Category Archives: Fungi

March 9, 2023

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Today’s digest features studies on latent and established antibiotic resistance genes in microbiomes, newborn skin microbiome, drinking water microbiome after COVID-19 pandemic, and more. Listen to the science behind The Last of Us!

See you at #MVIF next week!

Antibiotic resistome

*Latent antibiotic resistance genes are abundant, diverse, and mobile in human, animal, and environmental microbiomes – Juan Salvador Inda-Díaz – Microbiome

Human skin

*The skin microbiome in the first year of life and its association with atopic dermatitis – Alexis Rapin – Allergy

Urinary tract

Review: Microbiome in urological diseases: Axis crosstalk and bladder disorders – Hae Woong Choi – Investigative and Clinical Urology

Human gut

Human microbiome variance is underestimated – Fergus Shanahan – Current Opinion in Microbiology

Population-level impacts of antibiotic usage on the human gut microbiome – Kihyun Lee – Nature Communications

Microbial community-scale metabolic modeling predicts personalized short-chain-fatty-acid production profiles in the human gut – Nick Bohmann – bioRxiv

Review: Milk glycan metabolism by intestinal bifidobacteria: insights from comparative genomics – Aleksandr A. Arzamasov & Andrei L. Osterman – Critical Reviews in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

Guts Imbalance Imbalances the Brain: A Review of Gut Microbiota Association With Neurological and Psychiatric Disorders – Laura Mitrea – Frontiers in Medicine

Drinking water

*Gradual Recovery of Building Plumbing-Associated Microbial Communities after Extended Periods of Altered Water Demand during the COVID-19 Pandemic – Solize Vosloo – Environmental Science & Technology

September 8, 2022

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Today’s microbiome digest includes ten rules for teaching yourself R, food safety profiles of ready-to-eat raw minced meat, teaching that addresses eco-anxiety, as well as both pathogenic and entomopathogenic fungi!

Human gut microbiome

Meals, Microbiota and Mental Health in Children and Adolescents (MMM-Study): A protocol for an observational longitudinal case-control study – Asbjornsdottir et al. – PLOS One

Strongyloides stercoralis infection induces gut dysbiosis in chronic kidney disease patients – Hai et al. – PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Mycoparasitism capability and growth inhibition activity of Clonostachys rosea isolates against fungal pathogens of grapevine trunk diseases suggest potential for biocontrol – Geiger et al. – PLOS One

Impact of endophytic colonization by entomopathogenic fungi on the behavior and life history of the tobacco peach aphid Myzus persicae var. nicotianae – Wilberts et al. – PLOS One

Food microbiology

Bacteriological quality and antimicrobial susceptibility profiles of isolates of ready-to-eat raw minced meat from hotels and restaurants in Arba Minch, Ethiopia – Tonjo et al. – PLOS One

Bioinformatics

Ten simple rules for teaching yourself R – Lawlor et al. – PLOS Computational Biology

Techniques

Laboratory evaluation of RealStar Yellow Fever Virus RT-PCR kit 1.0 for potential use in the global yellow fever laboratory network – Basile et al. – PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases

Science, publishing, and career )

Insufficient yet improving involvement of the global south in top sustainability science publications – Dangles et al. – PLOS One

Adapt conservation biology teaching to address eco-anxiety in students – São Pedro et al. – PLOS Biology

September 7, 2022

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General microbiome

Impact of environmental conditions and gut microbiota on the in vitro germination and growth of Clostridioides difficile – Martinez et al. – FEMS Microbiology Letters

[FORUM]Polymorphic microbes: a new emerging hallmark of cancer – Lythgoe et al. – Trends in Microbiology

A taxonomic note on the genus Prevotella: Description of four novel genera and emended description of the genera Hallella and Xylanibacter – Hitch et al. – Systematic and Applied Microbiology

A curated data resource of 214K metagenomes for characterization of the global antimicrobial resistome – Martiny et al. – PLOS Biology

Pregnancy and early life

Alterations in Vaginal Microbiota among Pregnant Women with COVID-19 – Velik et al. – Journal of Medical Virology

The Global Incidence of Adverse Events Associated with Fecal Microbiota Transplantation in Children over the Past 20 Years: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis – Wang et al. – Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology

