Category Archives: Extremophiles

March 4, 2021

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Happy Thursday from San Francisco! Today’s Microbiome Digest includes: a paper by Marbouty et al. in which a large number of phages and their interacting bacteria were identified in the healthy human gut; a thorough examination by Zhu et al. of the composition and metabolic potential of cave-dwelling bacteria, including sequencing of 14 new bacterial species; and a study by Mu et al. which found that the maternally-derived microbe Lactobacillus reuteri promotes immunoglobulin A production in the neonatal gut.

There is also a study by Serrano-Villar et al. which examined the use of fecal microbiota transplantation (FMTs) in HIV patients. The authors observed that FMT led to engraftment of two bacterial families–Lachnospiraceae and Ruminococcaceae–typically depleted in HIV-infected subjects and decreased levels of a plasma biomarker of intestinal permeability. While the findings are interesting, I remain skeptical of the appropriateness of FMTs in this context. Instead of an FMT–which requires donors and screening of their stool to ensure quality and safety–why not use a probiotic cocktail of Lachnospiraceae and Ruminococcaceae family members and perhaps include prebiotic factors to try to promote engraftment?

Additionally, there is a great article by Ras et al. discussing the results of a pilot study that successfully implemented microbiome-related bioinformatics courses across 11 African countries.

Pregnancy and Early Life
Distinct Changes Occur in the Human Breast Milk Microbiome Between Early and Established Lactation in Breastfeeding Guatemalan Mothers. – Gonzales, E. et al., Frontiers in Microbiology.

Human Skin Microbiome
Spermidine-induced recovery of human dermal structure and barrier function by skin microbiome. – Kim, G. et al. Communications Biology.

Human Vaginal Microbiome
Influence of dapivirine vaginal ring use on cervicovaginal immunity and functional microbiome in adolescent girls. – Farr Zuend, C. et al., AIDS.

Mapping the entire functionally active endometrial microbiota. – Sola-Leyva, A. et al., Human Reproduction.

Genomic relatedness and clinical significance of Streptococcus mitis strains isolated from the urogenital tract of sexual partners. – Mores, C.R. et al., Microbial Genomics.

Human Gut Microbiome
Identification of an N-acetylneuraminic acid-presenting bacteria isolated from a human microbiome. – Han, Z. et al., Scientific Reports.

Fecal microbiota transplantation in HIV: A pilot placebo-controlled study. – Serrano-Villar, S. et al., Nature Communications.

Gastrointestinal microbiota composition predicts peripheral inflammatory state during treatment of human tuberculosis. – Wipperman, M.F. et al., Nature Communications.

Animal Experiments
Regulation of neonatal IgA production by the maternal microbiota. – Mu, Q. et al., PNAS.

Lysates of Methylococcus capsulatus Bath induce a lean-like microbiota, intestinal FoxP3+RORγt+IL-17+ Tregs and improve metabolism. – Jensen, B.A.H., et al., Nature Communications.

Sex-dependent modulation of immune development by secretory IgA–coated Lactobacillus reuteri isolated from breast milk. – Qi, C. et al., Journal of Dairy Science.

Oral berberine improves brain dopa/dopamine levels to ameliorate Parkinson’s disease by regulating gut microbiota. – Wang, Y. et al., Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy.

Animal Microbiome
Lactobacillus reuteri-derived extracellular vesicles maintain intestinal immune homeostasis against lipopolysaccharide-induced inflammatory responses in broilers. – Hu, R. et al., Journal of Animal Science and Biotechnology.

Plant, Root, and Soil Microbiome
Dicer-like proteins influence Arabidopsis root microbiota independent of RNA-directed DNA methylation. – Kaushal, R. et al., Microbiome.

Succession of the Resident Soil Microbial Community in Response to Periodic Inoculations. – Wang, Z. et al., Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

Climate change alters temporal dynamics of alpine soil microbial functioning and biogeochemical cycling via earlier snowmelt. – Broadbent, A.A.D. et al., ISME Journal.

Water and Extremophile Microbiome
Microbial Community Structure Driven by a Volcanic Gradient in Glaciers of the Antarctic Archipelago South Shetland. – García-Lopez, E. et al., Microorganisms.

Effect of polymer type on the colonization of plastic pellets by marine bacteria. – Hansen, J. et al., FEMS Microbiology Letters.

Lifestyle of sponge symbiont phages by host prediction and correlative microscopy. – Jahn, M.T. et al., ISME Journal.

