Category Archives: Human reproductive or urinary

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 16, 2020

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COVID19

Inferring the effectiveness of government interventions against COVID-19 – Brauner et al. – Science

COVID 19 mortality: Probable role of microbiome to explain disparity – Kumar & Chander – Medical Hyptheses

General microbiome

[PREPRINT] Theory of (antimicrobial) relativity: When competitors determine a species’ drug sensitivity. – Reding – bioRxiv

Human respiratory microbiome

Metagenomic Next-Generation Sequencing of Nasopharyngeal Specimens Collected from Confirmed and Suspect COVID-19 Patients – Mostafa et al. – mBio

Human oral microbiome

Variation in oral microbiome is associated with future risk of lung cancer among never-smokers – Hosgood et al. – Lung cancer

Human gut microbiome

Effect of an 8-week Exercise Training on Gut Microbiota in Physically Inactive Older Women – Zhong et al. – Int J Sports Med

Vitamin D metabolites and the gut microbiome in older men – Thomas et al. – Nature Communications

Animal microbiome

[PREPRINT] Longitudinal profiling of the macaque vaginal microbiome reveals similarities to diverse human vaginal communities: implications for use as a pre-clinical model for bacterial vaginosis – Rhoades et al. – bioRxiv

The earthworm microbiome is resilient to exposure to biocidal metal nanoparticles – Swart et al. – Environmental Pollution

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Environmental microbiome mapping as a strategy to improve quality and safety in the food industry – Filippis et al. – Current Opinion in Food Science

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

Nitrosophilus alvini gen. nov., sp. nov., a hydrogen-oxidizing chemolithoautotroph isolated from a deep-sea hydrothermal vent in the East Pacific Rise, inferred by a genome-based taxonomy of the phylum “Campylobacterota” – Shiotani et al. – PLOS One

Techniques

A rapid approach to profiling diverse fungal communities using the MinION™ nanopore sequencer – Mafune et al. – BioTechniques

[PREPRINT] Microbe-seq: high-throughput, single-microbe genomics with strain resolution, applied to a human gut microbiome – Zheng et al. – bioRxiv

Microbes in the news

Oral Microbiome Diversity and Species Abundance Linked to Lung Cancer in Nonsmokers

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 20, 2020

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Today’s digest features a systematic assessment of best practices for the sequencing-based characterization of the human vaginal microbiome, studies on link between the plaque microbiome and peri-implantitis, cutimycin [a Cutibacterium acnes-produced antibiotic that affects niche competition among the human skin microbiota] and antibiotic resistance genes in shower drains, washing machines, and dishwashers. There is a new Micro Binfie Podcast episode about moving from the wet lab into the dry lab to become a bioinformatician. Also, check out a list of interesting (freely available) events. Happy reading/listening!

Oral microbiome

*Strong oral plaque microbiome signatures for dental implant diseases identified by strain-resolution metagenomics – Paolo Ghensi – npj Biofilms and Microbiomes

Skin microbiome

*A Cutibacterium acnes antibiotic modulates human skin microbiota composition in hair follicles – Jan Claesen – Science Translational Medicine

Review: Staphylococcus epidermidis—Skin friend or foe? – Morgan M. Brown and Alexander R. Horswill – Plos Pathogen

Gut microbiome

Preterm Infants Harbour a Rapidly Changing Mycobiota That Includes Candida Pathobionts – Stephen A. James – Journal of Fungi

Imidazole propionate is increased in diabetes and associated with dietary patterns and altered microbial ecology – Antonio Molinaro – Nature Communications

Gut microbiome stability and dynamics in healthy donors and patients with non-gastrointestinal cancers – Allyson L. Byrd – Journal of experimental medicine

Workshop report: Toward the development of a human whole stool reference material for metabolomic and metagenomic gut microbiome measurements – Rupasri Mandal – Metabolomics

Minireview: Communal Living: Glycan Utilization by the Human Gut Microbiota – Jonathon A. Briggs – Environmental Microbiology

