Category Archives: Built Environment Microbiology

March 27, 2024

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Built environment microbiome

Genomic, functional, and metabolic enhancements in multidrug-resistant Enterobacter bugandensis facilitating its persistence and succession in the International Space Station – Pratyay Sengupta et al – BMC Microbiome

An overview of the bacterial microbiome of public transportation systems-risks, detection, and countermeasures – Yen-Tran Ly et al – Frontiers in Public Health

Bioinformatics and computational methods

Contigs directed gene annotation (ConDiGA) for accurate protein sequence database construction in metaproteomics – Enhui Wu et al – BMC Microbiome

Amplidiff: an optimized amplicon sequencing approach to estimating lineage abundances in viral metagenomes – Jasper van Bemmelen et al – BMC Bioinformatics

Multi-omic integration of microbiome data for identifying disease-associated modules – Efrat Muller – Nature Communications

Animal experiments

Gender affirming hormone therapy preserves skeletal maturation in young mice via the gut microbiome – Subhashis Pal et al – Journal of Clinical Investigation

Microbiota-derived indoles alleviate intestinal inflammation and modulate microbiome by microbial cross-feeding – Gang Wang et al – BMC Microbiome

[PREPRINT] Akkermansia muciniphila identified as key strain to alleviate gut barrier injury through Wnt signaling pathway – Xin Ma et al – bioRxiv

Microbiota from human infants consuming secretors or non-secretors mothers’ milk impacts the gut and immune system in mice – Manoj Gurung et al – mSystems

Plant and soil microbiome

Lose-lose consequences of bacterial community-driven invasions in soil – Xipeng Liu & Joana Falcão Salles – BMC Microbiome

Manipulating the physical distance between cells during soil colonization reveals the importance of biotic interactions in microbial community assembly – Sana Romdhane et al – BMC Environmental Microbiome

Soil fungal communities varied across aspects of restored grassland in former mining areas of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau – Xioaqing Li et al – PLOS One

Animal microbiome

Exploring the potential effects of forest urbanization on the interplay between small mammal communities and their gut microbiota – Marie Bouilloud et al – BMC Animal Microbiome

Bats, Bacteria, and Bat Smell V.2.0: Repeatable Sex-Specific Differences in Scent Organ Microbiota – Öncü Maraci et al – Microbial Ecology

Characterization of the skin microbiome in normal and cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma affected cats and dogs – Jacoba I. Bromfield et al – mSphere

Phylosymbiosis and metabolomics resolve phenotypically plastic and cryptic sponge species in the genus Agelas across the Caribbean basin – M.S. Pankey et al – Molecular Ecology

Naturally occurring fire coral clones demonstrate a genetic and environmental basis of microbiome composition – C. E. Dubé et al – Nature Communications

March 20, 2024

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Human gut and general microbiome

Prevotella copri and microbiota members mediate the beneficial effects of a therapeutic food for malnutrition – Hao-Wei Chang et al – Nature Microbiology

Outcomes after Fecal Microbiota Transplantation in combination with Bezlotoxumab for Inflammatory Bowel Disease and Recurrent C. difficile Infection – Jessica R Allegretti – American Journal of Gastroenterology

Diosmin alleviates ulcerative colitis in mice by increasing Akkermansia muciniphila abundance, improving intestinal barrier function, and modulating the NF-κB and Nrf2 pathways – Maha Badr Salem et al – Cell Heliyon

Gut microbiota profiling in obese children from Southeastern China – Jingjing Wang et al – BMC Pediatrics

A flexible high-throughput cultivation protocol to assess the response of individuals’ gut microbiota to diet-, drug-, and host-related factors – Janina N Zünd et al – ISME Communications

Animal experiments

Intact lung tissue and bronchoalveolar lavage fluid are both suitable for the evaluation of murine lung microbiome in acute lung injury – Lijun Zheng et al – BMC Microbiome

Microbiota-derived indoles alleviate intestinal inflammation and modulate microbiome by microbial cross-feeding – Gang Wang et al – BMC Microbiome

Plant, soil, and environmental microbiome

Microbial species pool-mediated diazotrophic community assembly in crop microbiomes during plant development – Chao Xiong et al – mSystems

Bacterial communities associated with an island radiation of lichen-forming fungi – Miguel Blázquez et al – PLOS ONE

Built environment microbiome

Early assessment of fungal and oomycete pathogens in greenhouse irrigation water using Oxford nanopore amplicon sequencing – Enoch Narh Kudjordjie et al – PLOS One

