The Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry

Research Highlight: Microbiota promote gut healing – Hugh Thomas – Nature Reviews Gastroenterology & Hepatology

Animal microbiome

Gut immunity in a protochordate involves a secreted immunoglobulin-type mediator binding host chitin and bacteria – Larry J. Dishaw – Nature Communications

Characterisation of the faecal bacterial community of wild young South American (Arctocephalus australis) and Subantarctic fur seals (Arctocephalus tropicalis) – Aline Weber Medeiros – FEMS Microbiology Ecology

16S rRNA amplicon sequencing for epidemiological surveys of bacteria in wildlife: the importance of cleaning post-sequencing data before estimating positivity, prevalence and co-infection – Maxime Galan – bioRxiv

Nestedness of hoopoes’ bacterial communities: symbionts from the uropygial gland to the eggshell – Juan J. Soler – Biological Journal of the Linnean Society

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Biogeographic Patterns Between Bacterial Phyllosphere Communities of the Southern Magnolia (Magnolia grandiflora) in a Small Forest – Bram W. G. Stone – Microbial Ecology

Culturable endophytic bacteria from the salt marsh plant Halimione portulacoides: phylogenetic diversity, functional characterization, and influence of metal(loid) contamination – Cátia Fidalgo – Environmental Science and Pollution Research

Next-Generation Sequencing of the Bacterial 16S rRNA Gene for Forensic Soil Comparison: A Feasibility Study – Ellen M. Jesmok – Journal of Forensic Sciences

Water microbiome

Sediments and Soils Act as Reservoirs for Taxonomic and Functional Bacterial Diversity in the Upper Mississippi River – Christopher Staley – Microbial Ecology

The Influence of Time and Plant Species on the Composition of the Decomposing Bacterial Community in a Stream Ecosystem – Adam S. Wymore – Microbial Ecology

Built environment microbiome

Commentary: Making microbiology of the built environment relevant to design – G. Z. Brown – Microbiome

Food microbiology

Changes of microbial spoilage, lipid-protein oxidation and physicochemical properties during post mortem refrigerated storage of goat meat – Azad Behnan Sabow – Animal Science Journal

Metagenomic analysis of a Mexican ripened cheese reveals a unique complex microbiota – Alejandra Escobar-Zepeda – Food Microbiology

Bioinformatics

An analysis of human microbe–disease associations – Wei Ma – Briefings in Bioinformatics

FN-Identify: Novel Restriction Enzymes-Based Method for Bacterial Identification in Absence of Genome Sequencing – Mohamed Awad – Advances in Bioinformatics

Microbial ecology

Capturing the Dynamic, Heterogeneous Response of Microbes to their Environment in the Human Microbiome – Julie Biteen – Biophysical Journal

Perspective: Microbial community modeling using reliability theory – Julie L Zilles – The ISME Journal

Microbes in the news

Could the right gut microbes help fight childhood malnutrition? – Rachel Feltman – Washington Post

Breast Milk Sugars Support Infant Gut Health – Anna Azvolinsky – The Scientist

Targeting gut microbes may reverse effects of childhood malnutrition
Healthy microbes, breast milk component suggest new treatment approach, mouse study shows – Julie Evangelou Strait – Washington University

How Microbes Make Malnutrition Worse. And how they can be marshaled to fight it – Ed Yong – The Atlantic

 

The Mushroom Death Suit is the latest in post-mortem, eco-friendly fashion – Atlas Obscura

Through Metagenomics Analysis, Researchers Uncover Zika Virus Genome in Amniotic Fluid – Genome Web

What’s bugging you now? The amazing potential of our bodies’ own bacteria – Trisha Macnair – Spectator Health

Gut bacteria may be the difference between well-fed and malnourished – Jacob Kastrenakes – The Verge

Creative Minds: Bacteria, Gene Swaps, and Human Cancer, featuring Julie Dunning Hotopp – Francis Collins – NIH Director’s Blog

This Startup Wants to Use Bacteria to Revolutionize How Our Food Is Produced – Beth Kowitt – Fortune

Bacteria Hysteria

Dad warns parents about Sistema Twist ‘N’ Sip drink bottles ‘hoarding bacteria’ – Stuff

Breast Milk Bought Online May Contain Bacteria That Could Harm Your Child, Investigation Finds – Inside Edition

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February 8, 2016

Plasmid-mediated salt tolerance in the gut microbiota, Tuft cells and immunity, microbes of the Cerrado, impact of sequencing technique on microbiota analysis, and a new microbiome tool on the cloud.

Events

Introducing Nephele, NIAID’s new cloud-based microbiome analysis tool. Webinar on March 7. See also under Bioinformatics below.