Microbiota-directed fibre activates both targeted and secondary metabolic shifts in the distal gut – Leszek Michalak – Nature Communications

Vaginal microbiome

*Assessment of In Vitro and In Silico Protocols for Sequence-Based Characterization of the Human Vaginal Microbiome – Luisa W. Hugerth – mSphere

Shotgun sequencing of the vaginal microbiome reveals both a species and functional potential signature of preterm birth – Conor Feehily – npj Biofilms and Microbiomes

Intercepting genomic variability of Gardnerella vaginalis species through comparative genomics analyses: evolutionary and ecological implications – Chiara Tarracchini – Applied and Environmental Microbiology

Engineered phage endolysin eliminates Gardnerella in bacterial vaginosis without damaging the healthy vaginal microbiome – Christine Landlinger – medRxiv

Adaptive response to iterative passages of five Lactobacillus species in simulated vaginal fluid – Katelyn Brandt & Rodolphe Barrangou – BMC Microbiology

Dominance network analysis of the healthy human vaginal microbiome not dominated by Lactobacillus species – Wendy Li and Zhanshan Sam Ma – Computational and Structural Biotechnology Journal

Animal microbiome

The haybiome: Characterising the viable bacterial community profile of four different hays for horses following different pre-feeding regimens – Simon Daniels – Plos One

Review: Value of Probiotics in Canine and Feline Gastroenterology – Silke Salavati Schmitz – Veterinary Clinics of North America: Small Animal Practice

Massive gene presence-absence variation shapes an open pan-genome in the Mediterranean mussel – Marco Gerdol – Genome Biology

Technique

Phylotype-Level Characterization of Complex Lactobacilli Communities Using a High-Throughput, High-Resolution Phenylalanyl-tRNA Synthetase (pheS) Gene Amplicon Sequencing Approach – Shaktheeshwari Silvaraju – Applied and Environmental Microbiology

Metagenomics

Metagenomic assessment of the global distribution of bacteria and fungi – Mohammad Bahram – Environmental Microbiology

Bioinformatics

On the complexity of haplotyping a microbial community – Samuel M Nicholls – Bioinformatics

Challenges in Benchmarking Metagenomic Profilers – Zheng Sun – bioRxiv

Unifying the global coding sequence space enables the study of genes with unknown function across biomes – Chiara Vanni – bioRxiv

Nucleotide-resolution bacterial pan-genomics with reference graphs – Rachel M Colquhoun – bioRxiv

Efficient storage and analysis of quantitative genomics data with the Dense Depth Data Dump (D4) format and d4tools – Hao Hou – bioRxiv

An Integrated Workflow for Enhanced Taxonomic and Functional Coverage of the Mouse Faecal Metaproteome – Nicolas Nalpas – bioRxiv

The misuse of colour in science communication – Fabio Crameri – Nature Communications

Antimicrobial Resistance

*The Household Resistome: Frequency of β-Lactamases, Class 1 Integrons, and Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria in the Domestic Environment and Their Reduction during Automated Dishwashing and Laundering – Laura Schages – Applied and Environmental Microbiology

The unintended consequences of a surge in antibiotic resistance when removing wastewater drain biofilm – Shireen M Kotay – bioRxiv

fosM, a new family of fosfomycin resistance gene identified in bacterial species isolated from human microbiota – Sami Khabthani – Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy

Heme is crucial for medium-dependent metronidazole resistance in clinical isolates of C. difficile – Ilse M. Boekhoud – bioRxiv

Events

Black In Immuno Week – Black in Immuno – 22-28 November 2020
*A collective of scientists to celebrating, amplifying, and promoting the work of Black Immunologists across the globe.