The composition of the bacterial communities collected from the PM10 samples inside the Seoul subway and railway station – Shambhavi Sharma et al – Nature Scientific Reports

Bioinformatics

Differential network connectivity analysis for microbiome data adjusted for clinical covariates using jackknife pseudo-values – Seungjun Ahn & Somnath Datta – BMC Bioinformatics

Beneficial microbes & microbial metabolites
Natural intestinal metabolite xylitol reduces BRD4 levels to mitigate renal fibrosis – Zhouke Tan et al – Clinical and Translational Science

Probiotics supplementation during pregnancy or infancy on multiple food allergies and gut microbiota: a systematic review and meta-analysis – Lan Jiang et al – Nutrition Reviews

Non-Microbiome Microbiology

Koch’s curse: How models of extreme pathology bias studies of host–pathogen interactions – Kalyan K. Dewan & Eric T. Harvill – PLOS Pathogens

March 13, 2024

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Human gut microbiome

Gut microbiota–tryptophan metabolism–GLP-1 axis participates in β-cell regeneration induced by dapagliflozin – Yafei Jiang et al – Diabetes

Inhibition of inosine metabolism of the gut microbiota decreases testosterone secretion in the testis – Lei Tang et al – mSystems

[REVIEW] Exploring the gut microbiota and its potential as a biomarker in gliomas – Dana Aljarrah et al – Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy

Comparative prebiotic potential of galacto- and fructo-oligosaccharides, native inulin and acacia gum in Kenyan infant gut microbiota during iron supplementation – Paula Momo Cabera et al – ISME Communications

A bacterial sialidase mediates early-life colonization by a pioneering gut commensal – Ekaterina Buzun et al – Cell Host and Microbe

Animal Microbiome

Dietary carbohydrate sources differently prime the microbial ecosystem but not the epithelial gene expression profile along the complete gut of young calves – Thomas Hartinger et al – BMC Animal Microbiome

Multi-omics reveals that alkaline mineral water improves the respiratory health and growth performance of transported calves – Jiancheng Qi et al – BMC Microbiome

Efficacy of a novel multi-enzyme feed additive on growth performance, nutrient digestibility and gut microbiome of weanling pigs fed corn-wheat or wheat-barley based diet – Ayodeji S Aderibigbe et al – Journal of Animal Science

Plant and soil microbiome

Formation of a constructed microbial community in a nutrient-rich environment indicates bacterial interspecific competition – Jia Wang et al – mSystems

Plasma Treatment Modifies Element Distribution in Seed Coating and Affects Further Germination and Plant Growth through Interaction with Soil Microbiome – Tetiana Kalachova et al – Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry

Soil Microbiomes and their Arsenic Functional Genes in Chronically High-Arsenic Contaminated Soils – Prinpida Sonthiphand et al – Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology

Taxonomic resolution of different 16S rRNA variable regions varies strongly across plant-associated bacteria – Katarina Hrovat et al – ISME Communications

Root microbiota analysis of Oryza rufipogon and Oryza sativa reveals an orientation selection during the domestication process – Liqun Jiang et al – Microbiology Spectrum

Diversity and distribution of biosynthetic gene clusters in agricultural soil microbiomes – Ziguo Zhang et al – mSystems

Sugar transporters spatially organize microbiota colonization along the longitudinal root axis of Arabidopsis – Eliza P.-I. Loo et al – Cell Host and Microbe

Built environment microbiome

Microbiome analysis of the restricted bacteria in radioactive element-containing water at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station – Tomoro Warashina et al – Applied and Environmental Microbiology

Bioinformatics and Techniques

The astounding exhaustiveness and speed of the Astral mass analyzer for highly complex samples is a quantum leap in the functional analysis of microbiomes – Thibaut Dumas et al – BMC Microbiome

Proportion-based normalizations outperform compositional data transformations in machine learning applications – Aaron Yerke et al – BMC Microbiome

A method to correct for local alterations in DNA copy number that bias functional genomics assays applied to antibiotic-treated bacteria – Geraldine J. Sullivan et al – mSystems

[PREPRINT] Bacterial strain nomenclature in the genomic era: Life Identification Numbers using a gene-by-gene approach – Federica Palma et al – bioRXiv

February 28, 2024

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Human gut microbiome

Distinct intestinal microbial signatures linked to accelerated systemic and intestinal biological aging – Shalini Singh – BMC Microbiome

Safety, feasibility, and impact on the gut microbiome of kefir administration in critically ill adults – Vinod K. Gupta – BMC Medicine

Dissecting Gut-Microbial Community Interactions using a Gut Microbiome-on-a-Chip – Jeeyon Lee – Advanced Science

