Category Archives: Metagenomics & Bioinformatics

November 14, 2020

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Hello from the Sonoran Desert! In today’s digest, you’ll find great papers, in particular in soil and water microbiology but also in bioinformatics! As an example, Mara and collaborators are exploring the viruses found in the oxygen-deficient water column of the Cariaco basin. Interestingly, a large diversity of viral Auxilliary Metabolic Genes (AMGs) were found and give new insights in how phages may interact with their bacterial hosts in this understudied ecosystem.

In the bioinformatics section, I recommend anyone interested in phage metagenomics to take a look at the paper from Ren and collaborators. The authors have developed a reference-free and alignment-free deep learning tool, called DeepVirFinder, allowing the retrieval of viral sequences in metagenomes.

Today’s non-microbiology digest is a paper announcing the last update of the Genome Online Database (GOLD), a manually curated collection of genome projects and their metadata from around the world, which now contains more than a million entries! Great news for bioinformaticians!

Have a great Saturday!

Human gut microbiome

The bacterial association with oral cavity and intra-abdominal abscess after gastrectomy – Nishikawa et al. – PlosOne

Animal microbiome

Loss of symbiont infectivity following thermal stress can be a factor limiting recovery from bleaching in cnidarians – Kishimoto et al. – ISME Journal

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

A cosmopolitan fungal pathogen of dicots adopts an endophytic lifestyle on cereal crops and protects them from major fungal diseases – Tian et al. – ISME Journal

Air microbiome

Spatio-temporal variations in bacterial and fungal community associated with dust aerosol in Kuwait – Al Salameen et al. – PlosOne

Water and extremophile microbiome

Environmental heterogeneity determines the ecological processes that govern bacterial metacommunity assembly in a floodplain river system – Huber et al. – ISME Journal

A large-scale assessment of lakes reveals a pervasive signal of land use on bacterial communities – Kraemer et al. – ISME Journal

Viral elements and their potential influence on microbial processes along the permanently stratified Cariaco Basin redoxcline – Mara et al. – ISME Journal

Phages and Viruses

Metagenomic Analysis of the Enteric RNA Virome ofInfants from the Oukasie Clinic, North West Province,South Africa, Reveals Diverse Eukaryotic Viruses – Mogotsi et al. – Viruses

Bioinformatics

Identifying viruses from metagenomic data using deep learning – Ren et al. – Quantitative Biology

Review: Reconstructing organisms in silico: genome-scale models and their emerging applications – Fang et al. – Nature Reviews Microbiology

Zero-Inflated gaussian mixed models for analyzing longitudinal microbiome data – Zhang et al. – PlosOne

Evaluating the number of different genomes in a metagenome by means of the compositional spectra approach – Kirzhner et al. – PlosOne

Survey of metaproteomics software tools for functional microbiome analysis – Sajulga et al. – PlosOne

Techniques

Sample pooling methods for efficient pathogen screening: Practical implications – Furstenau et al. – PlosOne

My non-microbiology picks

Genomes OnLine Database (GOLD) v.8: overview and updates – Mukherjee et al. – Nucleic Acids Research

November 12, 2020

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Good morning! There’s a really exciting collection of papers to share with you this morning. Among them, a study of gut archaea across multiple host domains, a link between F. nucleatum and esophageal cancer, and two new databases of shotgun metagenomic data. (There’s also a fun paper about environmental transmission of microbes aboard the International Space Station.)

General microbiome

Preprint – Strong influence of vertebrate host phylogeny on gut archaeal diversity, Nicholas D Youngblut et al., bioRxiv

A genomic catalog of Earth’s microbiomes, Stephen Nayfach et al., Nature Biotechnology

Human vaginal microbiome

Review – Vaginal microbiota and the potential of Lactobacillus derivatives in maintaining vaginal health, Wallace Jeng Yang Chee, Microbial Cell Factories

Human gut microbiome

Preprint – Fusobacterium Nucleatum Predicts a Risk for Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma, Chao Shi et al., Research Square

Preprint – Human reference gut microbiome comprising 5,414 prokaryotic species, including newly assembled genomes from under-represented Asian metagenomes, Kim and Lee et al., bioRxiv

Preprint – Genetic Evidence for Selective Transfer of Microbes Between the International Space Station and an Astronaut, David C. Danko et al., bioRxiv

Review: An infectious diseases perspective on the microbiome and allogeneic stem cell transplant, Olivia C. Smibert et al., Current Opinion in Infectious Diseases

Animal experiments

Preprint – Longitudinal effects of antibiotics and fecal transplant on lemur gut microbiota structure, associations, and resistomes, Sally L. Bornbusch et al., bioRxiv

Pinto beans modulate the gut microbiome, augment MHC II protein, and antimicrobial peptide gene expression in mice fed a normal or western-style diet, Babajide A. Ojo et al., Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry

