Category Archives: Events and jobs

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

February 4th, 2023

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Bonjour from Paris, France !

In today’s digest you will find a wide variety of interesting preprints and published research papers encompassing very interesting microbiome such as Yak calves rumen, compost, wineyard soil and lichen symbionth microbiota!

If you are interested in virome, I recommend looking at the fascinating preprint from Ha and collaborators investigating the biogeography of giant viruses from the phylum Nucleocytoviricota. They leveraged the bioGEOTRACES metagenomic dataset collected across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans to recovered novel genomes from these viruses and identified geographical patterns of distribution.

If you are working on human microbiomes, I recommend checking out a really interesting preprint, comparing the biases and strengths of four commercially available DNA extraction kits frequently used for whole genome shotgun analysis of the human microbiome.

Have a great Saturday!

Events and jobs

Event: Cell Symposia: Infection biology in the age of the microbiome. Paris, France June 7-9

Event: 55th Annual Meeting of the European Society for Paediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition. Vienna, Austria 17-20 May

Pregnancy and early life

Insufficient Evidence of a Breastmilk Microbiota at Six-Weeks Postpartum: A Pilot Study – Leech et al. – Nutrients

Effects of Perinatal Antibiotic Exposure and Neonatal Gut Microbiota – Morreale et al. – Antibiotics

Necrotizing Enterocolitis: The Role of Hypoxia, Gut Microbiome, and Microbial Metabolites – Kaplina et al. – International Journal of Molecular sciences

Human gut microbiome

Preprint: Functional assignment of gut-specific archaeal proteins in the human gut microbiome – Novikova et al. – BioRxiv

Animal microbiome

Combining vertebrate mitochondrial 12S rRNA gene sequencing and shotgun metagenomic sequencing to investigate the diet of the leopard cat (Prionailurus bengalensis) in Korea – Woo et al. – PLOS ONE

The association between gingivitis and oral spirochetes in young cats and dogs – Yamaki et al. – PLOS ONE

Maternal rumen and milk microbiota shapes the establishment of early-life rumen microbiota in grazing yak calves – Guo et al. – Journal of Dairy Science

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Preprint: Fundamentals of biofilm formation in soil: From functionalized self-assembled monolayers to rewilding – Hendiani et al. – BioRxiv

Local conditions matter: Minimal and variable effects of soil disturbance on microbial communities and functions in European vineyards – Steiner et al. – PLOS ONE

Preprint: Evidence for a core set of microbial lichen symbionts from a global survey of metagenomes – Tagirdzhanova et al. – BioRxiv

Water and extremophile microbiome

Preprint: Assessing the biogeography of marine giant viruses in four oceanic transects – Ha et al. – BioRxiv

Preprint: Cross-domain interactions induce community stability to benthic biofilms in proglacial streams – Busi et al. – BioRxiv

Opinion: Viral infection in the ocean—A journey across scales – Vincent and Vardi – PLOS biology

Bioinformatics

Preprint: Identifying and tracking mobile elements in evolving compost communities yields insights into the nanobiome – Van Dijk et al – BioRxiv

Techniques

Preprint: Comparison of commercial DNA extraction kits for whole metagenome sequencing of human oral, vaginal, and rectal microbiome samples – Wright et al – BioRxiv

November 8, 2022

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Greetings from Pittsburgh, PA!

It’s election day here, which means I have low grade nausea and am looking for a distraction. If you’re in the same boat, check out today’s awesome articles on a holobiont deep sea shrimp, plant-microbiome assemblies of poplar trees, and viral community-wide auxiliary metabolic genes. I also included a few interesting preprints, my favorite of which is noted below and uses a microbiome public dataset to compare different normalization and transformation methods.

Animal microbiome

A novel and dual digestive symbiosis scales up the nutrition and immune system of the holobiont Rimicaris exoculata – Aubé et al. – Microbiome

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Plant sex affects plant-microbiome assemblies of dioecious Populus cathayana trees under different soil nitrogen conditions – Guo et al. – Microbiome

Phages and viruses

Viral community-wide auxiliary metabolic genes differ by lifestyles, habitats, and hosts – Luo et al. – Microbiome

Techniques

*Preprint: Alpha and beta-diversities performance comparison between different normalization methods and centered log-ratio transformation in a microbiome public dataset – Bars-Cortina – bioRxiv

Preprint: Noise reduction strategies in metagenomic chromosome confirmation capture to link antibiotic resistance genes to microbial hosts – McCallum et al. – bioRxiv

Preprint: Targeted metagenomics using probe capture detects a larger diversity of nitrogen and methane cycling genes in complex microbial communities than traditional metagenomics – Siljanen et al. – bioRxiv

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

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

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

June 13, 2022

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Today’s digest features metagenomics for clinical UTI diagnostics, microbial diversity in kombucha tea, microbial source tracking using single nucleotide variants, and more. Happy reading!