Animal experiments

CRB1-associated retinal degeneration is dependent on bacterial translocation from the gut – Shanzhen Peng – Cell

Amino acid formula induces microbiota dysbiosis and depressive-like behavior in mice – Ji Hu – Cell Reports

Bacteroides fragilis aggravates high-fat diet-induced non-alcoholic fatty liver disease by regulating lipid metabolism and remodeling gut microbiota – Yumei Huang – Microbiology Spectrum

Animal microbiome

Gut microbiota modulation enhances the immune capacity of lizards under climate warming – Jing Yang – BMC Microbiome

Gut microbiota contribute to variations in honey bee foraging intensity – Cassondra L Vernier – ISME Journal

Virome diversity shaped by genetic evolution and ecological landscape of Haemaphysalis longicornis – Run-Ze Ye – BMC Microbiome

Multi-omics reveal mechanisms of high enteral starch diet mediated colonic dysbiosis via microbiome-host interactions in young ruminant – Chunjia Jin – BMC Microbiome

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

[PREPRINT] Cover Crop Root Exudates Impact Soil Microbiome Functional Trajectories in Agricultural Soils – Valerie A Seitz – Research Square

Stronger compensatory thermal adaptation of soil microbial respiration with higher substrate availability – Lingrui Qu – ISME Journal

Built environment

Effects of operational parameters on bacterial communities in Hong Kong and global wastewater treatment plants – Yulin Zhang – mSystems

Water and extremophile microbiome

Novel functional insights into the microbiome inhabiting marine plastic debris: critical considerations to counteract the challenges of thin biofilms using multi-omics and comparative metaproteomics – Lauren F. Messer – BMC Microbiome

Particle-attached bacteria act as gatekeepers in the decomposition of complex phytoplankton polysaccharides – Feng-Qing Wang – BMC Microbiome

Dynamics of Gut Bacteria Across Different Zooplankton Genera in the Baltic Sea – Tianshuo Zu – Microbial Ecology

Beneficial microbes

[PREPRINT] Enhancing Recovery from Gut Microbiome Dysbiosis and Alleviating DSS-Induced Colitis in Mice with a Consortium of Rare Short-Chain Fatty Acid-Producing Bacteria – Achuthan Ambat – bioRxiv

Neuroprotective Effects of Bifidobacterium animalis subsp. lactis NJ241 in a Mouse Model of Parkinson’s Disease: Implications for Gut Microbiota and PGC-1α – Yuxuan Dong – Molecular Neurobiology

May 16, 2023

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Happy Tuesday! Today’s microbiome digest is microbial ecology heavy, with articles focused on the gut microbiome, Antarctic endoliths’, water microbiomes, and more.

Human gut microbiome

Pathobionts in the tumour microbiota predict survival following resection for colorectal cancer – Alexander et al. – Microbiome

Gut microbiome transitions across generations in different ethnicities in an urban setting—the HELIUS study – van der Vossen et al. – Microbiome

Water and extremophile microbiome

Highly diverse and unknown viruses may enhance Antarctic endoliths’ adaptability – Ettinger et al. – Microbiome

Genomic insights into cryptic cycles of microbial hydrocarbon production and degradation in contiguous freshwater and marine microbiomes – Vigneron et al. – Microbiome

preprint: Allochthonous groundwater microorganisms affect coastal seawater microbial abundance, activity and diversity – Yanuka-Golub et al. – bioRxiv

Built environment

preprint: Microbial Diversity on Ancestral Halls with Different Visitor Flow Rates Using Amplicon Sequencing – Liu et al. – bioRxiv

Techniques

Comparing genomes recovered from time-series metagenomes using long- and short-read sequencing technologies – Orellana et al. – Microbiome

May 12, 2023

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Today’s digest features studies on human respiratory tract, mouse models, bovine milk microbiome, and more. See you at #MVIF next week!