Preprint – Contagious Antibiotic Resistance: Plasmid Transfer Among Bacterial Residents of the Zebrafish Gut, Wesley Loftie-Eaton et al., bioRxiv

Animal microbiome

Shifts in microbial diversity, composition, and functionality in the gut and genital microbiome during a natural SIV infection in vervet monkeys, Anna J. Jasinska et al., Microbiome

A multi-disciplinary comparison of great ape gut microbiota in a central African forest and European zoo, Narat and Amato et al., Scientific Reports

Bioinformatics

Preprint – AGORA2: Large scale reconstruction of the microbiome highlights wide-spread drug-metabolising capacities, Almut Heinken et al., bioRxiv

Techniques

Preprint – Benchmarking DNA isolation kits used in analyses of the urinary microbiome, Lisa Karstens et al., bioRxiv

November 9, 2020

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Happy Monday morning from San Francisco, California! Hope everyone had a restful weekend. For those who aren’t quite ready for the working week, how about easing in to things with a warm beverage and some great microbiome reads?

Today’s digest includes two papers that blew my mind. The first is a paper by van Tatenhove-Pel et al. which looks at how cell-to-cell distance in 3D space impacts the metabolic interactions between bacteria. The second, by Nowosad et al., examines the role of the gut microbiota on B cell selection and antibody affinity maturation in gut-associated germinal centers. Other fascinating papers include: a pilot study profiling the gut microbiomes of South Africans in an urban cohort and a transitioning rural cohort which was designed collaboratively with community leaders (Oduaran et al.); a review paper about using brachyuran crabs as a model for studying how animal-microbiome symbioses evolve when aquatic organisms transition to land (Cannicci et al.); and a paper that used shotgun metagenomics to identify current and historical microbiomes in lake sediment which could help our understanding of how humans impact lake ecosystems over time (Garner et al.). Happy reading, y’all!

General Microbiome
Microbial competition reduces metabolic interaction distances to the low µm-range. – van Tatenhove-Pel, R.J. et al., The ISME Journal

Human Respiratory Microbiome
Developmental patterns in the nasopharyngeal microbiome during infancy are associated with asthma risk. – Tang, H.H.F, et al., Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology

Human Gut Microbiome
Distinct Fecal and Plasma Metabolites in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders and Their Modulation after Microbiota Transfer Therapy. – Kang, D-W et al., mSphere

Gut Microbiome in Children from Indigenous and Urban Communities in México: Different Subsistence Models, Different Microbiomes. – Sánchez-Quinto, A. et al., Microorganisms

Gut microbiome profiling of a rural and urban South African cohort reveals biomarkers of a population in lifestyle transition. – Oduaran, O.H. et al., BMC Microbiology

Maturation of the gut microbiome during the first year of life contributes to the protective farm effect on childhood asthma. – Depber, M. et al., Nature Medicine

Fecal Microbiota Changes in Patients With Postpartum Depressive Disorder. – Zhou, Y. et al., Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology

Animal Experiments
Tunable dynamics of B cell selection in gut germinal centres. – Nowosad, C.R. et al., Nature

Acute liver failure is regulated by MYC- and microbiome-dependent programs. – Kolodziejczyk, A.A. et al., Nature Medicine

Epithelial TLR4 signaling activates DUOX2 to induce microbiota-driven tumorigenesis. – Burgueño, J.F. et al., Gastroenterology

Gut Microbiome Alters the Activity of Liver Cytochromes P450 in Mice With Sex-Dependent Differences. – Jourová, L. et al., Frontiers in Pharmacology

Distinct Polysaccharide Utilization Determines Interspecies Competition between Intestinal Prevotella spp. – Gálvez, E.J.C. et al., Cell Host & Microbe

FXR in the dorsal vagal complex is sufficient and necessary for upper small intestinal microbiome-mediated changes of TCDCA to alter insulin action in rats. – Zhang, S-Y et al., Gut

Animal Microbiome
Review: To the Land and Beyond: Crab Microbiomes as a Paradigm for the Evolution of Terrestrialization. – Cannicci, S. et al., Frontiers in Microbiology

Insect Microbiome
The direct and indirect effects of environmental toxicants on the health of bumblebees and their microbiomes. – Rothman, J.A. et al., Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Biological Sciences

A Very Hungry Caterpillar: Polyethylene Metabolism and Lipid Homeostasis in Larvae of the Greater Wax Moth ( Galleria mellonella). – LeMoine, C.M. et al., Environmental Science and Technology

Plant, Root, and Soil Microbiome
Deciphering the Microbial Taxonomy and Functionality of Two Diverse Mangrove Ecosystems and Their Potential Abilities To Produce Bioactive Compounds. – Liao, S. et al., mSystems

Introducing the Mangrove Microbiome Initiative: Identifying Microbial Research Priorities and Approaches To Better Understand, Protect, and Rehabilitate Mangrove Ecosystems. – Allard, S.M. et al., mSystems