Bacteria and Metabolic Potential in Karst Caves Revealed by Intensive Bacterial Cultivation and Genome Assembly. – Zhue, H-Z et al., Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

Phages and Viruses
MetaHiC phage-bacteria infection network reveals active cycling phages of the healthy human gut. – Marbouty, M. et al., Elife.

Bioinformatics
On the evolutionary origins of host–microbe associations. – Sieber, M. et al., PNAS.

Ecology-guided prediction of cross-feeding interactions in the human gut microbiome. – Goyal, A. et al., Nature Communications.

Using a multiple-delivery-mode training approach to develop local capacity and infrastructure for advanced bioinformatics in Africa. – Ras, V. et al., PLoS Computational Biology.

Techniques
Amplicon-based skin microbiome profiles collected by tape stripping with different adhesive film dressings: a comparative study. – Ogai, K. et al., BMC Microbiology.

High-Resolution Differentiation of Enteric Bacteria in Premature Infant Fecal Microbiomes Using a Novel rRNA Amplicon. – Graf, J. et al., mBio.

February 25, 2021

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General microbiome
The evolution of coexistence from competition in experimental co-cultures of Escherichia coli and Saccharomyces cerevisiae – Jake N. Barber – ISME Journal

Human microbiome
Quantifying the effects of antibiotic treatment on the extracellular polymer network of antimicrobial resistant and sensitive biofilms using multiple particle tracking – Lydia C. Powell – npj Biofilms and Microbiomes

Biofilms harbour Clostridioides difficile, serving as a reservoir for recurrent infection – Charmaine Normington – npj Biofilms and Microbiomes

Gut microbiome
REVIEW: The contribution of gut bacterial metabolites in the human immune signaling pathway of non-communicable diseases – F. Hosseinkhani – Gut Microbes

The effect of acute moderate-intensity exercise on the serum and fecal metabolomes and the gut microbiota of cross-country endurance athletes – Mariangela Tabone – Scientific Reports

Oral microbiome
Candida albicans promotes tooth decay by inducing oral microbial dysbiosis – Qian Du – ISME Journal

Characterization of oral virome and microbiome revealed distinctive microbiome disruptions in paediatric patients with hand, foot and mouth disease – Si Xian Ho – npj Biofilms and Microbiomes

Skin microbiome
Characterization of the human skin resistome and identification of two microbiota cutotypes – Zhiming Li – Microbiome

Animal experiment
A gene co-association network regulating gut microbial communities in a Duroc pig population – Antonio Reverter – Microbiome

Modulating gut microbiota in a mouse model of Graves’ orbitopathy and its impact on induced disease – Sajad Moshkelgosha – Microbiome

Multi-compartment metabolomics and metagenomics reveal major hepatic and intestinal disturbances in cancer cachectic mice – Sarah A. Pötgens – Journal of Cachexia, Sarcopenia and Muscle

Expanded catalog of microbial genes and metagenome-assembled genomes from the pig gut microbiome – Congying Chen – Nature Communications

Mining zebrafish microbiota reveals key community-level resistance against fish pathogen infection – Franziska A. Stressmann – ISME Journal

Plant, root, and soil microbiome
REVIEW: From exploration to remediation: A microbial perspective for innovation in mining – Alan Levett – Earth-Science Reviews

Food microbiology
A Combined Metagenomics and Metatranscriptomics Approach to Unravel Costa Rican Cocoa Box Fermentation Processes Reveals Yet Unreported Microbial Species and Functionalities – Marko Verce – Frontiers in Microbiology

Water and extremophile microbiome
Mechanistic strategies of microbial communities regulating lignocellulose deconstruction in a UK salt marsh – Daniel R. Leadbeater – Microbiome

Taxonomic and functional analyses of intact microbial communities thriving in extreme, astrobiology-relevant, anoxic sites – Alexandra Kristin Bashir – Microbiome

Genomic evidence for sulfur intermediates as new biogeochemical hubs in a model aquatic microbial ecosystem – Adrien Vigneron – Microbiome

REVIEW: The Seagrass Holobiont: What We Know and What We Still Need to Disclose for Its Possible Use as an Ecological Indicator – Chiara Conte – Water

Spatiotemporal variations and relationships of phosphorus, phosphomonoesterases, and bacterial communities in sediments from two Chilean rivers – Marco Camposa – Science of The Total Environment

Resource partitioning of phytoplankton metabolites that support bacterial heterotrophy – Frank Xavier Ferrer-González – ISME Journal