Respiratory tract microbiome

Review: Ecology of the respiratory tract microbiome – Ana Elena Pérez-Cobas – Trends in Microbiology

Cervicovaginal microbiome

The cervical microbiota of Hispanics living in Puerto Rico is highly volatile and dominated by Lactobacillus iners regardless of HPV status – Daniela Vargas-Robles – bioRxiv

Gut microbiome

Key determinants of success in fecal microbiota transplantation: From microbiome to clinic – Serena Porcari – Cell Host & Microbes

Profiling the human intestinal environment under physiological conditions – Dari Shalon – Nature

Interaction between gut microbiota and sex hormones and their relation to sexual dimorphism in metabolic diseases – Jose Antonio Santos-Marcos – Biology of Sex Differences

Persistent delay in maturation of the developing gut microbiota in infants with cystic fibrosis – Paige Salerno – bioRxiv

Animal microbiome

Metagenomic analysis of milk microbiota in the bovine subclinical mastitis – Giulia Alessandri – bioRxiv

Animal experiments

MetaPhlAn 4 profiling of unknown species-level genome bins improves the characterization of diet-associated microbiome changes in mice – Paolo Manghi – Cell Reports

Bioinformatics

ResMiCo: Increasing the quality of metagenome-assembled genomes with deep learning – Olga Mineeva – Plos Computational Biology

Technique

Catch me if you can: capturing microbial community transformation by extracellular DNA using Hi-C sequencing – David Calderón-Franco – Antonie van Leeuwenhoek

Built environment

The microbiome of an outpatient rehabilitation clinic and predictors of contamination: A pilot study – Gabriella Brigando – PlosOne

May 5, 2023

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Today’s microbiome digest is a grab bag that includes ten simple rules for working with other people’s code, an article examining Wolbachia infections in native cockroach populations, and an article examining the role in lactic acid in shaping the human microbiome. Also highlighted is an article focused on human viruses residing within our cells and tissues, which demonstrated a unique virome in nine different human organs through targeted-enrichment viral metagenomics and virus specific qPCRs.

Happy reading!

General microbiome

The structure of prevacuolar compartments in Neurospora crassa as observed with super-resolution microscopy – Bowman – PLOS One

Phylogenetic trees of closely related bacterial species and subspecies based on frequencies of short nucleotide sequences – Nakano et al. – PLOS One

***Unmasking the tissue-resident eukaryotic DNA virome in humans – Pyöriä et al. – Nucleic Acids Research

Predicting partner fitness based on spatial structuring in a light-driven microbial community – Sakkos et al. – PLOS Computational Biology

Multi-site human microbiome

Evaluation of alcohol-free mouthwash for studies of the oral microbiome – Yano et al. – PLOS One

A systematically biosynthetic investigation of lactic acid bacteria reveals diverse antagonistic bacteriocins that potentially shape the human microbiome – Zhang et al. – Microbiome

Human gut microbiome

Positive mood-related gut microbiota in a long-term closed environment: a multiomics study based on the “Lunar Palace 365” experiment – Hao et al. – Microbiome

Animal microbiome

Wolbachia infection in native populations of Blattella germanica and Periplaneta americana – Choubdar et al. – PLOS One

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Bacterial and fungal community composition and community-level physiological profiles in forest soils – Kunito et al. – PLOS One

Water and extremophile microbiome

Predicting microbial community compositions in wastewater treatment plants using artificial neural networks – Liu et al. – Microbiome

Open ocean and coastal strains of the N2-fixing cyanobacterium UCYN-A have distinct transcriptomes – Muñoz-Marín et al. – PLOS One

Meta-organism gene expression reveals that the impact of nitrate enrichment on coral larvae is mediated by their associated Symbiodiniaceae and prokaryotic assemblages – Tong et al. – Microbiome

Bioinformatics

Ten simple rules for working with other people’s code – Pilgrim et al. – PLOS Computational Biology

Predicting microbe organisms using data of living micro forms of life and hybrid microbes classifier – Raza et al. – PLOS One

iPHoP: An integrated machine learning framework to maximize host prediction for metagenome-derived viruses of archaea and bacteria – Roux et al. – PLOS Biology

December 12, 2022

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Today’s digest has the kind of articles I like best–they are all focused on the unique relationship between microbial communities and their niche environments. These environments span everything from rice seeds to the Mariana Trench to the gut microbiome and even Appalachian coalbeds. Happy reading!


Human gut microbiome

Gut microbiome of helminth-infected indigenous Malaysians is context dependent – Tee et al. – Microbiome

Animal experiments

Taurine metabolism is modulated in Vibrio-infected Penaeus vannamei to shape shrimp antibacterial response and survival – Wang et al. – Microbiome


Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Multi-genome metabolic modeling predicts functional inter-dependencies in the Arabidopsis root microbiome – Mataigne et al. – Microbiome

Dynamics of rice microbiomes reveal core vertically transmitted seed endophytes – Zhang et al. – Microbiome


Water and extremophile microbiome

Comparison of prokaryotes between Mount Everest and the Mariana Trench – Liu et al. – Microbiome


Built environment

Predominance of Methanomicrobiales and diverse hydrocarbon-degrading taxa in the Appalachian coalbed biosphere revealed through metagenomics and genome-resolved metabolisms – Ross et al. – Environmental Microbiology

Evaluation of the Microbial Community and Geochemistry in Produced Waters Collected from CO2 EOR in the Niagaran Pinnacle Reef – Stemple et al. – ACS Earth Space Chem

July 14, 2022

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Today’s digest has multiple articles on statistical and bioinformatic techniques! Also included is a job ad from my research team, so check it out if you’re interested in gaining geomicrobiology research experience at a national laboratory.