Water and Extremophile Microbiome
The water chemistry and microbiome of household wells in Medawachchiya, Sri Lanka, an area with high prevalence of chronic kidney disease of unknown origin (CKDu). McDonough, L.K. et al., Scientific Reports

Sediment Metagenomes as Time Capsules of Lake Microbiomes. – Garner, R.E. et al., mSphere

Built Environment
Bioaerosols in the Athens Metro: Metagenetic insights into the PM 10 microbiome in a naturally ventilated subway station. – Grydaki, N. et al., Environment International

Probiotics
Biotic Interactions Are More Important than Propagule Pressure in Microbial Community Invasions. – Albright, M.B.N. et al., mBio

Microbiological, immunological, and histological changes in the gut of Salmonella Enteritidis-challenged rats fed goat cheese containing Lactobacillus rhamnosus EM1107. – Rolim, F.R.L. et al., Journal of Dairy Science

Comparative Genome Analysis of Bifidobacterium longum subsp. infantis Strains Reveals Variation in Human Milk Oligosaccharide Utilization Genes among Commercial Probiotics. – Duar, R.M. et al., Nutrients

Persistence of Suspected Probiotic Organisms in Preterm Infant Gut Microbiota Weeks After Probiotic Supplementation in the NICU. – Yousuf, E.I. et al., Frontiers in Microbiology

Bioinformatics
Model-based and phylogenetically adjusted quantification of metabolic interaction between microbial species. – Lam, T.J. et al., PLoS Computational Biology

Comprehensive screening of genomic and metagenomic data reveals a large diversity of tetracycline resistance genes. – Berglund, F. et al., Microbial Genomics

Review: Naught all zeros in sequence count data are the same. – Silverman, J.S. et al., Computational and Structural Biotechnology Journal

Techniques
Microbiomic Analysis on Low Abundant Respiratory Biomass Samples; Improved Recovery of Microbial DNA From Bronchoalveolar Lavage Fluid. – Saladié, M. et al., Frontiers in Microbiology

Jumping the green wall: The use of PNA-DNA clamps to enhance microbiome sampling depth in wildlife microbiome research. – Víquez-R, L. et al., Ecology and Evolution

November 5, 2020

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Hello, friends!

I’m an American who grew up in North Carolina, lived in Georgia for many years, and now counts Pennsylvania as home. All of this is to say, I’ve been especially consumed by the US election this morning and so today’s digest is tailor made to distract me for a few hours. It contains a heavy dose of general microbiome, environmental microbiology, and microbial ecology articles. If you need a bigger distraction than usual, I’ve highlighted a few articles that I am particularly looking forward to reading and am using this space as an opportunity to reintroduce myself and share why these articles have peaked my interest.

I completed my PhD research on the cockroach gut microbiome and through this work, I realized how complex microbiome-host-environmental interactions can be. Because of this, my first highlighted article is a review about cockroach-associated microbes. Currently, I work in a national lab studying environmental-associated microbes (and their functional capacity!) in a variety of different energy-associated environments. It’s no wonder I’m excited to read the second highlighted article focused on novel soil microbes found in an abandoned coal mine! I’m also very hungry at the moment, so as soon I read the phrase “smoked cow cheese” I was motivated to explore my cheese drawer as well as think more about microbial food safety and the microbial production of favor compounds. Finally, I love musical theater and science outreach, so I’m delighted to share a mouldy article that combines both passions.

Happy reading, everyone!

General microbiome

Review: The pneumococcal social network – Aggarawal et al. – PLOS Pathogens

Expanding magnetic organelle biogenesis in the domain Bacteria – Lin et al. – Microbiome

Gene duplication drives genome expansion in a major lineage of Thaumarchaeota – Sheridan et al. – Nature Communications

Metatranscriptomic analysis reveals active microbes and genes responded to short-term Cr(VI) stress – Yu et al. – Ecotoxicology

Effects of heavy ion particle irradiation on spore germination of Bacillus spp. from extremely hot and cold environments – Zammuto et al. – Life
Human gut microbiome

Gut microbiome

Gut microbiota ecology: Biodiversity estimated from hybrid neutral-niche model increases with health status and aging – Sala et al. – PLOS ONE

Implication of gut microbiota in the physiology of rats intermittently exposed to cold and hypobaric hypoxia – Ramos-Romero et al. – PLOS ONE

Animal microbiome

Exploring the resident gut microbiota of stranded odontocetes: high similarities between two dolphin species Tursiops truncatus and Stenella coeruleoalba – Abdelrhman et al. – Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the UK

**Review: Bacteria associated with cockroaches: health risk or biotechnological opportunity? – Guzman & Vilcinskas – Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology

Water and extremophile microbiome

Impact of land uses, drought, flood, wildfire, and cascading events on water quality and microbial communities: A review and analysis – Mishra et al. – Journal of Hydrology