Phages and virues
Next-generation diagnostics: virus capture facilitates a sensitive viral diagnosis for epizootic and zoonotic pathogens including SARS-CoV-2 – Claudia Wylezich – Microbiome

Preliminary Assessment of Viral Metagenome from Cancer Tissue and Blood from Patients with Lung Adenocarcinoma – Hua‐Zhong Cai – Journal of Medical Virology

Bioinformatics
PathoFact: a pipeline for the prediction of virulence factors and antimicrobial resistance genes in metagenomic data – Laura de Nies – Microbiome

CANTARE: finding and visualizing network-based multi-omic predictive models – Janet C. Siebert – BMC Bioinformatics

kLDM: Inferring Multiple Metagenomic Association Networks based on the Variation of Environmental Factors – Yuqing Yang – Genomics, Proteomics & Bioinformatics

Methods
REVIEW: Cross-species RNA-seq for deciphering host–microbe interactions – Alexander J. Westermann – Nature Review Genetics

A community resource for paired genomic and metabolomic data mining – Michelle A. Schorn – Nature Chemical Biology

Pre-prints
Cross-sectional analysis of the microbiota of the human gut and their direct environment (exposome) in a household cohort in northern Vietnam – Bich Vu Thi Ngoc – bioRxiv

HumGut: A comprehensive Human Gut prokaryotic genomes collection filtered by metagenome data – Pranvera Hiseni – bioRxiv

Comparative analysis of 16S rRNA gene and metagenome sequencing in pediatric gut microbiomes – Danielle Peterson – bioRxiv

Unifying the known and unknown microbial coding sequence space – Chiara Vanni – bioRxiv

February 23, 2021

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Greetings from Pittsburgh!

Today’s digest is heavy on plant and soil-associated research. It includes a review on the use of metagenomics in soil ecology research, original research focused on the microbiome of plants growing in a Sandhills ecosystem, as well as articles focused on the soil-associated microorganisms Marinobacter caseinilyticus sp. and Dickeya sp. This digest also features several articles focused on extremophiles found in permafrost, the South Pole, and a Mars-like environment! Finally, I also wanted to highlight an Q&A with Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett, an immunologist at the National Institute of Health and one of the designers of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine.

Events and jobs

Black in Microbiology is now also the Black Microbiologists Association. If you’re interested in joining or learning more information, check out their webpage for details!

General microbiome

Biochemical characterization of a low salt-adapted extracellular protease from the extremely halophilic archaeon Halococcus salifodinae – Hou et al. – International Journal of Biological Macromolecules

Identification and characterization of a metal-resistant Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans as important potential application for bioleaching – Tavakoli et al. – Biologia

Human vaginal microbiome

Review: Lactic acid-containing products for bacterial vaginosis and their impact on the vaginal microbiota: A systematic review — Plummer et al. – PLOS One

Human gut microbiome

Effects of colon-targeted vitamins on the composition and metabolic activity of the human gut microbiome– a pilot study – Pham et al. – Gut Microbes

Animal experiments

Co-infecting pathogen lineages have additive effects on host bacterial communities – Medina et al. – FEMS Microbiology Ecology

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Aggregate-related changes in living microbial biomass and microbial necromass associated with different fertilization patterns of greenhouse vegetable soils – Luan et al. – European Journal of Soil Biology

Alkaline soil pH affects bulk soil, rhizosphere and root endosphere microbiomes of plants growing in a Sandhills ecosystem – Lopes et al. – FEMS Microbiology Ecology

Marinobacter caseinilyticus sp. nov., isolated from saline soil – Nie et al. – Current Microbiology

Genomic diversity and organization of complex polysaccharide biosynthesis clusters in the genus Dickeya – Ranjan et al. – PLOS One

Review: Metabarcoding and Metagenomics in Soil Ecology Research: Achievements, Challenges, and Prospects – Semenov – Biology Bulletin Reviews

A DNA metabarcoding approach for recovering plankton communities from archived samples fixed in formalin – Shiozaki et al. – PLOS One

Water and extremophile microbiome

Are permafrost microorganisms as old as permafrost? – Abramov et al. – FEMS Microbiology Ecology

Cultivation and characterization of snowbound microorganisms from the South Pole – Hayward et al. – Extremophiles

Survival of desert algae Chlorella exposed to Mars-like near space environment – Wang et al. – Life Sciences in Space Research

Microbes in the news

This COVID-vaccine designer is tackling vaccine hesitancy — in churches and on Twitter – Subbaraman – Nature

February 4, 2021

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Greetings from a very snowy Pittsburgh!