Webinar: Antibiotic Resistance in the Environment – Organizer: Resistomap – Date: Tuesday, 24 November 2020

Webinar: Microbiology Webinars – FEMS – webinar recordings available

Virtual course and symposium: Harnessing Our Inner Ecology To Track and Treat Disease – Institute for Systems Biology – October 15 and 16, 2020
*all course materials/tutorials and talks are available for free on the website

Virtual Conference on Prokaryotic Small Proteins – Organizers: Todd Gray, Kai Papenfort, Gigi Storz and Joe Wade – January 12-14, 2021

Podcast

*Moving from wet to dry with Phil Ashton – Hosts: Andrew Page, Nabil-Fareed Alikhan and Lee Katz – Micro Binfie Podcast

Real-time quantitative proteomics with Devin Schweppe – Host: Jacob Schreiber – The Bioinformatics Chat

Interspecies collaborations with Mindaugas Gapševičius – Host: Aga Pokrywka – Ferment Radio

Microbiome as Organ: Researcher Colin Hill Talks Bacteria and Bacteriophages in Human Body with Colin Hill – Host: Richard Jacobs – The Finding Genius Podcast

What Does Your Microbiome Say About You? with Colin Hill – Host: Andrea Hardy – Let’s Gut Real

Colouring booklet

Microbes, diet and beyond by Microbiome Support EU project; Illustrations by Maria Pock

Boardgame

Drugs vs Bugs, a free and exciting Print’n’Play boardgame developed by Célia Souque

November 17, 2020

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Multi-site human microbiome

Microbiome diversity predicts surgical success in patients with rectovaginal fistula – Leach et al. – International Urogynecology Journal

Human oral microbiome

[REVIEW]Oral Microbiota and Cancer Development – Tuominen & Rautava – Pathobiology

Human vaginal/pregnancy microbiome

Shotgun sequencing of the vaginal microbiome reveals both a species and functional potential signature of preterm birth – Feehily et al. – npj biofilms and microbiomes

Human gut microbiome

[REVIEW]IBDs and the pediatric age: Their peculiarities and the involvement of the microbiota – Cococcioni et al. – Digestive and Liver Disease

Gut microbiome stability and dynamics in healthy donors and patients with non-gastrointestinal cancers – Byrd et al. – JEM

Species-dependent variation of the gut bacterial communities across Trypanosoma cruzi insect vectors – Arias-Giraldo – PLOS One

Gut Microbiota and Cancer Correlates – Malaviya et al. – Probiotic Research in Therapeutics

Short-Chain Fatty Acids and Lipopolysaccharide as Mediators Between Gut Dysbiosis and Amyloid Pathology in Alzheimer’s Disease – Marizzoni et al. – Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease

Built environment (subways, indoor surfaces)
Unravelling the importance of the eukaryotic and bacterial communities and their relationship with Legionella spp. ecology in cooling towers: a complex network – Paranjape et al. – Microbiome

Techniques
Transductomics: sequencing-based detection and analysis of transduced DNA in pure cultures and microbial communities – Kleiner et al. – Microbiome

[REVIEW]NMR: Unique Strengths That Enhance Modern Metabolomics Research – Edison et al. – Analytical Chemistry

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

Study offers “indisputable” link between Alzheimer’s and gut microbiome – Lavars – New Atlas

November 12, 2020

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Good morning! There’s a really exciting collection of papers to share with you this morning. Among them, a study of gut archaea across multiple host domains, a link between F. nucleatum and esophageal cancer, and two new databases of shotgun metagenomic data. (There’s also a fun paper about environmental transmission of microbes aboard the International Space Station.)

General microbiome

Preprint – Strong influence of vertebrate host phylogeny on gut archaeal diversity, Nicholas D Youngblut et al., bioRxiv

A genomic catalog of Earth’s microbiomes, Stephen Nayfach et al., Nature Biotechnology

Human vaginal microbiome

Review – Vaginal microbiota and the potential of Lactobacillus derivatives in maintaining vaginal health, Wallace Jeng Yang Chee, Microbial Cell Factories

Human gut microbiome

Preprint – Fusobacterium Nucleatum Predicts a Risk for Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma, Chao Shi et al., Research Square