Dams shift microbial community assembly and imprint nitrogen transformation along the Yangtze River – Gao et al. – Water Research

Built environment

**Isolation and characterization of soil bacteria from an abandoned coal mine in southeast Kansas – Bechtold et al. – BioOne Complete

Review: Understanding building-occupant-microbiome interactions toward healthy built environments – Li et al. – Frontiers of Environmental Science & Engineering

Food microbiology

**Microbial quality of smoked cow cheese “Parencia” – Kačániová et al. – Scientific Papers: Animal Science and Biotechnologies

Phages and viruses

Virome of bat guano from nine northern California roosts – Li et al. – Journal of Virology

Bioinformatics

The IMG/M data management and analysis system v.6.0: new tools and advanced capabilities – Chen et al. – Nucleic Acids Research

PhANNs, a fast and accurate tool and web server to classify phage structural proteins – Cantu et al. – PLOS Computational Biology

Techniques

Low-cost biofuel-powered autoclaving machine for use in rural health care centres – Ahmed et al. – Journal of Medical Engineering & Technology

**‘The Mould that Changed the World’: Quantitative and qualitative evaluation of children’s knowledge and motivation for behavioural change following participation in an antimicrobial resistance musical – Hall et al. – PLOS ONE

Harnessing the power of eDNA metabarcoding for the detection of deep-sea fishes – McClenaghan et al. – PLOS ONE

October 30, 2020

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COVID19
Cancer inpatients with COVID-19: A report from the Brazilian National Cancer Institute – de Melo et al. – PLOS One

Few bacterial co-infections but frequent empiric antibiotic use in the early phase of hospitalized patients with COVID-19: results from a multicentre retrospective cohort study in The Netherlands – Karami – et al. – Infectious Diseases

Infection of dogs with SARS-CoV-2 – Sit et al. – Nature

General microbiome/metabolome

Metabolomics of primary cutaneous melanoma and matched adjacent extratumoral microenvironment – Taylor et al. PLOS One

Human gut microbiome

Microbial signature in IgE-mediated food allergies – Goldberg et al. – Genome Medicine

Gut microbiota profiles of treatment-naïve adult acute myeloid leukemia patients with neutropenic fever during intensive chemotherapy – Rattanathammethee et al. – PLOS One

[Book Chapter]Understanding Polyphenols’ Health Effects Through the Gut Microbiota – Selma et al. – Dietary Polyphenols : Their Metabolism and Health Effects

[REVIEW]Gut Microbiota: Its Potential Roles in Pancreatic Cancer – Li et al. – Front. Cell. Infect. Microbiol.

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Biological invasions alter environmental microbiomes: A meta-analysis – Malacrino et al. – PLOS One

Phages and viruses

[PREPRINT]VirION2: a short- and long-read sequencing and informatics workflow to study the genomic diversity of viruses in nature – Zablocki et al. – bioRxiv

Mycobiome
[REVIEW]T cell immunity to commensal fungi – Scheffold, Bacher & LeibundGut-Landmann – Current Opinion in Microbiology

Bioinformatics

Prometheus, an omics portal for interkingdom comparative genomic analyses – Ko et al. – PLOS One

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

News in Brie! Scientists discover cheese is so smelly because it helps microbes ‘talk’ to the bacteria that makes it ripe – S. Howes – Daily Mail

October 27, 2020

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Greetings from Pittsburgh, PA!

Today’s digest a contains articles focused on the oral microbiome, koala symbionts, soil microbial communities, and more. For those of you who are a bit too tired to digest cutting-edge research, I suggest using the 10 simple steps outlined in the highlighted editorial to colorize your own data visualizations. Finally, if you just need a break, I suggest bookmarking the article on the whale skin microbiome and revisiting the film Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.

Happy reading (or movie watching)!

General microbiome

Taxonomic profiling and functional characterization of the healthy human oral bacterial microbiome from the north Indian urban sub-population – Verma et al. – Archives of Microbiology

Pregnancy and early life

Maternal and cord blood vitamin D level and the infant gut microbiota in a birth cohort study – Kassem et al. – Maternal Health, Neonatology and Perinatology

Human gut microbiome

Review: A review on preventive role of ketogenic diet (KD) in CNS disorders from the gut microbiota perspective – Rawat et al. – Reviews in Neurosciences

Animal experiments

Challenges in microbiological identification of aerobic bacteria isolated from the skin of reptiles – Brockmann et al. – PLOS ONE

Isolation and sequence-based characterization of a koala symbiont: Lonepinella koalarum – Dahlhausen et al. – Peer J

Vertical transmission of zika virus in Aedes albopictus – Lai et al. – PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases

Cultured-dependent and cultured-independent study of bacteria associated with Thai commercial stingless bee Lepidotrigona terminata – Suphaphimol et al. – Journal of Apicultural Research