If you like getting dirty, today’s digest is for you! It includes a review on bat guano, two research articles about compost, four focused on soil research, and a preprint about fertilization with poultry manure.

Happy reading!

Events and jobs

February 1st to 14th: If you’re on twitter, check out #MicrobeValentinesDay! @AnneAMadden is posting 14 days of pink microbes in honor of Valentine’s Day under this hashtag!

Human skin microbiome

Gut microbiome profile in psoriatic patients treated and untreated with biologic therapy – Valentini et al. – The Journal of Dermatology

Human gut microbiome

Preprint – Impact of a human gut microbe on Vibrio cholerae host colonization through biofilm enhancement – Barrasso et al. – bioRxiv

Review: Gut microbiota-mediated pesticide toxicity in humans: methodological issues and challenges in risk assessment of pesticides – Utembe and Kamng’ona – Chemosphere

Animal experiments

Effects of thallium exposure on intestinal microbial community and organ functions in zebrafish (Danio rerio) – Wang et al. – Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene

Is intestinal bacterial diversity enhanced by trans-species spread in the mixed-species flock of hooded crane (Grus monacha) and bean goose (Anser fabalis) wintering in the lower and middle Yangtze river floodplain? – Yang and Zhou – Animals

Animal microbiome

Review: The microbiome of bat guano: for what is this knowledge important? – Dimkić et al. – Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology

Tick microbiomes in neotropical forest fragments are best explained by tick-associated and environmental factors rather than host blood source – Kueneman et al. – Microbial Ecology

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Survival rates of microbial communities from livestock waste to soils: a comparison between compost and digestate – Akari and Uchida – Applied and Environmental Soil Science

Year, location, and variety impact on grape-, soil-, and leaf-associated fungal microbiota of Arkansas-grown table grapes – Cureau et al. – Microbial Ecology

Preprint: Agricultural fertilization with poultry manure results in persistent environmental contamination with the pathogen Clostridioides difficile – Frentrup et al. – bioRxiv

Impacts of invasive Australian Acacias on soil bacterial community composition, microbial enzymatic activities, and nutrient availability in Fynbos soils – Keet et al. – Microbial Ecology

A novel carboxylesterase derived from a compost metagenome exhibiting high stability and activity towards high salinity – Lu and Daniel – Genes

A two-year field study of nickel-agromining using Odontarrhena chalcidica co-cropped with a legume on an ultramafic soil: temporal variation in plant biomass, nickel yields and taxonomic and bacterial functional diversity – Saad et al. – Plant and Soil

Bacterial response to soil property changes caused by wood ash from wildfire in forest soils around mining areas: Relevance of bacterial community composition, carbon and nitrogen cycling – Zhang et al. – Journal of Hazardous Materials

Water and extremophile microbiome

Microcystis blooms aggravate the diurnal alternation of nitrification and nitrate reduction in the water column in Lake Taihu – Chen et al. – Science of the Total Environment

Temperature and microbial interactions drive the deterministic assembly processes in sediments of hot springs – He et al. – Science of the Total Environment

Cadmium sulfide nanoparticle biomineralization and biofilm formation mediate cadmium resistance of the deep‐sea bacterium Pseudoalteromonas sp. MT33b – Ma and Sun – Environmental Microbiology Reports

Recovery of freshwater microbial communities after extreme rain events is mediated by cyclic succession – Shabarova et al. – Nature Microbiology

Built environment

Preprint: Half-life of biodegradable plastics in the marine environment depends on material, habitat, and climate zone – Lott et al. – bioRxiv

Water flushing irremovable biofilms on support material in dynamic membrane bioreactor: formation, composition, and microbial community – Huang et al. – Chemosphere

Phages and viruses

Preprint: Rampant prophage movement among transient competitors drives rapid adaptation during infection – Marshall et al. – bioRxiv

January 24, 2021

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Hyvää Päivää from Helsinki, Finland ! Today’s digest contains quite a lot of different topics. If you are interested in  early-life microbiome, I recommend taking a look at the paper from Mortensen and collaborators. To understand the role of the maternal vaginal microbiome’s in seeding their child and the importance of the delivery mode in early-life microbiome acquisition, they studied 665 mother–child dyads and modeled the transfer of the vaginal microbiota from mother to infants.

In today’s digest, you’ll also find a really interesting preprint from Abiriga and collaborators, looking at the microbiome of a groundwater aquifer contaminated by a municipal landfill while undergoing intrinsic bioremediation. This preprint is particularly notable because studies looking at the microbiome of contaminated aquifers are particularly rare, despite groundwater contaminations from landfills being a very common issue.