Preprint – Human reference gut microbiome comprising 5,414 prokaryotic species, including newly assembled genomes from under-represented Asian metagenomes, Kim and Lee et al., bioRxiv

Preprint – Genetic Evidence for Selective Transfer of Microbes Between the International Space Station and an Astronaut, David C. Danko et al., bioRxiv

Review: An infectious diseases perspective on the microbiome and allogeneic stem cell transplant, Olivia C. Smibert et al., Current Opinion in Infectious Diseases

Animal experiments

Preprint – Longitudinal effects of antibiotics and fecal transplant on lemur gut microbiota structure, associations, and resistomes, Sally L. Bornbusch et al., bioRxiv

Pinto beans modulate the gut microbiome, augment MHC II protein, and antimicrobial peptide gene expression in mice fed a normal or western-style diet, Babajide A. Ojo et al., Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry

Preprint – Contagious Antibiotic Resistance: Plasmid Transfer Among Bacterial Residents of the Zebrafish Gut, Wesley Loftie-Eaton et al., bioRxiv

Animal microbiome

Shifts in microbial diversity, composition, and functionality in the gut and genital microbiome during a natural SIV infection in vervet monkeys, Anna J. Jasinska et al., Microbiome

A multi-disciplinary comparison of great ape gut microbiota in a central African forest and European zoo, Narat and Amato et al., Scientific Reports

Bioinformatics

Preprint – AGORA2: Large scale reconstruction of the microbiome highlights wide-spread drug-metabolising capacities, Almut Heinken et al., bioRxiv

Techniques

Preprint – Benchmarking DNA isolation kits used in analyses of the urinary microbiome, Lisa Karstens et al., bioRxiv

November 1, 2020

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Hello from the Sonoran Desert! In today’s digest, you’ll find several interesting works, in particular on recent advances in understanding the gut microbiome! Iandaza and collaborators review the rise of machine learning and deep learning methods in exploring the gut microbiota and the potential of these methods in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases. Additionally, this digest links to a freely-accessible webinar series from the university of Illinois on gut-brain connections.

If you are interested in microbial ecology, I also recommend taking a look at a very interesting preprint from Ettinger and collaborators. The authors investigate the distribution of fungi associated with a widely distributed seagrass, Zostera marina. This work is particularly relevant since the role and diversity of fungi in marine ecosystems are often overlooked in microbiome studies, while terrestrial fungi have been shown to have critical roles as decomposers, pathogens and endophytes.

Finally, you’ll find in this digest a non-microbiology pick: an amazing preprint where authors assessed 2.75 million open access articles on their transparency (data sharing, code sharing, conflicts of interest disclosures, funding disclosures and protocol registration)!

Have a great Sunday!

Events and webinars

Webinar: Scientific Webinars on the Gut-Brain Connection Spotlight Spike in Research

Pregnancy and early life

Review: The dark matter of microbiome: the mother-infant pair virome – Comitini et al. – Minerva Pediatrica

Human vaginal microbiome

Intrauterine Growth Restriction Is Associated with Unique Features of the Reproductive Microbiome – Hu et al. – Reproductive sciences

Human gut microbiome

Review: Gut microbiota and artificial intelligence approaches: A scoping review – Iadanza et al. – Health and Technology

Review: Circadian rhythms and the gut microbiota: from the metabolic syndrome to cancer – Bishehsari et al. – Nature Reviews Endocrinology

Ecological Structuring of Temperate Bacteriophages in the Inflammatory Bowel Disease-Affected Gut – Nishiyama et al. – Microorganisms

Animal microbiome

Preprint: Genomic and microscopic evidence of stable high density and maternally inherited Wolbachia infections in Anopheles mosquitoes – Walker et al. – BioRxiV

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Testosterone amendment alters metabolite profiles of the soil microbial community – Ding et al. – Environmental Pollution

Host population size is linked to orchid mycorrhizal fungal communities in roots and soil, which are shaped by microenvironment – Kaur et al. – Mycorrhiza

