Category Archives: Metagenomics & Bioinformatics

August 31, 2022

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Human skin microbiome

[REVIEW]Staphylococcus epidermidis and its dual lifestyle in skin health and infection – Severn & Horswill – Nature Reviews Microbiology

Human oral microbiome

Effect of chewing gum containing Xylitol and blackberry powder on oral bacteria: A randomized controlled crossover trial – Miller et al. – Archives of Oral Biology

Human gut microbiome

Antimicrobial peptide production in response to gut microbiota imbalance – Cardoso et al. – Peptides

ROLE OF GUT MICROBIOTA IN DEPRESSION: UNDERSTANDING MOLECULAR PATHWAYS, RECENT RESEARCH, AND FUTURE DIRECTION – Rathour et al. – Behavioural Brain Research

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

Gut-derived metabolites influence neurodevelopmental gene expression and Wnt signaling events in a germ-free zebrafish model – Rea et al. – Microbiome

Animal microbiome (for animals in the wild)

Age as a primary driver of the gut microbial composition and function in wild harbor seals – Pacheco-Sandoval et al. – Scientific Reports

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Biogeographical survey of soil microbiomes across sub-Saharan Africa: structure, drivers, and predicted climate-driven changes – Cowan et al. – Microbiome

Soil fungal communities show more specificity than bacteria for plant species composition in a temperate forest in China – Chen et al. – BMC Microbiology

Microbes in space

Machine learning algorithm to characterize antimicrobial resistance associated with the International Space Station surface microbiome – Madrigal et al. – Microbiome

Food microbiology

Extensive diversity and rapid turnover of phage defense repertoires in cheese-associated bacterial communities – Somerville et al. – Microbiome

Bioinformatics

Crowdsourced benchmarking of taxonomic metagenome profilers: lessons learned from the sbv IMPROVER Microbiomics challenge – Poussin et al. – BMC Genomics

Microbes in the news (popular press, EurekAlert, ScienceDaily, Youtube, NPR, etc)

Newly Renamed Prokaryote Phyla Cause Uproar – Dan Robitzski – The Scientist

August 24, 2022

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General microbiome

[REVIEW]Detecting bacterial adaptation within individual microbiomes – Liebermann – Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

[REVIEW]Soil microbiomes and one health – Banerjee & van der Heijden – Nature Reviews Microbiology

Pregnancy and early life

Microbial Analysis of Umbilical Cord Blood Reveals Novel Pathogens Associated with Stillbirth and Early Preterm Birth – Vander Haar et al. – mBio

Human respiratory microbiome

The respiratory microbiota alpha-diversity in chronic lung diseases: first systematic review and meta-analysis – Avalos-Fernandez et al. – Respiratory Research

Human saliva microbiome

Saliva microbiome, dietary, and genetic markers are associated with suicidal ideation in university students – Ahrens et al. – Scientific Reports

Human gut microbiome

The gut microbiota is associated with immune cell dynamics in humans – Schluter et al. – Nature

The systemic anti-microbiota IgG repertoire can identify gut bacteria that translocate across gut barrier surfaces – Vujkovic-Cvijin et al. – Science Translational Medicine

Higher pathogen load in children from Mozambique vs. USA revealed by comparative fecal microbiome profiling – Kim et al. – ISME Communications

Correlation of inflammatory biomarkers with the diversity of Bacteroidaceae, Bifidobacteriaceae, Prevotellaceae and Lactobacillaceae families in the intestinal microbiota of patients with end stage renal disease – Asgharian et al. – Advances in Medical Sciences

Impact of the Host Microbiome on Vaccine Responsiveness: Lessons Learned and Future Perspective – Stefanetti & Kasper – Biochemistry

Location-specific signatures of Crohn’s disease at a multi-omics scale – Gonzalez et al. – Microbiome

Association of food insecurity on gut microbiome and metabolome profiles in a diverse college-based sample – Mohr et al. – Scientific Reports

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

The Diversity and Functional Capacity of Microbes Associated with Coastal Macrophytes – Miranda et al. – mSystems

Microbes in space

Machine learning algorithm to characterize antimicrobial resistance associated with the International Space Station surface microbiome – Madrigal et al. – Microbiome

Bioinformatics

[PREPRINT]Extending and improving metagenomic taxonomic profiling with uncharacterized species with MetaPhlAn 4 – Blanco-Miguez et al. – bioRxiv

Linear and nonlinear correlation estimators unveil undescribed taxa interactions in microbiome data – Lin, Eggesbø & Peddada – Nature Communications

Techniques

Primers matter: Influence of the primer selection on human fungal detection using high throughput sequencing – Wiemann et al. – Gut Microbes

Using Nanopore Sequencing to Obtain Complete Bacterial Genomes from Saliva Samples – Baker et al. – mSystems

August 20, 2022

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Have a nice weekend! Today, in this brief Digest: Lung microbiota and PM exposure, Akkermansia genomic variability, sulfonation, microbiome and cholesterol, and a new role for Blautia wexlerae.