Events and jobs

Our geomicrobiology research group at the National Energy Technology Lab – Pittsburgh is looking for a technician/researcher. Exact responsibilities are somewhat flexible depending on interest and education-level; we are accepting applications from current students at all levels as well as postdocs.

General microbiome

Mycobacteriophages: From Petri dish to patient – Hatfull – PLOS Pathogens

Animal microbiome

Reconstructing the ecosystem context of a species: Honey-borne DNA reveals the roles of the honeybee – Wirta et al. – PLOS One

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Patterns of microbial communities were shaped by bioavailable P along the elevation gradient of Shergyla Mountain, as determined by analysis of phospholipid fatty acids – Ba et al. – PLOS One

Preprint: Soil chemistry and soil history significantly structure oomycete communities in Brassicaceae crop rotations – Blakney et al. – bioRxiv

Community succession and straw degradation characteristics using a microbial decomposer at low temperature – Zhang et al. – PLOS One

Built Environment

Indoor air microbial load, antibiotic susceptibility profiles of bacteria, and associated factors in different wards of Arba Minch General Hospital, southern Ethiopia – Kayta et al. – PLOS One

Techniques

moreThanANOVA: A user-friendly Shiny/R application for exploring and comparing data with interactive visualization – Jiang et al. – PLOS One

Preparation of biological monolayers for producing high-resolution scanning electron micrographs – Mentor et al. – PLOS One

The accuracy of absolute differential abundance analysis from relative count data – Roche & Mukherjee – PLOS Computational Biology

AC-PCoA: Adjustment for confounding factors using principal coordinate analysis – Wang et al. – PLOS Computational Biology

Microbes in the news

The Art of Science: Students Participate in University’s First-Ever Bio-Art Class – Bernardi – Syracuse University News

June 3, 2022

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Happy Friday!

Today’s digest has articles on COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy, a new R package to extract network backbones, and a class of novel antibiotics that targets a Mycobacterium tuberculosis PE-PGRS protein. There also preprints on biofilm winkling in Bacillus subtilis, the dental calculus microbiome, and the relationship between eukaryotic genomes and ocean plankton in a global metagenomic dataset.

Events

Next week is ASM Microbe! I’ll be there, wearing a KN-95 and clutching a box of rapid tests. Feel free to comment or reach out if you’re also attending.

COVID-19

Oro-facial mucocutaneous manifestations of Coronavirus Disease-2019 (COVID-19): A systematic review – Fakhruddin et al. – PLOS ONE

Preprint: The salivary and nasopharyngeal microbiomes are associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection and disease severity – Kim et al. – bioRxiv

Determinants of the COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy spectrum – Piltch-Loeb et al. – PLOS ONE

General microbiome

Preprint: Fatty acid synthesis knockdown promotes biofilm wrinkling and inhibits sporulation in Bacillus subtilis – Arjes et al. – bioRxiv

Association of Strongyloides stercoralis infection and type 2 diabetes mellitus in northeastern Thailand: Impact on diabetic complication-related renal biochemical parameters – Yingklang et al. – PLOS ONE

Analysis of secondary metabolite gene clusters and chitin biosynthesis pathways of Monascus purpureus with high production of pigment and citrinin based on whole-genome sequencing – Zhang et al. – PLOS ONE

Human respiratory microbiome

A novel class of antimicrobial drugs selectively targets a Mycobacterium tuberculosis PE-PGRS protein – Seo et al. – PLOS Biology

Human oral microbiome

Preprint: Assessing the influence of the Mediterranean diet on dental calculus microbiome composition: a pilot study – Innocenti et al. – bioRxiv

Human gut microbiome

Lactobacillus plantarum improves LPS-induced Caco2 cell line intestinal barrier damage via cyclic AMP-PKA signaling – Wei et al. – PLOS ONE

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

Preprint: Eukaryotic genomes from a global metagenomic dataset illuminate trophic modes and biogeography of ocean plankton – Alexander et al. – bioRxiv

Bioinformatics

backbone: An R package to extract network backbones – Neal – PLOS ONE