Multi-site human microbiome

Dissecting the role of the human microbiome in COVID-19 via metagenome-assembled genomes – Ke, Weiss & Liu – Nature Communications

Human salivary microbiome

Salivary microbiome in chronic kidney disease: what is its connection to diabetes, hypertension, and immunity? – Liu et al. – Journal of Translational Medicine volume

Human vaginal microbiome

Does exposure to different types of menstrual protections affect the vaginal environment? – Tessandier et al. – Molecular Ecology

Human gut microbiome

High-altitude exposure decreases bone mineral density and its relationship with gut microbiota: Results from the China multi-ethnic cohort (CMEC) study – Zuo et al. – Environmental Research

Animal microbiome

Characterization of the oral and fecal microbiota associated with atopic dermatitis in dogs selected from a purebred Shiba Inu colony – Uchiyama et al. – Letters of Applied Microbiology

Probiotics or synbiotics addition to sows’ diets alters colonic microbiome composition and metabolome profiles of offspring pigs – Zhu et al. – Front. Microbiol.

Longitudinal analysis of the rectal microbiome in dogs with diabetes mellitus after initiation of insulin therapy – Laia et al. – PLOS One

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Core Microbiota in the Rhizosphere of Heavy Metal Accumulators and Its Contribution to Plant Performance – Luo et al. – Environ. Sci. Technol.

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

Global contribution of pelagic fungi to protein degradation in the ocean -Breyer et al. – Microbiome

August 31, 2022

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Human skin microbiome

[REVIEW]Staphylococcus epidermidis and its dual lifestyle in skin health and infection – Severn & Horswill – Nature Reviews Microbiology

Human oral microbiome

Effect of chewing gum containing Xylitol and blackberry powder on oral bacteria: A randomized controlled crossover trial – Miller et al. – Archives of Oral Biology

Human gut microbiome

Antimicrobial peptide production in response to gut microbiota imbalance – Cardoso et al. – Peptides

ROLE OF GUT MICROBIOTA IN DEPRESSION: UNDERSTANDING MOLECULAR PATHWAYS, RECENT RESEARCH, AND FUTURE DIRECTION – Rathour et al. – Behavioural Brain Research

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

Gut-derived metabolites influence neurodevelopmental gene expression and Wnt signaling events in a germ-free zebrafish model – Rea et al. – Microbiome

Animal microbiome (for animals in the wild)

Age as a primary driver of the gut microbial composition and function in wild harbor seals – Pacheco-Sandoval et al. – Scientific Reports

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Biogeographical survey of soil microbiomes across sub-Saharan Africa: structure, drivers, and predicted climate-driven changes – Cowan et al. – Microbiome

Soil fungal communities show more specificity than bacteria for plant species composition in a temperate forest in China – Chen et al. – BMC Microbiology

Microbes in space

Machine learning algorithm to characterize antimicrobial resistance associated with the International Space Station surface microbiome – Madrigal et al. – Microbiome

Food microbiology

Extensive diversity and rapid turnover of phage defense repertoires in cheese-associated bacterial communities – Somerville et al. – Microbiome

Bioinformatics

Crowdsourced benchmarking of taxonomic metagenome profilers: lessons learned from the sbv IMPROVER Microbiomics challenge – Poussin et al. – BMC Genomics

Microbes in the news (popular press, EurekAlert, ScienceDaily, Youtube, NPR, etc)

Newly Renamed Prokaryote Phyla Cause Uproar – Dan Robitzski – The Scientist

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

August 03, 2022

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Pregnancy and early life

The abundance of Ruminococcus bromii is associated with faecal butyrate levels and atopic dermatitis in infancy – Sasaki et al. – Allergy

Human oral microbiome

Smokeless tobacco consumption induces dysbiosis of oral mycobiome: a pilot study – Sajid et al. – Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology

Human gut microbiome

The Proteome of Extracellular Vesicles Produced by the Human Gut Bacteria Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron In Vivo Is Influenced by Environmental and Host-Derived Factors – Stentz et al. – Applied and Environmental Microbiology