Animal microbiome

**Skin microbiome of beluga whales: spatial, temporal, and health-related dynamics – Van Cise et al. – Animal Microbiome

Diversity of bacterial symbionts associated with Myzus persicae (Sulzer) (Hemiptera: Aphididae: Aphidinae) revealed by 16S rRNA Illumina sequencing – Xu et al. – Microbial Ecology

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Protists and collembolans alter microbial community composition, C dynamics and soil aggregation in simplified consumer–prey systems – Erktan et al. – Biogeosciences

Responses of soil bacteria and fungi after 36 years fertilizer, straw cover, and irrigation management practices in northwest China – Zhang et al. – Soil Use and Management

Water and extremophile microbiome

Integration of time-series meta-omics data reveals how microbial ecosystems respond to disturbance – Herold et al. – Nature Communications

Islands in the sand: Are all hypolithic microbial communities the same? – Lebre et al. – FEMS Microbiology Ecology

Shifts of sediment bacterial community and respiration along a successional gradient in a typical karst plateau lake wetland (China) – Xia et al. – Journal of Oceanology and Limnology

Salinity controls soil microbial community structure and function in coastal estuarine wetlands – Zhang et al. – Environmental Microbiology

Phages and viruses

Association of host proteins with the broad host range filamentous phage NgoΦ6 of Neisseria gonorrhoeae – Piekarowicz et al. – PLOS ONE

Bioinformatics

**Editorial: Ten simple rules to colorize biological data visualization – Hattab et al. – PLOS Computational Biology

NanoGalaxy: Nanopore long-read sequencing data analysis in Galaxy – de Koning et al. – GigaScience

Predicting antimicrobial resistance using conserved genes – Nguyen et al. – PLOS Computational Biology

Techniques

Review: Innovations to culturing the uncultured microbial majority – Lewis et al. – Nature Reviews Microbiology

Comparison of the diversity of cultured and total bacterial communities in marine sediment using culture-dependent and sequencing methods – Wang et al. – PeerJ

Science, publishing, and career

Comment: Crowdsourcing virtual summer research opportunities to support minorities in microbiology – Johnson et al. – Nature Microbiology

October 21, 2020

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Good morning from Northern Germany,

Today’s selection comprises among others new research about intestinal microbiome and breast cancer (by Koren lab), a perspective about the human microbiome in the 21st century and the diversity in marine sediments. Additionally, we selected a study about linking genetics, microbiome and autoimmunity (multiple sclerosis) in a mouse model and a study about postmortomics.

Conferences

The 3rd Microbiome Movement – Skin Health & Dermatology Summit unites leaders from academia and industry to address the unique challenges that working within the skin microbiome possesses, with the goal to accelerate microbiome-targeted therapeutics and cosmetics.
View the event website for more details.

General microbiome

[Review] Metabolomics Signatures of Aging: Recent Advances – Sunil and Yulan – Aging and Disease

The human microbiome in the 21st century – Rackaityte & Lynch – Nature Communications

Human gut microbiome

The intestinal microbiome, weight, and metabolic changes in women treated by adjuvant chemotherapy for breast and gynecological malignancies – Uzan-Yulzari et al. BMC Medicine

[Review] The Role of the Gut Microbiota in Coronary Heart Disease – Liu et al. – Coronary Heart Disease

[Review] Gut microbial molecules in behavioural and neurodegenerative conditions – Needham, Kaddurah & Mazmanian – Nature Reviews Neuroscience

Animal experiments

Interactions between host genetics and gut microbiota determine susceptibility to CNS autoimmunity – Montgomery et al. – PNAS

Bifidobacterium alters the gut microbiota and modulates the functional metabolism of T regulatory cells in the context of immune checkpoint blockade – Sun et al. – PNAS

Bugs and drugs: a systems biology approach to characterising the effect of moxidectin on the horse’s faecal microbiome – Daniels, Swann & Proudman – Animal Microbiome

A pioneer calf foetus microbiome – Guzman et al. – Scientific Reports

Water and extremophile microbiome

Global diversity of microbial communities in marine sediment – Hoshino et al. – PNAS

Bioinformatics

[Review] Statistical and Machine-Learning Analyses in Nutritional Genomics Studies – Khorraminezhad et al. – nutrients
[Review] A need to consider the evolutionary genetics of host‐symbiont mutualisms – Stoy et al. – Journal of Evolutionary Biology

Techniques

Postmortomics: The Potential of Untargeted Metabolomics to Highlight Markers for Time Since Death – Pesko et al. – OMICS: A Journal of Integrative Biology

October 16, 2020

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In today’s digest read about how food additives affect the intestinal microbiota and induce intestinal inflammation, the role of the gut microbiome in honey bee nestmate recognition, how to use gene-level analysis to identify microbial “genome islands” associated with human health, and more. Check out the list of audiobooks about microbes. Happy Friday!

