April 8, 2015

Events

#UMassMedChat on the microbiome is Thursday at 11:30 a.m.- UMass Center for Microbiome Research to answer questions on gut health

Microbes in the City: Mapping the Urban Genome, Friday, June 19, 2015 – The New York Academy of Sciences

Human respiratory microbiome

Analysis of microbiota in stable patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease – Estefania Aguirre – APMIS

Human gut microbiome

Site-specific programming of the host epithelial transcriptome by the gut microbiota – Felix Sommer – Genome Biology

Animal microbiome

Horses and pigs: Lactobacillus ruminis strains cluster according to their mammalian gut source – Michelle M O’ Donnell1 – BMC Microbiology

Turkeys: Rye Affects Bacterial Translocation, Intestinal Viscosity, Microbiota Composition and Bone Mineralization in Turkey Poults – Guillermo Tellez – PLOS ONE

Amphibians: Larval exposure to polychlorinated biphenyl 126 (PCB-126) causes persistent alteration of the amphibian gut microbiota – Kevin D. Kohl – Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry

Tsetse fly: Paternal transmission of a secondary symbiont during mating in the viviparous tsetse fly – Linda De Vooght – Molecular Biology and Evolution

Squid and Vibrio fisheri: Signaling between two interacting sensor kinases promotes biofilms and colonization by a bacterial symbiont – Allison N. Norsworthy and Karen L. Visick – Molecular Microbiology
Sponges: Phylogenetic diversity of sulphate-reducing Desulfovibrio associated with three South China Sea sponges – D. Zhang – Letters in Applied Microbiology

Plant root and soil microbiome

Plant diversity increases soil microbial activity and soil carbon storage – Markus Lange – Nature Communications

Phylogenetic relatedness determined between antibiotic resistance and 16S rRNA
genes in actinobacteria – Marketa Sagova-Mareckova – BMC Microbiology

Water microbiome

Functional Gene Composition, Diversity and Redundancy in Microbial Stream Biofilm Communities – Andrew Dopheide – PLOS ONE

Metabolomics

Distributing a metabolic pathway among a microbial consortium enhances production of natural products – Kang Zhou – Nature Biotechnology

Metabolite-sensing receptors ​GPR43 and ​GPR109A facilitate dietary fibre-induced gut homeostasis through regulation of the inflammasome – Laurence Macia – Nature Communications

Molecular Signatures of Nicotinoid-Pathogen Synergy in the Termite Gut – Ruchira Sen – PLOS ONE

Unique Honey Bee (Apis mellifera) Hive Component-Based Communities as Detected by a Hybrid of Phospholipid Fatty-Acid and Fatty-Acid Methyl Ester Analyses – Kirk J. Grubbs – PLOS ONE

Bioinformatics

A Robust ANOVA Approach to Estimating A Phylogeny from Multiple Genes – Ximing Xu – Molecular Biology and Evolution

More microbiology papers

Eighteenth-century genomes show that mixed infections were common at time of peak tuberculosis in Europe – Gemma L. Kay – Nature Communications

Microbes in the news

Beneficial bacteria – Ella Nonni – The Cornell Daily Sun

Mapping All The Chemicals And Tiny Bacteria Living On Our Skin – Adele Peters – FastCoExist

uBiome and HelloFlo are teaming up to explore how the vaginal microbiome changes during pregnancy and postpartum

Video: Gut Microbiome and Its Role in Allergy and Asthma – Christine Cole Johnson – JSPRQ.com

Colorado startup’s microbiome-modulating drug could improve metformin tolerability – Meghana Keshavan – MedCityNews

Race to stamp out animal plague begins – Ewen Callaway – Nature

Science, publishing, and career

The future of the postdoc: There is a growing number of postdocs and few places in academia for them to go. But change could be on the way – Kendall Powell – Nature

Opinion: Addressing systemic problems in the biomedical research enterprise – Bruce Alberts – PNAS USA

History: Women at the edge of science – Jennifer Rampling – Nature

Bik’s Picks

Efficacy of Commercial Weight-Loss Programs: An Updated Systematic Review
Kimberly A. Gudzune – Annals of Internal Medicine

Ecology: Recovering the potential of coral reefs – Nicholas K. Dulvy & Holly K. Kindsvater – Nature
Complex organic molecules discovered in infant star system: Hints that building blocks of chemistry of life are universal – Science Daily

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April 7, 2015

Lots of abstracts today that were published in the FASEB Journal. Although not clearly marked, these appear to be abstracts from an ASBMB meeting held in March 2015 in Boston, called “The Human Microbiome“. None of these have a link to a PDF.