Today’s non-microbiology pick takes a look at the difficulty of detecting scientificly fraudulent images produced by Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs). They demonstrate that this deep-learning method can generate realistic western blot images that are indistinguishable from real western blots. In conclusion, the authors argues that additional information should be required to ensure that the western blots published in scientific publication are not generated images. 

Have a great Sunday!

Human respiratory microbiome

Functional lower airways genomic profiling of the microbiome to capture active microbial metabolism – Sulaiman et al. – European respiratory journal

Human skin microbiome

Preprint: Comparative investigation of the Diabetic foot ulcer microbiome – Saeb et al. – BioRxiv

Human vaginal microbiome

Preprint: Vaginal bacterial load in the second trimester is associated with early preterm birth recurrence: a nested case-control – Goodfellow et al. – MedRxiv

Modeling transfer of vaginal microbiota from mother to infant in early life – Mortensen et al. – eLife

Human gut microbiome

Review: Linking Gut Microbiome and Lipid Metabolism: Moving beyond Associations – Lamichhane et al. – Metabolites

Animal microbiome

Individual fate and gut microbiome composition in the European wild rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) – Funosas et al. – Scientific reports

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Microbiome structure and functional potential in permafrost soils of the Western Canadian Arctic – Varsadiya et al. – FEMS Microbial ecology

Book chapter: Microbial Diversity of Phyllosphere – Dhankhar et al. – Phytomicrobiome Interactions and Sustainable Agriculture

Review: Novel and Emerging Capabilities that Can Provide a Holistic Understanding of the Plant Root Microbiome – Singer et al. – Phytomes journal

Water and extremophile microbiome

Book chapter: Potential of Extremophiles for Bioremediation – Kaushik et al. – Microbial Rejuvenation of Polluted Environment. Microorganisms for Sustainability, vol 25. Springer, Singapore.

Built environment

Microbial Diversity Analysis of Sediment from Yeosu New Harbor of South Korea Using 16S rRNA Gene Amplicon Sequencing – Lee et al. – Microbiology ressource announcements

Preprint: Characterisation of the bacterial microbiota of a landfill-contaminated confined aquifer undergoing intrinsic remediation – Abiriga et al. – BioRxiv

Phages and viruses

Reduced metagenomic sequencing (RMS) approach to determine the gut-associated phageome in mother-child – Manohar et al. – Human Microbiome Journal

Review: Enteric Viruses and Inflammatory Bowel Disease – Tarris et al. – Viruses

Bioinformatics

book chapter: Advances in Omics and Bioinformatics Tools for Phyllosphere Studies – Bansal – Phytomicrobiome Interactions and Sustainable Agriculture

MegaR: an interactive R package for rapid sample classification and phenotype prediction using metagenome profiles and machine learning – Dhungel et al. – BMC Bioinformatics

My non-microbiology picks

Preprint: Emerging Concern of Scientific Fraud: Deep Learning and Image Manipulation – Qi et al. – BioRxiv

January 14, 2021

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Greetings from Pittsburgh!

Today’s digest contains lots of microbial ecology articles focused on everything from the impacts of sleep on dental biofilm to the response of soil microbiota to high petroleum pollution. Also included are two articles focused on insect-plant interactions, with the first focusing on gall induction in insects and the second on the intestinal microbiota of the pine defoliator C. chuxiongica.

General microbiome

Novel cyanotoxin-producing Synechococcus in tropical lakes – Yew-Hoong et al. – Water Research

Multi-site human microbiome

Impacts of sleep on the characteristics of dental biofilm – Sotozono et al. – Scientific Reports

Animal experiments

Dysbiosis of rat vagina is efficiently rescued by the vaginal microbiota transplantation or probiotic combination: Vaginal microbiota transplantation rescues dysbiosis in rat vagina – Chen et al. – International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents

Are bacterial symbionts associated with gall induction in insects? – Hammer et al. – Arthropod-Plant Interactions

The diversity and function of intestinal microorganisms in four geographic Cephalcia chuxiongica (a pine defoliator) populations – Yu et al. – Journal of Applied Entomology

Animal microbiome

Linking bacterial communities associated with the environment and the ecosystem engineer Orchestia gammarellus at contrasting salt marsh elevations – Hernández et al. – Microbial Ecology