General microbiome

Time as a microbial resource – Karen G. Lloyd – Environmental Microbiology Reports

Review: The Central Role of Interbacterial Antagonism in Bacterial Life – S. Brook Peterson – Current Biology

Gut microbiome

*Dietary Emulsifiers Directly Impact Adherent-Invasive E. coli Gene Expression to Drive Chronic Intestinal Inflammation – Emilie Viennois – Cell Reports

Microbial Strain Engraftment, Persistence and Replacement after Fecal Microbiota Transplantation – Daniel Podlesny – medRxiv

Characterization of presumptive vancomycin-resistant enterococci recovered during infection control surveillance in Dallas, Texas – Sara Ping – bioRxiv

Metabolic dissimilarity determines the establishment of cross-feeding interactions in bacteria – Samir Giri – bioRxiv

Metabolic Response of Faecalibacterium prausnitzii to Cell-Free Supernatants from Lactic Acid Bacteria – Mathilde Lebas – Microorganisms

A combination of metagenomic and cultivation approaches reveals hypermutator phenotypes within Vibrio cholerae infected patients – Inès Levade – bioRxiv

Safety and functional enrichment of gut microbiome in healthy subjects consuming a multi-strain fermented milk product: a randomised controlled trial – Anne-Sophie Alvarez – Scientific Reports

Skin microbiome

Microbial and transcriptional differences elucidate atopic dermatitis heterogeneity across skin sites – Noora Ottman – Allergy

Respiratory microbiome

Multicenter analysis of sputum microbiota in tuberculosis patients – Claudia Sala – PlosOne

Lacticaseibacillus casei AMBR2 modulates the epithelial barrier function and immune response in a donor-derived nasal microbiota manner – Charlotte De Rudder – Scientific Reports

Animal microbiome

*The gut microbiome defines social group membership in honey bee colonies – Cassondra L. Vernier – Science Advances

Early-life gut dysbiosis linked to juvenile mortality in ostriches – Elin Videvall – Microbiome

Animal experiment

The Immune System Fails to Mount a Protective Response to Gram-Positive or Gram-Negative Bacterial Prostatitis – Federico Lupo – Journal of Immunology

The aging mouse microbiome has obesogenic characteristics – Dana Binyamin – Genome Medicine

Tetracycline Antibiotics Induce Host-Dependent Disease Tolerance to Infection – Henrique G. Colaço – Immunity

Water microbiome

Impact of phosphate dosing on the microbial ecology of drinking water distribution systems: Fieldwork studies in chlorinated networks – Isabel Douterelo – Water Research

Sustained nitrogen loss in a symbiotic association of Comammox Nitrospira and Anammox bacteria – Ekaterina Y. Gottshall – bioRxiv

Viruses and phages

Culturing novel and abundant pelagiphages in the ocean – Zefeng Zhang – Environmental Microbiology

High-throughput mapping of the phage resistance landscape in E. coli – Vivek K. Mutalik – PlosBiology

Fungi

Minireview: Fun(gi)omics: Advanced and Diverse Technologies to Explore Emerging Fungal Pathogens and Define Mechanisms of Antifungal Resistance – Brianna Ball – mBio

Technique

Bac-PULCE: Bacterial Strain and AMR Profiling Using Long Reads via CRISPR Enrichment – Andrea Sajuthi – bioRxiv

Bioinformatics

*Gene-level metagenomics identifies genome islands associated with immunotherapy response – Samuel S Minot – bioRxiv

PUMAA: A Platform for Accessible Microbiome Analysis in the Undergraduate Classroom – Keith Mitchell – Frontiers in Microbiology

Raman2imzML converts Raman imaging data into the standard mass spectrometry imaging format – Stefania Alexandra Iakab – BMC Bioinformatics

Scientific writing

Eight problems with literature reviews and how to fix them – Neal R. Haddaway – Nature Ecology & Evolution

Scientific art

Inktober2020 #PathogenPortraits by Dr Eliza Wolfson

Citizen science

The Human Diets & Microbiome Initiative in the US (THDMI): A unique opportunity to become a citizen scientist. Join for FREE to uncover the secret of the gut microbiome.

Books

11 Audiobooks About Microbes – Justine Dees – Joyful Microbe

October 14, 2020

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Good morning from sunny San Francisco, California! Today’s digest shares some fascinating in vivo studies including a paper from Ou et al. examining the role of host antimicrobial proteins α-definsins in bacterial colonization and epithelial cell adherence in the gut and a proof-of-concept paper from Hsu et al. in which the authors orally delivered an engineered phage to the gut of mice that was capable of specifically repressing gene expression in bacteria. Additionally, there are some great plant, root, and soil microbiome papers (Kusstatscher et al. show that treating maize seeds with a plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria improves plant health) and water microbiome papers (León-Zayas et al. published a super collaborative paper looking at microbiome sharing between sediments, seagrasses, and reef fish at multiple sites). Finally, I wanted to highlight a paper by Zelaya et al. outlining a course-based undergraduate research experience for teaching microbiology that focuses on the bean beetle microbiome. Happy reading!

