Category Archives: Built Environment Microbiology

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


May 28, 2022

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Highlights!

Recently, Science released a special issue about microbiomes, with the following articles:

Human and General Microbiome  

Widespread stop-codon recoding in bacteriophages may regulate translation of lytic genes – Adair L Borges – Nature Microbiology

Characteristics of the gut microbiota in women with premenstrual symptoms: A cross-sectional study – Takashi Takeda – PloS ONE

Dynamic colonization of gut microbiota and its influencing factors among the breast-feeding infants during the first two years of life – Ping Li – Journal of Microbiology

Metabolomics analysis reveals molecular linkages for the impact of vitamin D on childhood allergic airway diseases – Yu-Ho Chang – Pediatric Allergy and Immunology

Lysophosphatidylserines derived from microbiota in Crohn’s disease elicit pathological Th1 response – Yuriko Otake-Kasamoto – Journal of Experimental Medicine 

Tumor tissue-specific bacterial biomarker panel for colorectal cancer: Bacteroides massiliensis, Alistipes species, Alistipes onderdonkii, Bifidobacterium pseudocatenulatum, Corynebacterium appendicis – Rizwana Hasan – Archives of Microbiology

Lung Microbiota of Critically Ill COVID-19 Patients are Associated with Non-Resolving Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome – Robert F J Kullberg – American Journal of Respiratory and Critical care Medicine

Altered Gut Microbiome in Patients With Dermatomyositis – Sangmee Sharon Bae – ACR Open Rheumatology

Review: Importance of crosstalk between the microbiota and the neuroimmune system for tissue homeostasis – Kunyu Li – Clinical & Translational Immunology

Review: Dietary influences on symptomatic and non-symptomatic toxicities during cancer treatment: A narrative review – Alan J Kim – Cancer Treatment Reviews

Review: How can patients with Clostridioides difficile infection on concomitant antibiotic treatment be best managed? – Fidelma Fitzpatrick – The Lancet. Infectious Diseases

Model Animal Microbiome

Protocol: Mouse Model to Study Salmonella-Induced Colitis – Katrin Ehrhardt – Methods in Molecular Biology

Amino acid-balanced diets improved DSS-induced colitis by alleviating inflammation and regulating gut microbiota – Sen Li – European Journal of Nutrition

Excess growth hormone alters the male mouse gut microbiome in an age-dependent manner – Elizabeth A Jensen – Endocrinology

Non-Model Animal Microbiome

Metagenomic Analysis of the Gastrointestinal Microbiota of Gadus morhua callarias L. Originating from a Chemical Munition Dump Site – Wojciech Wilczynski – Toxics

Bacterial Symbionts in Ceratitis capitata – Alessia Cappelli – Insects

Egg microbiota is the starting point of hatchling gut microbiota in the endangered yellow-spotted Amazon river turtle – Ana Sofia Carranco – Molecular Ecology

Unveiling the egg microbiota of the loggerhead sea turtle Caretta caretta in nesting beaches of the Mediterranean Sea – Luca Vecchioni – PloS ONE

Comparative Analyses of Scylla olivacea Gut Microbiota Composition and Function Suggest the Capacity for Polyunsaturated Fatty Acid Biosynthesis – Nyok-Sean Lau – Microbial Ecology

Global landscape of gut microbiome diversity and antibiotic resistomes across vertebrates – Guangping Huang – The Science of the Total Environment

Beneficial Microbes and Compounds

Review: Functional fermented probiotics, prebiotics and synbiotics from non-dairy products: A perspective from nutraceutical – Dharmendra Kumar – Molecular Nutrition & Food Research

Bifidobacterium longum CCFM752 prevented hypertension and aortic lesion, improved antioxidative ability, and regulated the gut microbiome in spontaneously hypertensive rats – Wenwei Lu – Food & Function

Intestinal Flora Mediates Antiobesity Effect of Rutin in High-Fat-Diet Mice – Xu Yan – Molecular Nutrition & Food Research

Multi-Probiotics ameliorate Major depressive disorder and accompanying gastrointestinal syndromes via serotonergic system regulation – Peijun Tian – Journal of Advanced Research

Butyrate, a postbiotic of intestinal bacteria, affects pancreatic cancer and gemcitabine response in in vitro and in vivo models – Concetta Panebianco – Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy

Plant and Fungi Microbiome

Deciphering core phyllomicrobiome assemblage on rice genotypes grown in contrasting agroclimatic zones: implications for phyllomicrobiome engineering against blast disease – Kuleshwar Prasad Sahu – Environmental Microbiome

Fusarium fruiting body microbiome member Pantoea agglomerans inhibits fungal pathogenesis by targeting lipid rafts – Sunde Xu – Nature Microbiology

Other studies

Indoor microbiome, microbial and plant metabolites, chemical compounds and asthma symptoms in junior high school students: a multicentre association study in Malaysia – Yu Sun – The European Respiratory Journal

Comparative Analysis of Metagenomics and Metataxonomics for the Characterization of Vermicompost Microbiomes – Marcos Pérez-Losada – Frontiers in Microbiology