Course: Frontiers in Host-Microbe Interactions – August 2015

Pregnancy and birth microbiome

The FASEB Journal Abstracts:

Review: Normal flora and bacterial vaginosis in pregnancy: an overview – Mathys Jacobus Redelinghuys – Critical Reviews in Microbiology

Review: The Infant Gut Microbiome: Evidence for Obesity Risk and Dietary Intervention – Petya T. Koleva – Nutrients

Human skin microbiome

The diversity and host interactions of Propionibacterium acnes bacteriophages on human skin – Jared Liu – The ISME Journal

Human oral microbiome

The Repertoire of Archaea Cultivated from Severe Periodontitis – Hong T. T. Huynh – PLOS ONE

Review: Filifactor alocis – a new emerging periodontal pathogen – A. Wilson Aruni – Microbes and Infection

Human gut microbiome

The FASEB Journal Abstracts:

Autism spectrum disorders and intestinal microbiota – Maria De Angelis – Gut Microbes

Review: Impacts of Gut Bacteria on Human Health and Diseases – Yu-Jie Zhang – International Journal of Molecular Sciences

Animal models of microbiome research

The FASEB Journal Abstracts:

Leaky intestine and impaired microbiome in an amyotrophic lateral sclerosis mouse model – Shaoping Wu – Physiological Reports

Metabolomic Modeling To Monitor Host Responsiveness to Gut Microbiota Manipulation in the BTBRT+tf/j Mouse – Matthias S. Klein – Journal of Proteome Research

Animal microbiome

The FASEB Journal Abstract: The Extraordinary Evolution of the Great Ape Microbiome
Howard Ochman

Pigs: How host gender affects the bacterial community in pig feces and its correlation to skatole production – Zhenjin Zhou – Annals of Microbiology

Pigs: Analysis of swine fecal microbiota at various growth stages – Jungman Kim – Archives of Microbiology

Fish / Review: Disinfection of teleost eggs: a review – Evelien De Swaef – Reviews in Aquaculture

Ticks: Concordance of bacterial communities of two tick species and blood of their shared rodent host – Evelyn C. Rynkiewicz – Molecular Ecology

Soil microbiome

Over 150 Years of Long-Term Fertilization Alters Spatial Scaling of Microbial Biodiversity – Yuting Liang – mBio

Analysis of Bacterial and Archaeal Communities along a High-Molecular-Weight Polyacrylamide Transportation Pipeline System in an Oil Field – Cai-Yun Li – International Journal of Molecular Sciences

Effects of Functionalized and Raw Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotubes on Soil Bacterial Community Composition – Dorsaf Kerfahi – PLOS ONE

Review: Effective role of indigenous microorganisms for sustainable environment – Baduru Lakshman Kumar and D. V. R. Sai Gopal – 3 Biotech

Water microbiome

Size-fractionated diversity of eukaryotic microbial communities in the Eastern Tropical North Pacific oxygen minimum zone – M.T. Duret – FEMS Microbial Ecology

Seawater mesocosm experiments in the Arctic uncover differential transfer of marine bacteria to aerosols – Camilla Fahlgren – Environmental Microbiology Reports

Book: Microbiology of the Everglades Ecosystem – CRC Press

Extremophile microbiome

Physiochemical control of bacterial and protist community composition and diversity in Antarctic sea ice – Anders Torstensson – Environmental Microbiology

Whole-Genome Shotgun Sequence of the Keratinolytic Bacterium Lysobacter sp. A03, Isolated from the Antarctic Environment – Jamile Queiroz Pereira – Genome Announcements