Pregnancy and Early Life
Review: The early life education of the immune system: Moms, microbes and (missed) opportunities. – Nitya, J. et al., Gut Microbes

Delayed Establishment of Gut Microbiota in Infants Delivered by Cesarean Section. – Kim, G. et al., Frontiers in Microbiology

Human Respiratory Microbiome
Proteins produced by Streptococcus species in the lower respiratory tract can modify antiviral responses against influenza virus in respiratory epithelial cells. – Nishioka, K. et al., Microbes and Infection

Human Vaginal Microbiome
Vaginal host immune-microbiome interactions in a cohort of primarily African-American women who ultimately underwent spontaneous preterm birth or delivered at term. – Florova, V. et al., Cytokine

Human Oral Microbiome
Isolation and Characterization of Nitrate-Reducing Bacteria as Potential Probiotics for Oral and Systemic Health. – Rosier, B.T. et al., Frontiers in Microbiology

Human Gut Microbiome
Translocation of Viable Gut Microbiota to Mesenteric Adipose Drives Formation of Creeping Fat in Humans. – Ha, C.W.Y. et al., Cell

Gastrointestinal Surgery for Inflammatory Bowel Disease Persistently Lowers Microbiome and Metabolome Diversity. – Fang, X. et al., Inflammatory Bowel Diseases

Animal Experiments
α-Defensins Promote Bacteroides Colonization on Mucosal Reservoir to Prevent Antibiotic-Induced Dysbiosis. – Ou, J. et al., Frontiers in Immunology

In situ reprogramming of gut bacteria by oral delivery. – Hsu, B.B. et al., Nature Communications

The intestinal microbial metabolite desaminotyrosine is an anti‐inflammatory molecule that modulates local and systemic immune homeostasis. – Wei, Y. et al., The FASEB Journal

Modulation of experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis through colonisation of the gut with Escherichia coli. – Libbey, J.E. et al., Beneficial Microbes

Molecular patterns from a human gut-derived Lactobacillus strain suppress pathogenic infiltration of leukocytes into the central nervous system. -Sanchez, J.M.S. et al., Journal of Neuroinflammation

Plant, Root, and Soil Microbiome
Soil-microorganism-mediated invasional meltdown in plants. – Zhang, Z. et al., Nature Ecology and Evolution

Microbiome Management by Biological and Chemical Treatments in Maize Is Linked to Plant Health. – Kusstatscher, P. et al., Microorganisms

Disruption of Firmicutes and Actinobacteria abundance in tomato rhizosphere causes the incidence of bacterial wilt disease. – Lee, S-M. et al., The ISME Journal

Keystone Microbiomes Revealed by 14 Years of Field Restoration of the Degraded Agricultural Soil Under Distinct Vegetation Scenarios. – Zhang, Z. et al., Frontiers in Microbiology

Dynamic Changes in the Microbiome of Rice During Shoot and Root Growth Derived From Seeds. – Wang, M. et al., Frontiers in Microbiology

Root-Secreted Coumarins and the Microbiota Interact to Improve Iron Nutrition in Arabidopsis. – Harbort, C.J. et al., Cell Host & Microbe

Review: Pinpointing secondary metabolites that shape the composition and function of the plant microbiome. – Jacoby, R.P. et al., Journal of Experimental Botany

Water and Extremophile Microbiome
Microbiomes of fish, sediment and seagrass suggest connectivity of coral reef microbial populations. – León-Zayas, R. et al., PeerJ

Size Shapes the Active Microbiome of Methanogenic Granules, Corroborating a Biofilm Life Cycle. – Trego, A.C. et al., mSystems

Self-regulating microbiome networks ensure functional resilience of biofilms in sand biofilters during manganese load fluctuations. – Zhao, X. et al., Water Research

Review: Groundwater Microbial Communities in Times of Climate Change. -Retter, A. et al., Current Issues in Molecular Biology

Probiotics/Prebiotics
Combining IL-2-based immunotherapy with commensal probiotics produces enhanced antitumor immune response and tumor clearance. – Shi, L. et al., Journal for the ImmunoTherapy of Cancer

Mom’s diet matters: Maternal prebiotic intake in mice reduces anxiety and alters brain gene expression and the fecal microbiome in offspring. – Hebert, J.C. et al., Brain, Behavior, and Immunity

Prophylactic effects of oral administration of Lactobacillus casei on house dust mite-induced asthma in mice. – Lingzhi, L. et al., Food & Function

Bioinformatics
INTEDE: interactome of drug-metabolizing enzymes. – Yin, J. et al., Nucleic Acid Research.