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Response of bacterial and fungal communities to high petroleum pollution in different soils – Galitskaya et al. – Scientific Reports

Enzyme additives influence bacterial communities of Medicago sativa silage as determined by Illumina sequencing – Hu et al. – AMB Express

First reported quantitative microbiota in different livestock manures used as organic fertilizers in the Northeast of Thailand – Wongsaroj et al. – Scientific Reports

Water and extremophile microbiome

Coastal bacterial community response to glacier melting in the Western Antarctic Peninsula – Alcamán-Arias et al. – Microorganisms

Microbial necromass formation, enzyme activities and community structure in two alpine elevation gradients with different bedrock types – Bhople et al. – Geoderma

Exploring the taxonomical and functional profile of As Burgas hot spring focusing on thermostable β-galactosidases – DeCastro et al. – Scientific Reports

The effect of an adsorbent matrix on recovery of microorganisms from hydrocarbon-contaminated groundwater – Taylor et al. – Microorganisms

Built environment

Electrochemical performance and response of bacterial community during phenanthrene degradation in single-chamber air-cathode microbial fuel cells – Hua et al. – Environmental Science and Pollution Research

Food microbiology

Combination of Flos Sophorae and chili pepper as a nitrite alternative improves the antioxidant, microbial communities and quality traits in Chinese sausages – Tang et al. – Food Research International

December 27, 2020

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Joyeuses fêtes from Paris, France ! In today’s digest, you will find great papers looking at various animal and plant microbiomes. In particular, I recommend taking some time to look at a preprint from Brealey and collaborators exploring the impact of human antibiotic use on oral microbiome in wild animals. The authors used shotgun metagenomics to determine the abundance and diversity of antimicrobial resistance genes in the oral microbiome of brown bears from Swedish museum specimens. Importantly, they show a significant increase in antimicrobial resistance genes in correlation with modern human antibiotics use, showing an impact even on wildlife of our antibiotic consumption.

Today’s non-microbiology pick takes a look back at the history of bioinformatics through the data analysis and visualization of papers published between 1998 and 2019. In addition of reading this very interesting paper, you can take a look at the data collected through interactive visualizations available at http://bioinfo.dcc.ufmg.br/history !

Have a great Sunday!

Pregnancy and early life

Preprint: Metabolomic signature of the maternal microbiota in the fetus – Pessa-Morikawa et al. – BioRXiv

Human nearly-sterile sites

Preprint: The urinary microbiome in postmenopausal women with recurrent urinary tract infections – Hiersoux Vaughan et al. – BioRXiv

Preprint: Biofilm development on urinary catheters promotes the appearance of viable but non-culturable (VBNC) bacteria – Wilks et al. – BioRXiv

Animal microbiome

Preprint: Wild animal oral microbiomes reflect the history of human antibiotics use – Brealey et al. – BioRXiV

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Dissimilarity analysis of microbial communities in the rhizosphere and tissues of diseased and healthy cherry trees (Cerasus pseudocerasus) – Ding et al. – Canadian Journal of Plant Pathology

First Recorded Account of Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi in Sand Dunes in South Eastern Australia: Biogeography and Species Richness – Hanlon et al. – Journal of Coastal Research

Diversity and structural differences of bacterial microbial communities in rhizocompartments of desert leguminous plants – Zhou et al. – PLOS ONE

Preprint: Orchard management and landscape context mediate the floral microbiome of pear – Schaeffer et al. – BioRXiv

Water and extremophile microbiome

Interplay of microbial communities with mineral environments incoralline algae – Valdespino-Castillo et al. – Science of the total environment

Acid Mine Drainage as Energizing Microbial Niches for the Formation of Iron Stromatolites: The Tintillo River in Southwest Spain – Chacon-Baca et al. – Astrobiology

Bioinformatics

PStrain: An Iterative Microbial Strains Profiling Algorithm for Shotgun Metagenomic Sequencing Data – Wang et al. – Bioinformatics

MegaPath: sensitive and rapid pathogen detection using metagenomic NGS data – Leung et al. – BMC Genomics

My non-microbiology picks

A Brief History of Bioinformatics Told by Data Visualization – Mariano et al. – Brazilian Symposium on Bioinformatics

 

December 18, 2020

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Greetings from cold and snowy Pittsburgh!

As I type this, my housemate (who is an essential healthcare worker) should be getting the first dose of her COVID-19 vaccine! Although I’m not sure what the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines is expected to look like, today’s digest includes an article mapping routine measles vaccination coverage in low- and middle- income countries. I’ve also highlighted a few interesting environmental microbiology preprints, including one on the role of ecosystem engineers in shaping arid soil bacterial communities.