Neonatal microbiome

Editorial: More data needed on neonatal microbiome seeding – W. Florian Fricke & Jacques Ravel – Microbiome

Urinary microbiome

The Urobiomes of Adult Women With Various Lower Urinary Tract Symptoms Status Differ: A Re-Analysis – Cara Joyce – Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology

*Metagenomic DNA sequencing for semi-quantitative pathogen detection from urine: a prospective, laboratory-based, proof-of-concept study – Victoria A Janes – The Lancet Microbe

Gut microbiome

Perspective: Tiny Gatekeepers: Microbial Control of Host Drug Transporters – Than S. Kyaw and Peter J. Turnbaugh – Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics

Host hepatic metabolism is modulated by gut microbiota-derived sphingolipids – Henry H. Le – Cell Host & Microbe

Linking gastrointestinal microbiota and metabolome dynamics to clinical outcomes in paediatric haematopoietic stem cell transplantation – Gintare Vaitkute – Microbiome

Animal microbiome

Microbiomes of microscopic marine invertebrates do not reveal signatures of phylosymbiosis – Vittorio Boscaro – Nature Microbiology

Water microbiome

Cyanopeptides restriction and degradation co-mediate microbiota assembly during a freshwater cyanobacterial harmful algal bloom (CyanoHAB) – Han Gao – Water Research

Low diversity and microdiversity of comammox bacteria in wastewater systems suggests wastewater-specific adaptation within the Ca. Nitrospira nitrosa cluster – Irmarie Cotto – bioRxiv

Soil microbiome

Substrate Utilization and Competitive Interactions Among Soil Bacteria Vary With Life-History Strategies – Ying Wang – Frontiers in Microbiology

In-depth characterization of denitrifier communities across different soil ecosystems in the tundra – Igor S. Pessi – bioRxiv

Food

*Microbial Diversity and Interaction Specificity in Kombucha Tea Fermentations – Elizabeth A. Landis – mSystems

Spontaneous Riboflavin-Overproducing Limosilactobacillus reuteri for Biofortification of Fermented Foods – Irina Spacova, Sarah Ahannach – Frontiers in Nutrition

Bioinformatics

coda4microbiome: compositional data analysis for microbiome studies – M.Luz Calle & Antoni Susin – bioRxiv

GeneToList: A web application to assist with gene identifiers for the non-bioinformatics-savvy scientist – Joshua D. Breidenbach – bioRxiv

*Microbiome source tracking using single nucleotide variants – Leah Briscoe – bioRxiv

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 5, 2022

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Today’s digest features a review on the role of bacterial translocation (especially oral-gut axis) in health and disease, a proof-of-concept study on probiotics on processing of negative emotions in humans, and more. Happy reading!

Let’s talk microbiome science at the next #MVIF!

Sterile (?) environment

Comprehensive human amniotic fluid metagenomics supports the sterile womb hypothesis – HanChen Wang – Scientific Reports

Probiotics

Lactobacillus acidophilus, L. plantarum, L. rhamnosus, and L. reuteri Cell-Free Supernatants Inhibit Candida parapsilosis Pathogenic Potential upon Infection of Vaginal Epithelial Cells Monolayer and in a Transwell Coculture System In Vitro – Luca Spaggiari – Microbiology Spectrum

*Probiotic Mixture Containing Lactobacillus helveticus, Bifidobacterium longum and Lactiplantibacillus plantarum Affects Brain Responses Toward an Emotional Task in Healthy Subjects: A Randomized Clinical Trial – Julia Rode – Frontiers in Nutrition

Vaginal microbiome

Identification and characterization of novel endolysins targeting Gardnerella vaginalis biofilms to treat bacterial vaginosis – Sara Arroyo-Moreno – npj Biofilms and Microbiomes

Gut microbiome

*Review: Deciphering mechanisms and implications of bacterial translocation in human health and disease – Shen Jin – Current Opinion in Microbiology