Human and General Microbiome

The Lung Microbiota Affects Pulmonary Inflammation and Oxidative Stress Induced by PM(2.5) Exposure – Simin Wang – Environmental Science & Technology

A thousand metagenome-assembled genomes of Akkermansia reveal phylogroups and geographical and functional variations in the human gut – Qing-Bo Lv – Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology

Intestinal TLR4 deletion exacerbates acute pancreatitis through gut microbiota dysbiosis and Paneth cells deficiency – Mei Qi-Xiang – Gut Microbes

A biosynthetic pathway for the selective sulfonation of steroidal metabolites by human gut bacteria – Lina Yao – Nature Microbiology

Review: Altered gut microbiota patterns in COVID-19: Markers for inflammation and disease severity – Chiranjib Chakraborty – World Journal of Gastroenterology

Animal Model Microbiome and Experiments

Characterization of interactions of dietary cholesterol with the murine and human gut microbiome – Henry H Le – Nature Microbiology

Gut-derived bacterial flagellin induces beta-cell inflammation and dysfunction – Torsten P M Scheithauer – Gut Microbes

Rapid evolution of a novel protective symbiont into keystone taxon in Caenorhabditis elegans microbiota – Alejandra Wu-Chuang – Scientific Reports

Beneficial Microbes and Compounds

Oral administration of Blautia wexlerae ameliorates obesity and type 2 diabetes via metabolic remodeling of the gut microbiota – Koji Hosomi – Nature Communications

Fecal microbiota transplantation can improve cognition in patients with cognitive decline and Clostridioides difficile infection – Soo-Hyun Park – Aging

August 19, 2022

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Today’s digest is short and sweet! We have articles on the gut microbiota in rats, the influence of host genetics on the leaf fungal microbiome, and biofilm fouling in drinking water. There are also two manuscripts which provide tips for pathway enrichment analysis and biomarker discovery.

Happy reading! Also, if you’re in Scotland, consider checking out the enormous E. coli in Edinburgh this weekend!

Animal experiments

Effects of sea salt intake on metabolites, steroid hormones, and gut microbiota in rats – Chanmuang et al. – PLOS One

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

The changing influence of host genetics on the leaf fungal microbiome throughout plant development – Karasov & Lundberg – PLOS Biology

Water and extremophile microbiome

Impacts of temperature and hydraulic regime on discolouration and biofilm fouling in drinking water distribution systems – Fish et al. – PLOS Water

Bioinformatics

Nine quick tips for pathway enrichment analysis – Chicco & Agapito – PLOS Computational Biology

Ten quick tips for biomarker discovery and validation analyses using machine learning – Diaz-Uriarte et al. – PLOS Computational Biology

August 10, 2022

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General microbiome

Microbiome-associated human genetic variants impact phenome-wide disease risk – Markowitz et al. – PNAS

Microbial risk score for capturing microbial characteristics, integrating multi-omics data, and predicting disease risk – Wang et al. – Microbiome

[REVIEW]A framework for testing the impact of co-infections on host gut microbiomes – Schmid et al. – Animal Microbiome

Human vaginal microbiome

Vaginal microbiota and personal risk factors associated with HPV status conversion—A new approach to reduce the risk of cervical cancer? – Yang et al. – PLOS One

Human gut microbiome

[REVIEW]The role of the gut microbiota in multiple sclerosis – Correale, Hohlfeld & Baranzini

Specific gut microbiota alterations in essential tremor and its difference from Parkinson’s disease – Zhang et al. – NPJ Parkinson’s Disease

Identification of clinical and ecological determinants of strain engraftment after fecal microbiota transplantation using metagenomics – Podlesny et al. – Cell Reports Medicine

Alterations in gut microbiota of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma patients – Cheung et al. – Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology

Targeted suppression of human IBD-associated gut microbiota commensals by phage consortia for treatment of intestinal inflammation – Federici et al. – Cell