Root exudates drive soil‐microbe‐nutrient feedbacks in response to plant growth – Zhao et al. – Plant, Cell & Environment

Microbial activity and metamitron degrading microbial communities differ between soil and water-sediment systems – Wang et al. – Journal of hazardous materials

Water and extremophile microbiome

Review: Insights into ‘Symbiodiniaceae phycosphere’ in a coral holobiont – Guedes Garrido et al. – Symbiosis

Diversity and Dynamics of Seaweed Associated Microbial Communities Inhabiting the Lagoon of Venice – Juhmani et al. – Microorganisms

Preprint: Global diversity and biogeography of the Zostera marina mycobiome – Ettinger et al. – BioRxiV

Built environment

Analysis of Microbial Community Structure and Diversity in Surrounding Rock Soil of Different Waste Dump Sites in Fushun Western Opencast Mine – Jiang et al. – Chemosphere

My non-microbiology picks

Preprint: Assessment of transparency indicators across the biomedical literature: how open is open? – Serghiou et al. – BioRxiV

October 27, 2020

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Greetings from Pittsburgh, PA!

Today’s digest a contains articles focused on the oral microbiome, koala symbionts, soil microbial communities, and more. For those of you who are a bit too tired to digest cutting-edge research, I suggest using the 10 simple steps outlined in the highlighted editorial to colorize your own data visualizations. Finally, if you just need a break, I suggest bookmarking the article on the whale skin microbiome and revisiting the film Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.

Happy reading (or movie watching)!

General microbiome

Taxonomic profiling and functional characterization of the healthy human oral bacterial microbiome from the north Indian urban sub-population – Verma et al. – Archives of Microbiology

Pregnancy and early life

Maternal and cord blood vitamin D level and the infant gut microbiota in a birth cohort study – Kassem et al. – Maternal Health, Neonatology and Perinatology

Human gut microbiome

Review: A review on preventive role of ketogenic diet (KD) in CNS disorders from the gut microbiota perspective – Rawat et al. – Reviews in Neurosciences

Animal experiments

Challenges in microbiological identification of aerobic bacteria isolated from the skin of reptiles – Brockmann et al. – PLOS ONE

Isolation and sequence-based characterization of a koala symbiont: Lonepinella koalarum – Dahlhausen et al. – Peer J

Vertical transmission of zika virus in Aedes albopictus – Lai et al. – PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases

Cultured-dependent and cultured-independent study of bacteria associated with Thai commercial stingless bee Lepidotrigona terminata – Suphaphimol et al. – Journal of Apicultural Research

Animal microbiome

**Skin microbiome of beluga whales: spatial, temporal, and health-related dynamics – Van Cise et al. – Animal Microbiome

Diversity of bacterial symbionts associated with Myzus persicae (Sulzer) (Hemiptera: Aphididae: Aphidinae) revealed by 16S rRNA Illumina sequencing – Xu et al. – Microbial Ecology

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Protists and collembolans alter microbial community composition, C dynamics and soil aggregation in simplified consumer–prey systems – Erktan et al. – Biogeosciences

Responses of soil bacteria and fungi after 36 years fertilizer, straw cover, and irrigation management practices in northwest China – Zhang et al. – Soil Use and Management

Water and extremophile microbiome

Integration of time-series meta-omics data reveals how microbial ecosystems respond to disturbance – Herold et al. – Nature Communications

Islands in the sand: Are all hypolithic microbial communities the same? – Lebre et al. – FEMS Microbiology Ecology

Shifts of sediment bacterial community and respiration along a successional gradient in a typical karst plateau lake wetland (China) – Xia et al. – Journal of Oceanology and Limnology

Salinity controls soil microbial community structure and function in coastal estuarine wetlands – Zhang et al. – Environmental Microbiology

Phages and viruses

Association of host proteins with the broad host range filamentous phage NgoΦ6 of Neisseria gonorrhoeae – Piekarowicz et al. – PLOS ONE