Two Competing Guilds as a Core Microbiome Signature for Chronic Diseases – Guojun Wu – bioRxiv

Neonatal Immune Challenge influences the Microbiota and Behaviour in a Sexually Dimorphic Manner – A. Cuskelly – Brain, Behavior, and Immunity

Review: Diet- and microbiota-related metabolite, 5-aminovaleric acid betaine (5-AVAB), in health and disease – Retu Haikonen – Trends in Endocrinology & Metabolism

Gut mycobiome

Review: “Molding” immunity—modulation of mucosal and systemic immunity by the intestinal mycobiome in health and disease – Mackenzie W. Gutierrez – Nature Mucosal Immunology

Animal experiments

Evolution of the murine gut resistome following broad-spectrum antibiotic treatment – Laura de Nies – Nature Communications & Behind the paper here.

Plant, root/soil microbiome

*Sugars dominate the seagrass rhizosphere – E. Maggie Sogin – Nature Ecology & Evolution

Viruses

A snapshot of the global drinking water virome: Diversity and metabolic potential vary with residual disinfectant use – Bridget Hegarty – Water Research

Techniques

Fast quantification of gut bacterial species in cocultures using flow cytometry and supervised classification – Charlotte C. van de Velde – ISME Communications

Bioinformatics

A deep siamese neural network improves metagenome-assembled genomes in microbiome datasets across different environments – Shaojun Pan – Nature Communications

HiFine: integrating Hi-c-based and shotgun-based methods to reFine binning of metagenomic contigs – Yuxuan Du and Fengzhu Sun – Bioinformatics

happi: a Hierarchical Approach to Pangenomics Inference – Pauline Trinh – bioRxiv

Investigating the impact of database choice on the accuracy of metagenomic read classification for the rumen microbiome – Rebecca H. Smit – bioRxiv

TAMPA: interpretable analysis and visualization of metagenomics-based taxon abundance profiles – Varuni Sarwal – bioRxiv

March 7, 2022

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hard to do science

Originally tweeted by Peter Fabian (@PeterFabianLab) on March 4, 2022.

General microbiome

Microbial invasion of a toxic medium is facilitated by a resident community but inhibited as the community co-evolves – Philippe Piccardi – bioRxiv

Could a Focus on the “Why” of Taxonomy Help Taxonomy Better Respond to the Needs of Science and Society? – Leighton Pritchard – Preprints

Vaginal microbiome

Cysteine dependence of Lactobacillus iners is a potential therapeutic target for vaginal microbiota modulation – Seth M. Bloom – Nature Microbiology

Citizen-science map of the vaginal microbiome – Sarah Lebeer – Research Square

Insight into the ecology of vaginal bacteria through integrative analyses of metagenomic and metatranscriptomic data – Michael T France – Genome Biology

Urinary microbiome

Review: The gut, vaginal, and urine microbiome in overactive bladder: a systematic review – Christina Sze – International Urogynecology Journal

Gut microbiome

Identification of antimicrobial peptides from the human gut microbiome using deep learning – Yue Ma – Nature Biotechnology

Microbiome risk profiles as biomarkers for inflammatory and metabolic disorders – Amira Metwaly – Nature Reviews Gastroenterology & Hepatology

Animal microbiome

Temporal variations shape the gut microbiome ecology of the moth Brithys crini – Jesús Marín-Miret – Environmental Microbiology

Bioinformatics

Systematically assessing microbiome–disease associations identifies drivers of inconsistency in metagenomic research – Braden T. Tierney – PlosBiology

MultiBaC: An R package to remove batch effects in multi-omic experiments – Manuel Ugidos – Bioinformatics

HiCBin: binning metagenomic contigs and recovering metagenome-assembled genomes using Hi-C contact maps – Yuxuan Du & Fengzhu Sun – Genome Biology

TOMORROW MVIF #7 and the latest microbiome science!

Hey #microbiome people! 🦠
In MARCH there is #MVIF #7!

You can register for free here:
https://hopin.com/events/microbiome-vif-n-7

⭐️Keynote Speaker: prof Willem De Vos ⭐️

📅Check out day and time in your city here:
https://www.microbiome-vif.org/program/

See you there! 😎

Originally tweeted by Microbiome Virtual International Forum (@MicrobiomeVIF) on February 17, 2022.