Improved gut microbiome recovery following drug therapy is linked to abundance and replication of probiotic strains – FitzGerald et al. – Gut Microbes

[REVIEW]Targeting microbiota-host interactions with resveratrol on cancer: Effects and potential mechanisms of action – Wang et al. – Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition

Emerging frontiers of antibiotics use and their impacts on the human gut microbiome – Kumari et al. – Microbiological Research

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

Microbiota of the Pregnant Mouse: Characterization of the Bacterial Communities in the Oral Cavity, Lung, Intestine, and Vagina through Culture and DNA Sequencing – Greenberg et al. – Microbiology Spectrum

Phages and viruses

Viral biogeography of the mammalian gut and parenchymal organs – Shkoporov – Nature Microbiology

Bioinformatics

Namco: a microbiome explorer – Dietrich et al. – Microbial Genomics

MiCloud: A unified web platform for comprehensive microbiome data analysis – Gu et al. – PLOS One

June 29, 2022

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General microbiome

Microbial Tracking-2, a metagenomics analysis of bacteria and fungi onboard the International Space Station – Urbaniak et al. – Microbiome

Engineering the human gut commensal Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron with synthetic biology – Lai, Hayashi & Lu – Current Opinion in Chemical Biology

Factors shaping the abundance and diversity of the gut archaeome across the animal kingdom – Thomas et al. – Nature Communications

Human oral microbiome

Increase in Bifidobacterium is a characteristic of the difference in the salivary microbiota of pregnant and non-pregnant women – Kato et al. – BMC Oral Health

Human urinary microbiome

Concordance of Urinary Microbiota Detected by 16S rRNA Amplicon Sequencing Versus Expanded Quantitative Urine Culture – Vaughan et al. – American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology

Human gut microbiome

Dietary variety relates to gut microbiota diversity and abundance in humans – Huang et al. – European Journal of Nutrition

The gut microbiota composition in patients with right- and left-sided colorectal cancer and after curative colectomy, as analyzed by 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing – Suga et al. – BMC Gastroenterology

Long-Term Dietary Effects on Human Gut Microbiota Composition Employing Shotgun Metagenomics Data Analysis – Troci et al. – Molecular Nutrition & Food Research

Functional changes of the gastric bypass microbiota reactivate thermogenic adipose tissue and systemic glucose control via intestinal FXR-TGR5 crosstalk in diet-induced obesity – Münzker et al. – Microbiome

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

Perinatal transmission of a probiotic Bifidobacterium strain protects against early life stress-induced mood and gastrointestinal motility disorders – Zhu et al. – Food & Function

Leveraging Existing 16SrRNA Microbial Data to Define a Composite Biomarker for Autism Spectrum Disorder – Xu et al. – Microbiology Spectrum

Animal microbiome (for animals in the wild)

Gut microbiome of century-old snail specimens stable across time in preservation – Chalifour, Elder & Li – Microbiome

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Soil-derived bacteria endow Camellia weevil with more ability to resist plant chemical defense – Zhang et al. – Microbiome

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

A genome and gene catalog of glacier microbiomes – Liu et al. – Nature Biotechnology

Bioinformatics / Data

Large Scale Genome-Centric Metagenomic Data from the Gut Microbiome of Food-Producing Animals and Humans – Lemos et al. – Scientific Data

Research Note: Choice of microbiota database affects data analysis and interpretation in chicken cecal microbiota – Campos et al. – Poultry Science

[PREPRINT]Predicting metabolomic profiles from microbial composition through neural ordinary differential equations – Wang et al. – bioRxiv

June 20, 2022

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Highlights!

Dynamic metabolic interactions and trophic roles of human gut microbes identified using a minimal microbiome exhibiting ecological properties – Sudarshan A Shetty – The ISME Journal → This study shows the experimental setting of a minimal microbiome composed of 16 bacterial species, characterizing their metabolic relationships, dynamics, and stability.  

Integrated Microbiome and Host Transcriptome Profiles Link Parkinson’s Disease to Blautia Genus: Evidence From Feces, Blood, and Brain – Xingzhi Guo – Frontiers in Microbiology → Members of Blautia, a relatively common genus in the human gut, was “consistently depleted across feces, blood, and brain samples of PD patients”. This study suggests a link between Blautia and PD.