Food microbiome

Microbial Ecology of Watery Kimchi – Kyu Hang Kyung – Journal of Food Science

Bioreactor and biofilter microbiome

Characterization of the microbial community structure and nitrosamine-reducing isolates in drinking water biofilters – Wanfeng Wang – Science of the Total Environment

Metagenomics, Metabolomics, and Transcriptomics

The FASEB Journal Abstracts:

Proficiency testing for bacterial whole genome sequencing: an end-user survey of current capabilities, requirements and priorities – Jacob Moran-Gilad – BMC Infectious Diseases

Utilizing de Bruijn graph of metagenome assembly for metatranscriptome analysis – Yuzhen Ye, Haixu Tang – ArXiv

Single-cell genomics-based analysis of virus–host interactions in marine surface bacterioplankton – Jessica M Labonté – The ISME Journal

Applying meta-pathway analyses through metagenomics to identify the functional properties of the major bacterial communities of a single spontaneous cocoa bean fermentation process sample – Koen Illeghems – Food Microbiology

Size-fraction partitioning of community gene transcription and nitrogen metabolism in a marine oxygen minimum zone – Sangita Ganesh – The ISME Journal

Transcriptomic evidence for microbial sulfur cycling in the eastern tropical North Pacific oxygen minimum zone – Molly Carolan and J Michael Beman – Frontiers in Microbiology

Review: Progress and Challenges in Developing Metabolic Footprints from Diet in Human Gut Microbial Cometabolism – Linda C Duffy – Journal of Nutrition

Microbial Ecology

Bacterial adaptation to sublethal antibiotic gradients can change the ecological properties of multitrophic microbial communities – Ville-Petri Friman – Proceedings B

Local–global overlap in diversity informs mechanisms of bacterial biogeography – Joshua A Livermore – The ISME Journal

Techniques

Assessing the performance of the Oxford Nanopore Technologies MinION – T. Laver – Biomolecular Detection and Quantification

Next-generation sequencing data analysis on cloud computing – Taesoo Kwon – Genes & Genomics

Microbes in the news

It’s a microbe’s world…we’re just living and dying in it – Margaret Leigh Sinrod – SciTechNow

May deadline: 2015 MO BIO Microbiome Awards – MoBIO

After cancer diagnosis, MIT student 3-D prints tumor, has microbiome analyzed – Nidhi Subbaraman – BetaBoston

Most of the text appears stolen from an article by Lita Proctor:  Human Microbiome: Quiz – Target Health

Video: Why Your Beard Is Disgusting – Discovery News

Episode 4 of The Microbiome Podcast: What’s hot in the microbiome field with Kristina Campbell – American Microbiome Institute

Solving the complex problem of recurrent C. diff with a simple solution: 
Physician scientists are using fecal transplants to break the deadly cycle of a killer infection – Bryan Goodchild and Ellie Castano – University of Massachusetts Medical School

Gut Bacteria May Influence Parkinson’s Risk, Phenotype – Pauline Anderson – Medscape

Summing up: Bassis et al.’s take on the influence of the URT on other human-associated biogeographies – Fiona Whelan – Human Microbiome Journal Club:

Under the microscope, strong-swimming swamp bacteria spontaneously organize into crystals – Phys.org

Science, publishing, and career

Female peers in small work groups enhance women’s motivation, verbal participation, and career aspirations in engineering – Nilanjana Dasgupta – PNAS USA

Bik’s Picks

How California can survive the drought — State is not in complete control – Danielle Venton – Nature

The Brontosaurus Is Back, Baby – Rich Juzwiak – Gawker

Endangered Tortoises Feasting on Invasive Plants – Richard Farrell – Discovery
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March 31, 2015

For today’s digest, I screened over 500 papers, and thousands of Tweets for you. Here is my selection:

Pregnancy and birth microbiome

PhD thesis [PDF]: Dynamics of co-existing Escherichia coli lineages in situ of the infant gut – Heidi Kira Gumpert – Technical University of Denmark

Associations between Gut Microbial Colonization in Early Life and Respiratory Outcomes in Cystic Fibrosis – Anne G Hoen – The Journal of Pediatrics