Human oral microbiome

Research highlight: FISHing in the oral microbiota – Naomi Attar – Nature Reviews Microbiology

Human gut microbiome

Intestinal microbiota in inflammatory bowel disease and carcinogenesis: Implication for therapeutics – Steven D. Bruner – Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics

Evidence for plasmid mediated salt tolerance in the human gut microbiome and potential mechanisms – Eileen Broaders – FEMS Microbiology Ecology

Oral versus intravenous iron replacement therapy distinctly alters the gut microbiota and metabolome in patients with IBD – Thomas Lee – Gut

Review: Novel Strategies for Applied Metagenomics – Moore-Connors, Jessica M. – Inflammatory Bowel Diseases

Research highlight: ntestinal microbiota in inflammatory bowel disease and carcinogenesis: Implication for therapeutics – Steven D. Bruner – Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics

Models of microbiome research

Tuft cells, taste-chemosensory cells, orchestrate parasite type 2 immunity in the gut – Michael R. Howitt – Science

Effects of dietary resistant starch content on metabolic status, milk composition, and microbial profiling in lactating sows and on offspring performance – H. Yan – Journal of Animal Physiology and Animal Nutrition

Beneficial Effects of Fecal Microbiota Transplantation on Ulcerative Colitis in Mice – Zhihui Tian – Digestive Diseases and Sciences

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Soil bacterial communities associated with natural and commercial Cyclopia spp. – Anneke Postma – FEMS Microbiology Ecology

Diversity and functional traits of culturable microbiome members, including cyanobacteria in the rice phyllosphere – Siddarthan Venkatachalam – Plant Biology

Microbial Diversity in Cerrado Biome (Neotropical Savanna) Soils – Alinne Pereira de Castro – PLOS ONE

Dissipation and effects of tricyclazole on soil microbial communities and rice growth as affected by amendment with alperujo compost – M. García-Jaramillo – Science of The Total Environment

Opinion: Plant microbiota affects seed transmission of phytopathogenic micro-organisms – Matthieu Barret – Molecular Plant Pathology

Built environment microbiome

Indoor microbial communities: Influence on asthma severity in atopic and nonatopic children – Karen C. Dannemiller – The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology

Antibiotics in drinking water in Shanghai and its contribution to antibiotic exposure of school children – Hexing Wang – Environmental Science & Technology

Pollution and waste microbiology

Characterisation of biofilm and planktonic bacterial and fungal communities transforming high molecular weight polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons – Benjamin D Folwell – Applied and Environmental Microbiology

Shift in antibiotic resistance gene profiles associated with nanosilver during wastewater treatment – Yanjun Ma – FEMS Microbiology Ecology

Evaluating the Metal Tolerance Capacity of Microbial Communities Isolated from Alberta Oil Sands Process Water – Mathew L. Frankel- PLOS ONE

Nutrient and metal pollution of the eastern Gulf of Finland coastline: Sediments, macroalgae, microbiota – Yulia Gubelit – Science of the Total Environment

Impacts of pristine and transformed Ag and Cu engineered nanomaterials on surficial sediment microbial communities appear short-lived – Joe D Moore – Environmental Science & Technology

Food microbiology

Diversity and Stability of Lactic Acid Bacteria in Rye Sourdoughs of Four Bakeries with Different Propagation Parameters – Ene Viiard – PLOS ONE

Techniques

Comparing Apples and Oranges?: Next Generation Sequencing and Its Impact on Microbiome Analysis – Adam G. Clooney – PLOS ONE

Don’t put all your eggs in one basket: a cost-effective and powerful method to optimize primer choice for rRNA environmental community analyses using the Fluidigm Access Array – Shawn P. Brown – Molecular Ecology Resources

Probiotics

Probiotic and Functional Characterization of Bifidobacteria of Indian Human Origin – Nancy Awasti – Journal of Applied Microbiology

Bioinformatics

Nephele, microbiome analysis without boundaries. NIAID’s new tool offering cloud-based storage, file transfer, and analysis.

Note: 16S is not the same as metagenomics: Vikodak – A Modular Framework for Inferring Functional Potential of Microbial Communities from 16S Metagenomic Datasets – Sunil Nagpal – PLOS ONE

Microbes in the news

Smart Science: Wolbachia Bacteria Might Stop Zika and Dengue Viruses – Judy Stone – Forbes

The science of treating depression during pregnancy – Josie Glausiusz – Quartz

GIANTmicrobes – When Teachers Throw Things – Anne Estes

Gut bacteria may influence alcoholics’ liver damage – Kathryn Doyle – Reuters
Scientists Seek Answers on Zika in Other Viruses – Carl Zimmer – New York Times

Bears’ Hibernation Linked To Unusual Changes In Their Gut Microbes – Samantha Mathewson – Nature World News

Bears hibernate ‘with bacterial help’ – Jonathan Webb – BBC News

The Tardigrade story a.k.a. Open Science Wins – Surya Saha – Storify

This Bacteria-Powered Microrobot Navigates via Electric Fields – Michael Byrne – Motherboard

Sainsbury’s Recall Camembert Cheese Products Over Food Poisoning Concerns – Natasha Hinde – The Huffington Post UK

EFSA update: Fully defining microbiota cause-and-effect: Yolanda Sanz provides update –
Will Chu – Nutraingredients

Satire: Trump Proposes Ban On All Microbiome Researchers “Until We Know What They Are Up To” “When I become president, we are going to make American poo great once again.” – The Allium

Bacteria Hysteria

What’s hiding in your handbag? Contact 6 tests purses for bacteria – Katrina Cravy – Fox

Bik’s Picks

Natural History Museums Are Teeming With Undiscovered Species – Ed Yong – The Atlantic

New species of tarantula found near Folsom Prison named for Johnny Cash – Rachel Feltman – Washington Post

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