Animal microbiome

Camel milk microbiota: A culture-independent assessment – Rahmeh et al. – Food Research International

Effect of processing on the anti-inflammatory efficacy of cocoa in a high fat diet-induced mouse model of obesity – Weikart et al. – The Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry

The impacts of viral infection and subsequent antimicrobials on the microbiome-resistome of growing pigs – Gaire et al. – Microbiome

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Soil microbial community structures are shaped by agricultural systems revealing little temporal variation – Fox, Widmer & Lüscher – Environmental Research

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

The streamwater microbiome encodes hydrologic data across scales – URycki et al. – Science of The Total Environment

Bioinformatics / Data

[PREPRINT]Lake iTag measurements over nineteen years, introducing the limony dataset – Rohwer & McMahon – bioRxiv

August 03, 2022

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Pregnancy and early life

The abundance of Ruminococcus bromii is associated with faecal butyrate levels and atopic dermatitis in infancy – Sasaki et al. – Allergy

Human oral microbiome

Smokeless tobacco consumption induces dysbiosis of oral mycobiome: a pilot study – Sajid et al. – Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology

Human gut microbiome

The Proteome of Extracellular Vesicles Produced by the Human Gut Bacteria Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron In Vivo Is Influenced by Environmental and Host-Derived Factors – Stentz et al. – Applied and Environmental Microbiology

Improved gut microbiome recovery following drug therapy is linked to abundance and replication of probiotic strains – FitzGerald et al. – Gut Microbes

[REVIEW]Targeting microbiota-host interactions with resveratrol on cancer: Effects and potential mechanisms of action – Wang et al. – Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition

Emerging frontiers of antibiotics use and their impacts on the human gut microbiome – Kumari et al. – Microbiological Research

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

Microbiota of the Pregnant Mouse: Characterization of the Bacterial Communities in the Oral Cavity, Lung, Intestine, and Vagina through Culture and DNA Sequencing – Greenberg et al. – Microbiology Spectrum

Phages and viruses

Viral biogeography of the mammalian gut and parenchymal organs – Shkoporov – Nature Microbiology

Bioinformatics

Namco: a microbiome explorer – Dietrich et al. – Microbial Genomics

MiCloud: A unified web platform for comprehensive microbiome data analysis – Gu et al. – PLOS One

July 26, 2022

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Highlights!

Microbial determinants of effective donors in faecal microbiota transplantation for UC – Craig Haifer – Gut → Metagenomic and metabolomic data analysis showed that donor microbiota stability and increased species evenness were identified novel markers associated with donor sample therapeutic efficacy in Ulcerative Colitis.

A gut microbial peptide and molecular mimicry in the pathogenesis of type 1 diabetes – Khyati Girdhar – PNAS → A peptide sequence from Parabacteroides distasonis mimics an important insulin epitope, making it susceptible to generating type I diabetes in a mouse model. 

Human and General Microbiome

Gut microbiome changes in anti-N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor encephalitis patients – Jingya Wei – BMC Neurology

Effect of a bacteriocin-producing Streptococcus salivarius on the pathogen Fusobacterium nucleatum in a model of the human distal colon – Garreth W Lawrence – Gut Microbes

Identification of Gut Microbiome Metabolites via Network Pharmacology Analysis in Treating Alcoholic Liver Disease – Ki-Kwang Oh – Current Issues in Molecular Biology

Review: The Gut Microbiota: A Double Edge Sword in Endometriosis – Chandni Talwar – Biology of Reproduction

Non-Model Animal Microbiome

Hair Microbiome Diversity within and across Primate Species – Catherine Kitrinos – mSystems

Seasonal variations in the composition and diversity of gut microbiota in white-lipped deer (Cervus albirostris) – Zhangqiang You – PeerJ

Plant Microbiome

Effects of Domestication on Plant-Microbiome Interactions – Andres Gutierrez – Plant & Cell Physiology

Evaluation of protein extraction methods for metaproteomic analyses of root-associated microbes – Fernanda Salvato – Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions

Environmental Microbiome

Absence of stress-promoted facilitation coupled with a competition decrease in the microbiome of ephemeral saline lakes – Mateu Menéndez-Serra – Ecology

Insights into the Antimicrobial Activities and Metabolomes of Aquimarina (Flavobacteriaceae, Bacteroidetes) Species from the Rare Marine Biosphere – Sandra Godinho Silva – Marine Drugs

More microbes

Correspondence: International travel, the gut microbiome, and ESBL-E coli carriage – Ye Peng – The Lancet. Microbe