Human and General Microbiome

A Microbiota-Dependent Response to Anticancer Treatment in an In Vitro Human Microbiota Model: A Pilot Study With Hydroxycarbamide and Daunorubicin – Claire Amaris Hobson – Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology

Examination of host genetic effects on nasal microbiome composition – Haritz Irizar – The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology

Beneficial Microbes and Compounds

Kimchi improves irritable bowel syndrome: results of a randomized, double-blind placebo-controlled study – Hee-Young Kim – Food & Nutrition Research

Non-Model Animal Microbiome

Aging gut microbiota of wild macaques are equally diverse, less stable, but progressively personalized – Baptiste Sadoughi – Microbiome

Model Animal Microbiome

Sodium alginate and galactooligosaccharides ameliorate metabolic disorders and alter the composition of the gut microbiota in mice with high-fat diet-induced obesity – Yao Li – International Journal of Biological Macromolecules

Plant Microbiome

From the bacterial citrus microbiome to the selection of potentially host-beneficial microbes – Ramón Penyalver – New Biotechnology

Review: Microbiome engineering for sustainable agriculture: using synthetic biology to enhance nitrogen metabolism in plant-associated microbes – Sang-Woo Han – Current Opinion in Microbiology

Environmental Microbiome

Microbiome assembly in thawing permafrost and its feedbacks to climate – Jessica G Ernakovich – Global Change Biology

Other

Rapid sourdough yeast identification using panfungal PCR combined with high resolution melting analysis – Olga Bazalová – Journal of Microbiological Methods

June 15, 2022

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General microbiome

[PREPRINT]Fungi with history: Unveiling the mycobiota of historic documents of Costa Rica – Escudero-Leyva et al. – bioRxiv

Pregnancy and early life

Babies, Bugs, and Barriers: Dietary Modulation of Intestinal Barrier Function in Early Life – Wells et al. – Annual Review of Nutrition

Multi-site human microbiome

A multi-omics analysis for the prediction of neurocognitive disorders risk among the elderly in Macao – Han et al. – Clinical and Translational Medicine

Human oral microbiome

The oral microbiome, pancreatic cancer and human diversity in the age of precision medicine – Herremans et al. – Microbiome

Human skin microbiome

Altered skin fungal and bacterial community compositions in tinea capitis – Rong et al. – Mycoses

Effects of short chain fructo-oligosaccharides on selected skin bacteria – Le Bourgot et al. – Scientific Reports

Human vaginal microbiome

Child type 1 diabetes associated with mother vaginal bacteriome and mycobiome – Ruotsalainen et al. – Medical Microbiology and Immunology

Human gut microbiome

Nutrition-wide association study of microbiome diversity and composition in colorectal cancer patients – Hoang et al. – BMC Cancer

Gut microbiota signatures of long-term and short-term plant-based dietary pattern and cardiometabolic health: a prospective cohort study – Miao et al. – BMC Medicine

[REVIEW]The role of virome in the gastrointestinal tract and beyond – Tiamani et al. – FEMS Microbiology Reviews

[REVIEW]Time-limited diets and the gut microbiota in cardiometabolic disease – Ratiner et al. – Journal of Diabetes

Safety and efficacy of fecal microbiota transplantation for treatment of systemic lupus erythematosus: An EXPLORER trial – Huang et al. – Journal of Autoimmunity

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

Tumor-resident intracellular microbiota promotes metastatic colonization in breast cancer – Fu et al. – Cell

Pharmacokinetic and gut microbiota analyses revealed the effect of Lactobacillus acidophilus on the metabolism of Olsalazine in ulcerative colitis rats – Li et al.

Identification of gut microbial species linked with disease variability in a widely used mouse model of colitis – Forster et al. – Nature Microbiology

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

The plant host environment influences competitive interactions between bacterial pathogens – Ehau-Taumaunu & Hockett – Environmental Microbiology Reports

Bioinformatics

[PREPRINT]specificity: an R package for analysis of feature specificity to environmental and higher dimensional variables, applied to microbiome species data – Darcy et al. – bioRxiv

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