Happy holidays and happy reading!

Events and jobs

Danone North America Gut Microbiome, Yogurt and Probiotics Fellowship Grant – Applications for the 2020-2021 grant are currently open and are due on February 24, 2021.

General microbiome

Mapping routine measles vaccination in low- and middle-income countries – Local Burden of Disease Vaccine Coverage Collaborators – Nature

The functional proteome landscape of Escherichia coli – Mateus et al. – Nature

Preprint: Niche and local geography shape the pangenome of wastewater- and livestock-associated Enterobacteriaceae – Shaw et al. – bioRxiv


Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Preprint: The role of ecosystem engineers in shaping the diversity and function of arid soil bacterial communities – Baubin et al. – bioRxiv

Preprint: Environmental interactions with amoebae as drivers of bacterial-fungal endosymbiosis and pathogenicity – Itabangi et al. – bioRxiv

December 9, 2020

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In today’s digest read about the selection and microdiversity in glacier-fed streams, Gardnerella vaginalis contribution to the increased rate of group B Streptococcus vaginal colonization, making F1 hybrids in Escherichia coli using MAE (Mass Allelic Exchange), smORFinder (annotation tool to identify small proteins in microbial genomes and metagenomes), and more.
Check out the new Science Friday podcast episode on microbial interactions in cheese rinds and Svetlana’s pick for happy holidays.
Cheers!

Human microbiome

Effects of Extended Postmortem Interval on Microbial Communities in Organs of the Human Cadaver – Holly Lutz – Frontiers in Microbiology

Gut microbiome

Landscapes of bacterial and metabolic signatures and their interaction in major depressive disorders – Jian Yang – Science Advances

Improved high-molecular-weight DNA extraction, nanopore sequencing and metagenomic assembly from the human gut microbiome – Dylan G. Maghini – Nature Protocols

Elucidation of Gut Microbiota-Associated Lipids Using LC-MS/MS and 16S rRNA Sequence Analyses – Shu Yasuda – iScience

The Healthy Microbiome (What is the definition of a healthy gut microbiome?) – Fergus Shanahan – Gastroenterology

The gut microbiota is associated with immune cell dynamics in humans – Jonas Schluter
– Nature

Utilizing the gut microbiome in decompensated cirrhosis and acute-on-chronic liver failure – Jonel Trebicka – Nature Reviews Gastroenterology & Hepatology

Animal microbiome

Remodeling of the maternal gut microbiome during pregnancy is shaped by parity – Alexander SF Berry – bioRxiv

Animal experiments

*Gardnerella vaginalis promotes group B Streptococcus vaginal colonization, enabling ascending uteroplacental infection in pregnant mice – Nicole M. Gilbert – American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology

Akkermansia muciniphila: A potential novel mechanism of nuciferine to improve hyperlipidemia – Yue Yu – Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy

Gut microbiota modulation by both Lactobacillus fermentum MSK 408 and ketogenic diet in a murine model of pentylenetetrazole-induced acute seizure – Ju Young Eor – Epilepsy Research

Host-age prediction from fecal microbiome composition in laboratory mice – Adrian Low – bioRxiv

Commensal Microbiota Regulates Skin Barrier Function And Repair Via Signaling Through The Aryl Hydrocarbon Receptor – Aayushi Uberoi – bioRxiv

Water microbiome

*Homogeneous selection promotes microdiversity in the glacier-fed stream microbiome – Stilianos Fodelianakis – bioRxiv

Phages and viruses

Long-term persistence of crAss-like phage crAss001 is associated with phase variation in Bacteroides intestinalis – Andrey N. Shkoporov – bioRxiv

Diversity and Distribution of a Novel Genus of Hyperthermophilic Aquificae Viruses Encoding a Proof-Reading Family-A DNA Polymerase – Marike Palmer – Frontiers in Microbiology

Broad Virus Detection and Variant Discovery in Fecal Samples of Hematopoietic Transplant Recipients Using Targeted Sequence Capture Metagenomics – Suze A. Jansen – Frontiers in Microbiology

Antimicrobial Resistance

Review: Multidrug-resistant high-risk Enterococcus faecium clones: can we really define them? – Ana R. Freitas – International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents

Review: Current Trends in Experimental and Computational Approaches to Combat Antimicrobial Resistance – Madangchanok Imchen – Frontiers in Genetics