ReviewProbiotics for Preterm Infants: A Premature or Overdue Necrotizing Enterocolitis Prevention Strategy? – Sharon Anderson – Neonatal Network

Review: Preterm infant nutrition, gut bacteria, and necrotizing enterocolitis – Josef Neu –  Current Opinion in Clinical Nutrition & Metabolic Care

Human oral microbiome

Periodontal Therapy Effects on Nitrite Related to Oral Bacteria: A 6-Month Randomized Clinical Trial – Sheila C Cortelli – Journal of Periodontology

Perspective: Mouthguards: Does the indigenous microbiome play a role in maintaining oral health? – Purnima S. Kumar and Matthew R. Mason – Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology

Human respiratory microbiome

Nasal Inoculation of the Commensal Neisseria lactamica Inhibits Carriage of Neisseria meningitidis by Young Adults: A Controlled Human Infection Study – Alice M. Deasy – Clinical Infectious Diseases

Human skin microbiome

Molecular cartography of the human skin surface in 3D – Amina Bouslimani – PNAS USA

Human gut microbiome

Dynamic changes in short- and long-term bacterial composition following fecal microbiota transplantation for recurrent Clostridium difficile infection – Alexa Weingarden – Microbiome Journal

Insight into alteration of gut microbiota in Clostridium difficile infection and asymptomatic C. difficile colonization – Zhang Lihua – Anaerobe

Review: The microbiota in inflammatory bowel disease – Donal Sheehan – Journal of Gastroenterology

Review: Promoting Health and Longevity through Diet: From Model Organisms to Humans – Luigi Fontana, Linda Partridge – Cell

Review: TLR4 at the crossroads of nutrients, gut microbiota and metabolic inflammation
Licio A. Velloso – Endocrine Reviews

Review: Cultivating Healthy Growth and Nutrition through the Gut Microbiota – Sathish Subramanian – Cell

Review: The human gut microbiome, a taxonomic conundrum – Senthil Alias Sankar – Systematic and Applied Microbiology

Review: The Role of Infectious Mediators and Gut Microbiome in the Pathogenesis of Celiac Disease – Mohammad Rostami-Nejad – Archives of Iranian Medicine

Review: Exercise and the microbiota – Orla O’Sullivan – Gut Microbes

Animal models of microbiome research

Abnormal Pregnancy Outcomes in Mice Using an Induced Periodontitis Model and the Haematogenous Migration of Fusobacterium nucleatum Sub-Species to the Murine Placenta – Sara Stockham – PLOS ONE

Lactobacillus rhamnosus lowers zebrafish lipid content by changing gut microbiota and host transcription of genes involved in lipid metabolism – Silvia Falcinelli – Scientific Reports

Interactive effects of oligofructose and obesity predisposition on gut hormones and microbiota in diet-induced obese rats – Nina L. Cluny – Obesity

Animal microbiome

Editorial to Baboon microbiome paper: Metagenomics: Social behavior and the microbiome – Jack A Gilbert – eLIFE

More baboons: Development, diet, and dynamism: longitudinal and cross-sectional predictors of gut microbial communities in wild baboons – Tiantian Ren – Environmental Microbiology

Spider monkey: Effect of preservation method on spider monkey (Ateles geoffroyi) fecal microbiota over 8 weeks – Vanessa L. Hale – Journal of Microbiological Methods

Cats: Molecular identification of black-pigmented bacteria from subgingival samples of cats suffering from periodontal disease – L. Pérez-Salcedo – Journal of Small Animal Practice

Desert wool rat: Validating the use of trap-collected feces for studying the gut microbiota of a small mammal (Neotoma lepida) – Journal of Mammalogy

Tortoise: Kinship, inbreeding, and fine-scale spatial structure influence gut microbiota in a hindgut-fermenting tortoise – Michael L. Yuan – Molecular Ecology

Trout: Bacterial community structure in the intestinal ecosystem of rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) as revealed by pyrosequencing-based analysis of 16S rRNA genes
Miray Etyemez, José Luis Balcázar – Research in Veterinary Science