GIMICA: host genetic and immune factors shaping human microbiota. – Tang, J. et al., Nucleic Acid Research

metaFlye: scalable long-read metagenome assembly using repeat graphs. – Kolmogorov, M. et al., Nature Methods

Diagnosing and Predicting Mixed-Culture Fermentations with Unicellular and Guild-Based Metabolic Models. – Scarborough, M.J. et al., mSystems

Education
The Bean Beetle Microbiome Project: A Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experience in Microbiology. – Zelaya, A.J. et al., Frontiers in Microbiology

October 11, 2020

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Hello from the Sonoran Desert! In today’s digest, you’ll find quite a few exciting reads about ancient microbes!

Duchêne and collaborators review recents efforts in paleopathology leading to the genome sequencing of ancient pathogens of historical interest such as the pre-modern bubonic plague (Yersinia pestis), smallpox (Variola virus) and cholera (Vibrio cholerae). In their review, the authors explore this amazing topic that aims to broaden our understanding of the past infectious disease.

On the other hand, Eisenhofer and collaborators examine ancient microbial DNA preserved within dental calculus samples from two major cultural periods in Japan: the Jomon period circa 3000 years ago and the Edo period circa 400–150 ago. In this piece, they explore how human oral microbiomes have changed through time in ancient Japanese populations.

Finally, you’ll find in this digest a non-microbiology pick: a “10 simple rules” paper outlining best practices for annotating and submitting sequencing data! Indeed, metadata accompanying sequence datasets is critical to ensure data longevity and reusability by both human and machine agents, and poor metadata can drastically reduce the value of sequencing experiments by limiting its reuse in integrative analyses!

Have a great Sunday!

General Microbiology

Review: The Recovery, Interpretation and Use of Ancient Pathogen Genomes – Duchêne et al. – Current Biology

Multi-site human microbiome

Functional diversity of microbial ecologies estimated from ancient human coprolites and dental calculus – Jacobson et al. – Philosphical transactions of the royal society of Biological sciences.

Human respiratory and oral microbiome

Investigating the demographic history of Japan using ancient oral microbiota – Eisenhofer et al. – Philosphical transactions of the royal society of Biological sciences.

Human gut microbiome

Preprint: Distinct human gut microbial taxonomic signatures uncovered with different sample processing and microbial cell disruption methods for metaproteomic analysis – Garcia-Duran et al. – BioRxiv.

Review: Deciphering diet-gut microbiota-host interplay: Investigations of pectin. – Tan and Nie – Trends in Food Science & Technology

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Book Chapter: Microbes and Environment: Global Warming Reverting the Frozen Zombies. In: Fahad et al. (eds) Environment, Climate, Plant and Vegetation Growth. Springer, Cham.

Taxonomic Diversity of Bacteria and Their Filterable Forms in the Soils of Eastern Antarctica (Larsemann Hills and Bunger Hills) – Kudinova et al. – Microbiology.

Preprint: Long-term warming effects on the microbiome and nitrogen fixation associated with the moss Racomitrium lanuginosum in Icelandic tundra – Klarenberg et al. – bioRxiv

Water and extremophile microbiome

Diversity of Eukaryotic Microorganisms in the Drainage Waters of a Coal Open-Cast Mine – Gruzdev et al. – Microbiology

Dissimilarity of microbial diversity of pond water, shrimp intestine and sediment in Aquamimicry system – Zeng et al. – AMB express.

Comparative diversity analysis of halophiles at two polar saltern systems in Indramayu, West Java, Indonesia – Chasanah et al. – Letters in Applied Microbiology.

Mechanistic model of nutrient uptake explains dichotomy between marine oligotrophic and copiotrophic bacteria – Norris et al. – BioRxiv.

Food microbiology

Review: Microbial diversity of seafood. Parlapani. Current Opinion in Food Science.

Phages and viruses

The first head‐tailed virus, MFTV1, produced by a hyperthermophilic methanogenic deep‐sea archaea – Thiroux et al. – Environmental microbiology.

Review: Single-virus genomics and beyond – Martinez et al. – Nature reviews Microbiology

Bioinformatics

A Rapid Automated Process for Organizing Bacterial Cluster Segments Using Deep Neural Networks – Elroy Martis et al. – IEEE conference

Techniques

FACS-iChip: a high-efficiency iChip system for microbial ‘dark matter’ mining – Liu et al. – Marine Life Science and Technology

Comparison of Nucleic Acid Extraction Methods for a Viral Metagenomics Analysis of Respiratory Viruses – Sabatier et al. – Microorganisms

Science, publishing, and career

Preprint: Advancing science or advancing careers? Researchers’ opinions on success indicators – Aubert Bonn and Pinxten – BioRxiv.

My non-microbiology picks

Ten simple rules for annotating sequencing experiments – Stevens et al. – Plos Computational Biology