An Engineered λ Phage Enables Enhanced and Strain-Specific Killing of Enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli – Menglu Jin – Microbiology Spectrum

Bioinformatics and Microbiome Analysis Techniques

MOCHI, a comprehensive cross-platform tool for amplicon-based microbiota analysis – Jun-Jie Zheng – Bioinformatics

July 23, 2022

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Greetings from Chile! Today, in this Digest, a variety of papers covering different subjects, such as the relationships between microbiome and C. difficile infection, new skin microbiome sampling techniques, FMT donor-recipient microbiome interplay, microbiome and biodiversity conservation, microbiome and vitamin metabolism, etc.; also, take a look at the papers from the “Bioinformatics and Microbiome Analysis Techniques” section.  

Human and General Microbiome

A 3D-printed transepidermal microprojection array for human skin microbiome sampling – Kun Liang – PNAS

Analysis of Intestinal Mycobiota of Patients with Clostridioides difficile Infection among a Prospective Inpatient Cohort – Yangchun Cao – Microbiology Spectrum

Role of gastrointestinal microbial populations, a terra incognita of the human body in the management of intestinal bowel disease and metabolic disorders – J E Vazquez Bucheli – Beneficial Microbes

The Gut Bacterial Community Potentiates Clostridioides difficile Infection Severity – Nicholas A Lesniak – mBio

The interplay of gut microbiota between donors and recipients determines the efficacy of fecal microbiota transplantation – Ruiqiao He – Gut Microbes

Gut commensals expand vitamin A metabolic capacity of the mammalian host – Maryam Bonakdar – Cell Host & Microbe

A reappraisal of microbiome dysbiosis during experimental periodontitis – Marion Arce – Molecular Oral Microbiology

Activity-based protein profiling identifies alternating activation of enzymes involved in the bifidobacterium shunt pathway or mucin degradation in the gut microbiome response to soluble dietary fiber – Bryan J Killinger – NPJ Biofilms and Microbiomes

Cooperative action of gut-microbiota-accessible carbohydrates improves host metabolic function – Sawako Tomioka – Cell Reports

Model Animal Microbiome

Key features of the genetic architecture and evolution of host-microbe interactions revealed by high-resolution genetic mapping of the mucosa-associated gut microbiome in hybrid mice – Shauni Doms – eLife

Non-Model Animal Microbiome

Metagenomic insights into the microbe-mediated B and K(2) vitamin biosynthesis in the gastrointestinal microbiome of ruminants – Qian Jiang – Microbiome

Exploring the Transient Microbe Population on Citrus Butterfly Wings – P D Kamala Jayanthi – Microbiology Spectrum

Review: Methods and Strategies to Uncover Coral-Associated Microbial Dark Matter – Júnia Schultz – mSystems

Plant Microbiome

Plant genetic effects on microbial hubs impact host fitness in repeated field trials – Benjamin Brachi – PNAS

Review: Beneficial and pathogenic plant-microbe interactions during flooding stress – Clara Martínez-Arias – Plant, Cell & Environment

Environmental Microbiome

Review: Harnessing the microbiome to prevent global biodiversity loss – Raquel S Peixoto – Nature Microbiology

More Microbes

Proteome Exploration of Legionella pneumophila To Identify Novel Therapeutics: a Hierarchical Subtractive Genomics and Reverse Vaccinology Approach – Md Tahsin Khan – Microbiology Spectrum

Bioinformatics and Microbiome Analysis Techniques

LOCOM: A logistic regression model for testing differential abundance in compositional microbiome data with false discovery rate control – Yingtian Hu – PNAS

A metagenomic DNA sequencing assay that is robust against environmental DNA contamination – Omary Mzava – Nature Communications

Bioinformatic Analysis to Investigate Metaproteome Composition Using Trans-Proteomic Pipeline – Steven He – Current Protocols

July 16, 2022

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Human and General Microbiome

Advances and challenges in cataloging the human gut virome – Junhua Li – Cell Host & Microbe

Genomic diversity of genus Limosilactobacillus – Magdalena Ksiezarek – Microbial Genomics

Comparison of the respiratory tract microbiome in hospitalized COVID-19 patients with different disease severity – Jiali Chen – Journal of Medical Virology

An international report on bacterial communities in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma – Jason Nomburg – International Journal of Cancer

Beneficial Microbes and Compounds

Phenolic-rich beverages reduce bacterial TMA formation in an ex vivo-in vitro colonic fermentation model – Lisard Iglesias-Carres – Food & Function