April 8, 2022

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Good morning! Today’s microbiome digest is brought to you by mild insomnia induced by a mid-afternoon coffee. It includes two food related studies, one on pathogenic E. coli found in ready-to-eat foods and the other focused on a antifungal lipopeptide produced by B. velezensis isolated from honey, and an an article focused on a new approach for processing frozen lung and lavage samples for use in microbiome studies. Also included are several articles focused on the gut microbiome, and several preprints focused on soil microbiome studies. Finally, I want to highlight a piece that details the positive outcomes associated with the National Summer Undergraduate Research Project (NSURP). Registration for this year’s program is still open until April 15th, and the organizers are looking for both mentors, mentees, and donors!


Pregnancy and early life

Group B Streptococcus colonization at delivery is associated with maternal peripartum infection – Brigtsen et al. – PLOS ONE

Human gut microbiome

Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis and microbiome profile of patients in a referral gastrointestinal diseases centre in the Sudan – Elmagzoub et al. – PLOS ONE

Animal experiments

Vertical transmission of attaching and invasive E. coli from the dam to neonatal mice predisposes to more severe colitis following exposure to a colitic insult later in life – Brand et al. – PLOS ONE

Sex differences in the fecal microbiome and hippocampal glial morphology following diet and antibiotic treatment – Saxena et al. – PLOS ONE

Animal microbiome

Preprint: Anthropogenic disturbance impacts gut microbiome homeostasis in a Malagasy primate – Wasimuddin et al. – bioRxiv

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Preprint: Microclimate is a strong predictor of the native and invasive plant-associated soil microbiota on San Cristóbal Island, Galápagos archipelago – Schoenborn et al. bioRxiv

Preprint: The activity and functions of soil microbial communities in the Finnish sub-Arctic vary across vegetation types – Vitamaki et al. – bioRxiv

Preprint: Tracing carbon metabolism with stable isotope metabolomics reveals the legacy of diverse carbon sources in soil – Wilhelm et al. – bioRxiv

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

Preprint: Culexarchaeia, a novel archaeal class of anaerobic generalists inhabiting geothermal environments – Kohtz et al. – bioRxiv

Food microbiology

Processed ready-to-eat (RTE) foods sold in Yenagoa Nigeria were colonized by diarrheagenic Escherichia coli which constitute a probable hazard to human health – Beshiru et al. – PLOS ONE

Purification and characterization of antifungal lipopeptide produced by Bacillus velezensis isolated from raw honey – Ziong et al. – PLOS ONE

Techniques

An optimized approach for processing of frozen lung and lavage samples for microbiome studies – Wiscovitch-Russo et al. – PLOS ONE

Science, publishing, and career

***National Summer Undergraduate Research Project (NSURP): A Virtual Research Experience to Deliver REAL (Retention, Equity, Access, and Life-Changing) Outcomes for Underrepresented Minorities in STEM – Johnson & Knox – JMBE

March 31, 2022

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General microbiome

Whole genome sequencing and gene sharing network analysis powered by machine learning identifies antibiotic resistance sharing between animals, humans and environment in livestock farming – Peng et al. – PLOS Computational Biology

[PREPRINT]Superfast Evolution of Multi-drug Antibiotic Resistance – Zhang et al. – bioRxiv

Pregnancy and early life

Identification of the specific microbial community compositions in saliva associated with periodontitis during pregnancy – Narita & Kodama – Clinical Oral Investigations

Vaginal microbiome

Impact of Topical Interventions on the Vaginal Microbiota and Metabolome in Postmenopausal Women – Srinivasan et al. – JAMA Network Open

Human gut microbiome

[REVIEW]The interplay between anticancer challenges and the microbial communities from the gut – Hobson et al. – European Journal of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases

[EDITORIAL]Unraveling disease pathways involving the gut microbiota: the need for deep phenotyping and longitudinal data – Meyer et al. – The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition

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

The Effects of Stevia Consumption on Gut Bacteria: Friend or Foe? – Kasti et al. – Microorganisms

Jejunoileal mucosal growth in mice with a limited microbiome – Shaughnessy – PLOS One

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Reproducible Propagation of Species-Rich Soil Bacterial Communities Suggests Robust Underlying Deterministic Principles of Community Formation – Causevic et al. – mSystems

Built environment (subways, indoor surfaces)

A quantitative microbial risk assessment for touchscreen user interfaces using an asymmetric transfer gradient transmission mode – di Battista – PLOS One

Forensics

Postmortem Skeletal Microbial Community Composition and Function in Buried Human Remains – Emmons et al. – mSystems

Bioinformatics

Microbial Identification Using rRNA Operon Region: Database and Tool for Metataxonomics with Long-Read Sequence – Seol et al. – Microbiology Spectrum

Techniques

Long-Term Incubation of Lake Water Enables Genomic Sampling of Consortia Involving Planctomycetes and Candidate Phyla Radiation Bacteria – Jaffe et al. – mSystems