Fruit fly: Pyrosequencing reveals a shift in symbiotic bacteria populations across life stages of Bactrocera dorsalis – Awawing A. Andongma – Scientific Reports

Aphids: Bacterial Communities Associated with Host-Adapted Populations of Pea Aphids Revealed by Deep Sequencing of 16S Ribosomal DNA – Jean-Pierre Gauthier – PLOS ONE

Plant microbiome

A metagenome for lacustrine Cladophora (Cladophorales) reveals remarkable diversity of eukaryotic epibionts and genes relevant to materials cycling – Linda E. Graham – Journal of Phycology

Soil and plant root microbiome

A novel pathway producing ​dimethylsulphide in bacteria is widespread in soil environments – O. Carrión – Nature Communications

Metabolic characteristics of microbial communities of Aeolian sandy soils induced by saline water drip irrigation in shelter forests – Z. Jin – European Journal of Soil Science

Field experimental evidence that stochastic processes predominate in the initial assembly of bacterial communities – Yi-Qi Hao – Environmental Microbiology

Effects of monoculture and mixed culture of grass and legume forage species on soil microbial community structure under different levels of nitrogen fertilization – Jie Zhao – European Journal of Soil Biology

Soil microbial community variation correlates most strongly with plant species identity, followed by soil chemistry, spatial location and plant genus – Jean H. Burns – AoB Plants

Long-term oil contamination causes similar changes in microbial communities of two distinct soils – Jingqiu Liao – Frontiers in Environmental Science

Soil Microbial Community Structure and Target Organisms under Different Fumigation Treatments – Sadikshya R. Dangi – Applied and Environmental Soil Science

Water microbiome

Carbonate fabrics in the modern microbialites of Pavilion Lake: two suites of microfabrics that reflect variation in microbial community morphology, growth habit, and lithification – C. Harwood Theisen – Geobiology

The Unique Chemistry of Eastern Mediterranean Water Masses Selects for Distinct Microbial Communities by Depth – Stephen M. Techtmann – PLOS ONE

Planktonic eukaryote molecular diversity: discrimination of minerotrophic and ombrotrophic peatland pools in Tierra del Fuego (Argentina) – Enrique Lara – J. Plankton Research

Extremophile microbiome

Ice cover extent drives phytoplankton and bacterial community structure in a large north-temperate lake: implications for a warming climate – B. F. N. Beall – Environmental Microbiology

Marine microbes rapidly adapt to consume ethane, propane, and butane within the dissolved hydrocarbon plume of a natural seep – Stephanie D. Mendes – Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans

Built environment microbiome

Are microbial communities in green roof substrates comparable to those in post-industrial sites?—a preliminary study – Chloe J. Molineux – Urban Ecosystems

Food microbiology

Some journals just have great titles: Microbial community changes in Makgeolli during brewing – Changhoon Chai – Journal of the Institute of Brewing

Review: Fermented Foods as Experimentally Tractable Microbial Ecosystems – Benjamin E. Wolfe, Rachel J. Dutton – Cell

Metagenomics and bioinformatics

Assessing the limits of restraint-based 3D modeling of genomes and genomic domains
Marie Trussart – Nucleic Acids Research

CRISPR Detection from Short Reads Using Partial Overlap Graphs – Ilan Ben-Bassat, Benny Chor – Research in Computational Molecular Biology

CLARK: fast and accurate classification of metagenomic and genomic sequences using
discriminative k-mers – Rachid Ounit – BMC Genomics

FlowClus: efficiently filtering and denoising pyrosequenced amplicons – John M Gaspar and W Kelley Thomas – BMC Bioinformatics

Review: 16S rRNA gene high-throughput sequencing data mining of microbial diversity and interactions – Feng Ju, Dr. Tong Zhang – Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology

Book Chapter: Single-Cell Sequencing of Microorganisms – Ying Chen – Single Cell Sequencing and Systems Immunology

Metabolomics

Review: Rumen Nutrition Symposium How to use data on the rumen microbiome to improve our understanding of ruminant nutrition – J. L. Firkins and Z. Yu – Journal of Animal Science