Lactobacillus paragasseri OLL2809 Improves Depression-Like Behavior and Increases Beneficial Gut Microbes in Mice – Narumi Hashikawa-Hobara – Frontiers in Neuroscience

In silico identification of two peptides with antibacterial activity against multidrug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus – Linda B Oyama – NPJ Biofilms and Microbiomes

Review: How Dietary Fibre, Acting via the Gut Microbiome, Lowers Blood Pressure – Chudan Xu – Current Hypertension Reports

Review: Low FODMAP diet in irritable bowel syndrome: a review of recent clinical trials and meta-analyses – Kevin Whelan – Current Opinion in Clinical Nutrition and Metabolic Care

Review: Prebiotic effects of plant-derived (poly)phenols on host metabolism: Is there a role for short-chain fatty acids? – Perla Lopes de Freitas – Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition

Animal Microbiome

Unveiling biogeographic patterns in the worldwide distributed Ceratitis capitata (medfly) using populations genomics and microbiome composition – María Belén Arias – Molecular Ecology

Differential oral microbiome in nonhuman primates from periodontitis susceptible and resistant matrilines – Jeffrey L Ebersole – Molecular Oral Microbiology

Chicken jejunal microbiota improves growth performance by mitigating intestinal inflammation – Xiaolong Zhang – Microbiome

Bioinformatics and Microbiome Analysis

Comparison Analysis of Different DNA Extraction Methods on Suitability for Long-Read Metagenomic Nanopore Sequencing – Lei Zhang – Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology

KOMB: K-core based de novo characterization of copy number variation in microbiomes – Advait Balaji – Computational and Structural Biotechnology Journal

CASPER: An Integrated Software Platform for Rapid Development of CRISPR Tools – Brian Mendoza – The CRISPR Journal

Integrating Choline and Specific Intestinal Microbiota to Classify Type 2 Diabetes in Adults: A Machine Learning Based Metagenomics Study – Qiang Zeng – Frontiers in Endocrinology

July 13, 2022

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Today’s digest features studies on the leaf-microbiome of 🍅 and 🍓 plants (+ bumblebees and mites), human gut and wastewater resistome, and more. Happy reading!

Reproductive tract

Female reproductive tract microbiota and recurrent pregnancy loss: a nested case-control study – Pirkko Peuranpää – Reproductive BioMedicine Online

Gut microbiome

Dynamic metabolic interactions and trophic roles of human gut microbes identified using a minimal microbiome exhibiting ecological properties – Sudarshan A. Shetty – Journal of the International Society for Microbial Ecology

*Within-patient evolution of plasmid-mediated antimicrobial resistance – Javier DelaFuente – bioRxiv

An expanded reference map of the human gut microbiome reveals hundreds of previously unknown species – Sigal Leviatan – Nature Communications

Animal microbiome

Carpenter Bees (Xylocopa) Harbor a Distinctive Gut Microbiome Related to That of Honey Bees and Bumble Bees – Jo-anne C. Holley – Applied and Environmental Microbiology

Animal experiments

Gardnerella Exposures Alter Bladder Gene Expression and Augment Uropathogenic Escherichia coli Urinary Tract Infection in Mice – Nicole M. Gilbert – Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology

Plant microbiome

*The Greenhouse Phyllosphere Microbiome and Associations with Introduced Bumblebees and Predatory Mites – Marie Legein – Microbiology Spectrum

Food microbiome

Longitudinal, multi-platform metagenomics yields a high-quality genomic catalog and guides an in vitro model for cheese communities – Christina C. Saak – bioRxiv

New insights of bacterial communities in fermented vegetables from shotgun metagenomics and identification of antibiotic resistance genes and probiotic bacteria – Muhammad Yasir – Food Research International

Water microbiome

*High-resolution characterisation of short-term temporal variability in the taxonomic and resistome composition of wastewater influent – Kevin Kaibond Chau – bioRxiv

Pilot investigation on biostability of drinking water distribution systems under water source switching – Kejia Zhang – Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology

Bioinformatics

*BinaRena: a dedicated interactive platform for human-guided exploration and binning of metagenomes – Michael J. Pavia – bioRxiv

getSequenceInfo: a suite of tools allowing to get genome sequence information from public repositories – Vincent Moco – BMC Bioinformatics

baseLess: Lightweight detection of sequences in raw MinION data – Ben Noordijk – bioRxiv