Predicting clinical resistance prevalence using sewage metagenomic data – Antti Karkman – Communications Biology

Fermented-Food Metagenomics Reveals Substrate-Associated Differences in Taxonomy and Health-Associated and Antibiotic Resistance Determinants – John Leech – mSystems

Uncovering hidden antimicrobial resistance patterns within the hospital microbiome – Bastiaan W. Haak and W. Joost Wiersinga – Nature Medicine

Isolation and characterization of human pathogenic multidrug resistant bacteria associated with plastic litter collected in Zanzibar – Farah N. Rasool – Journal of Hazardous Materials

Integrated metagenomic and metatranscriptomic analyses of ultraviolet disinfection effects on antibiotic resistance genes and bacterial communities during wastewater treatment – Shuyu Jia – Ecotoxicology

A metagenomic glimpse into the gut of wild and domestic animals: Quantification of antimicrobial resistance and more – Magdalena Skarżyńska – Plos One

Techniques

*Mass allelic exchange: enabling sexual genetics in Escherichia coli – Varnica Khetrapal – bioRxiv

Review: Microbial model communities: To understand complexity, harness the power of simplicity – Johan Bengtsson-Palme – Computational and Structural Biotechnology Journal

MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry for sub-typing of Streptococcus pneumoniae – Sivkheng Kann – BMC Microbiology

Bioinformatics

*Automated Prediction and Annotation of Small Open Reading Frames in Microbial Genomes – Matthew G. Durrant and Ami S. Bhatt – Cell Host Microbe

Accurate Microbiome Sequencing with Synthetic Long Read Sequencing – Nico Chung – bioRxiv

Species level resolution of female bladder microbiota from marker gene surveys – Carter Hoffman – bioRxiv

Synthetic Sequencing Standards: A Guide to Database Choice for Rumen Microbiota Amplicon Sequencing Analysis – Paul E. Smith – Frontiers in Microbiology

Events

H3ABioNet Seminars and Webinars – H3ABioNet Pan African Bioinformatics Network

Inspiring the next generation of scientists… online – The Young Microbiologists Symposium (YMS) 2020

MLCB 2020 Day 1 and 2 talks – Machine Learning in Computational Biology meeting

Podcast

Why We’re Giving Thanks To Microbes For Stinky Cheese with Benjamin Wolfe and Casey Cosetta – Katie Feather and Ira Flatow – Science Friday

Svetlana’s pick

Planning Our “Home-mas” this December – MissPond – Emma Pond

Holiday Gift Guide For Microbe Lovers – Justine Dees – Joyful Microbe

The 2020 cookbook giftlist – Fiona Beckett – Matching Food & Wine

November 26, 2020

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Greetings from Pittsburgh!

Today’s digest is heavy on environmental microbiology work, especially plant, root, and soil microbiome studies. I also want to highlight a fun research paper (and paired Wired article) on the microbiome of da Vinci’s drawings.

Happy reading! And for all of those in the U.S. who are celebrating the Thanksgiving holiday, please be safe and follow all local COVID precautions.

Multi-site human microbiome

Mycobiome changes in the vitreous of post fever retinitis patients – Arunasri et al. – PLOS ONE

Review: Metabolomics analysis of microbiota-gut-brain axis in neurodegenerative and psychiatric diseases – Konjevod et al. – Journal of Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Analysis

Animal experiments

Cerumen microbial community shifts between healthy and otitis affected dogs – Borriello et al. – PLOS ONE

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

The difference between cellulolytic ‘culturomes’ and microbiomes inhabiting two contrasting soil types – Evdokimova et al. – PLOS ONE

Diversity of bacteria populations associated with different thallus regions of the brown alga Laminaria digitata – Ihua et al. – PLOS ONE

High nitrogen concentration alter microbial community in Allium fistulosum rhizosphere – Zhao et al. – PLOS ONE

Diversity, function and assembly of mangrove root-associated microbial communities at a continuous fine-scale – Zhuang et al. – npj Biofilms and Microbiomes

Water and extremophile microbiome

Shifts in methanogenic archaea communities and methane dynamics along a subtropical estuarine land use gradient – Euler et al. – PLOS ONE

Built environment

**The microbiome of Leonardo da Vinci’s drawings: A bio-archive of their history – Piñar et al. – Frontiers in Microbiology

Microbes in the news

**Meet the microbes living on Da Vinci’s iconic sketches – Simon – Wired

Science, publishing, and career

Postdocs under pressure: ‘Can I even do this any more?’ – Woolston – Nature