Microbes in the news

Modeling microbial metabolism on indoor surfaces – Jack Gilbert – MicroBEnet

Body Maps Expose the Chemical Residue That Coats Our Skin – Marcus Woo – Wired.com
Crazy maps reveal colonies of bacteria and chemicals all over the human body – Kevin Loria – Business Insider
3D Human Skin Maps Aid Study of Relationships Between Molecules, Microbes and Environment – Heather Buschman – UC San Diego

Advancing the understanding of the dental microbiome – Maria Perno Goldie – Dentistry IQ

Who Let the Microbes Out: A Paw Print of Doggy Skin Bacteria – Daniella Lowenberg – PLOS blogs

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are not match for medieval potion – Alexandra Ossola – Popular Science

Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria From Texan Cattle Yards Are Now Airborne, Study Finds
Kevin McSpadden – Time

Growing a Baby Microbiome – Kevin Bonham – Scientific American

Poop Transplants Can Treat Severe Infection In Patients – FPJ Bureau – The Free Press Journal

Poo transplants could save thousands – Geoff Egan – Range News
Healthy Microbiome Changes Last After Fecal Transplant in New Research – Elizabeth Gough-Gordon – MPR

With sample collection videos: GoViral – collecting nasal and saliva samples from sick people – Boston Children’s Hospital

Northwestern leads research on effects of long-term stay in space – Peter Kotecki – The Daily Northwestern
Conference paper: Research from the NASA Twins Study and Omics in Support of Mars Missions – NASA Technical Reports

Podcast (1min30): Donate Your Health Data To Medical Science – Cynthia Graber – Scientific American – American Gut, GoViral

You Act What You Eat: How Gut Microbes Modify Our Behavior – Monica Thunder – ResetMe

Meet The Bacteria That Make A Stink In Your Pits – Poncie Rutsch – NPR
Bacterial genetic pathway involved in body odor production discovered – Science Daily

Should Gut Bugs Influence the 2015 Dietary Guidelines? – Cameron Wells – US News

Glowing Tampons Help Detect Sewage Leaks – Gwen Pearson – Wired

Nearly half of hospital uniforms are washed in temperatures too cool to kill bacteria, says DMU research – De Montfort University
Egyptians Brewed Beer in Tel Aviv 5,000 Years Ago – Megan Gannon – Live Science

Conferences

#IHMC2015: 5th International Human Microbiome Congress, March 31-April 2, 2015, Luxembourg (6/23 plenary speakers are women)

The 2nd Microbiome R&D and Business Collaboration Forum Europe, May 07 – 08, 2015, London, UK (10/36 listed speakers are women)

1st Annual Translational Microbiome Conference, 13–14 May 2015, Boston, United States (5/11 speakers are women)

ASM General Meeting, May 30 – June 2, 2015, New Orleans, LA, USA

Symbiomes: Systems Biology of Host-Microbiome Interactions, 5-10 June 2015, Pultusk, Poland (5/17 speakers are women)

The Human Microbiome, 10-12 Jun 2015, EMBL Heidelberg, Germany (8/23 confirmed speakers are women)

Exploring Human Host-Microbiome Interactions in Health and Disease, June 29 – July 1, 2015 , Cambridge, UK (7/17 speakers are women)

Science, publishing, and career

How Articles Get Noticed and Advance the Scientific Conversation – Victoria Costello – PLOS Blogs

Writing a Good Peer Review to Improve Scholarship: What Editors Value and Authors Find Helpful – H. McLaughlin – Social Work Education: The International Journal

DiscussionMistake index as a surrogate of quality in scientific manuscripts – Antoni Margalida – PNAS USA

What if you could replace performance evaluations with four simple questions? – Jena McGregor – Washington Post

Bik’s Picks

What 60 Minutes Got Right And Wrong On Duke’s Polio Virus Trial Against Glioblastoma – David Kroll – Forbes.com

The Astonishing beauty of Ordinary Sand magnified 250X – Aetherforce

What Elephants and Whales Look Like From Space – Robinson Meyer – The Atlantic

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