Bioinformatics

**Editorial: Ten simple rules to colorize biological data visualization – Hattab et al. – PLOS Computational Biology

NanoGalaxy: Nanopore long-read sequencing data analysis in Galaxy – de Koning et al. – GigaScience

Predicting antimicrobial resistance using conserved genes – Nguyen et al. – PLOS Computational Biology

Techniques

Review: Innovations to culturing the uncultured microbial majority – Lewis et al. – Nature Reviews Microbiology

Comparison of the diversity of cultured and total bacterial communities in marine sediment using culture-dependent and sequencing methods – Wang et al. – PeerJ

Science, publishing, and career

Comment: Crowdsourcing virtual summer research opportunities to support minorities in microbiology – Johnson et al. – Nature Microbiology

October 14, 2020

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Good morning from sunny San Francisco, California! Today’s digest shares some fascinating in vivo studies including a paper from Ou et al. examining the role of host antimicrobial proteins α-definsins in bacterial colonization and epithelial cell adherence in the gut and a proof-of-concept paper from Hsu et al. in which the authors orally delivered an engineered phage to the gut of mice that was capable of specifically repressing gene expression in bacteria. Additionally, there are some great plant, root, and soil microbiome papers (Kusstatscher et al. show that treating maize seeds with a plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria improves plant health) and water microbiome papers (León-Zayas et al. published a super collaborative paper looking at microbiome sharing between sediments, seagrasses, and reef fish at multiple sites). Finally, I wanted to highlight a paper by Zelaya et al. outlining a course-based undergraduate research experience for teaching microbiology that focuses on the bean beetle microbiome. Happy reading!

Pregnancy and Early Life
Review: The early life education of the immune system: Moms, microbes and (missed) opportunities. – Nitya, J. et al., Gut Microbes

Delayed Establishment of Gut Microbiota in Infants Delivered by Cesarean Section. – Kim, G. et al., Frontiers in Microbiology

Human Respiratory Microbiome
Proteins produced by Streptococcus species in the lower respiratory tract can modify antiviral responses against influenza virus in respiratory epithelial cells. – Nishioka, K. et al., Microbes and Infection

Human Vaginal Microbiome
Vaginal host immune-microbiome interactions in a cohort of primarily African-American women who ultimately underwent spontaneous preterm birth or delivered at term. – Florova, V. et al., Cytokine

Human Oral Microbiome
Isolation and Characterization of Nitrate-Reducing Bacteria as Potential Probiotics for Oral and Systemic Health. – Rosier, B.T. et al., Frontiers in Microbiology

Human Gut Microbiome
Translocation of Viable Gut Microbiota to Mesenteric Adipose Drives Formation of Creeping Fat in Humans. – Ha, C.W.Y. et al., Cell

Gastrointestinal Surgery for Inflammatory Bowel Disease Persistently Lowers Microbiome and Metabolome Diversity. – Fang, X. et al., Inflammatory Bowel Diseases

Animal Experiments
α-Defensins Promote Bacteroides Colonization on Mucosal Reservoir to Prevent Antibiotic-Induced Dysbiosis. – Ou, J. et al., Frontiers in Immunology

In situ reprogramming of gut bacteria by oral delivery. – Hsu, B.B. et al., Nature Communications

The intestinal microbial metabolite desaminotyrosine is an anti‐inflammatory molecule that modulates local and systemic immune homeostasis. – Wei, Y. et al., The FASEB Journal

Modulation of experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis through colonisation of the gut with Escherichia coli. – Libbey, J.E. et al., Beneficial Microbes

Molecular patterns from a human gut-derived Lactobacillus strain suppress pathogenic infiltration of leukocytes into the central nervous system. -Sanchez, J.M.S. et al., Journal of Neuroinflammation

Plant, Root, and Soil Microbiome
Soil-microorganism-mediated invasional meltdown in plants. – Zhang, Z. et al., Nature Ecology and Evolution

Microbiome Management by Biological and Chemical Treatments in Maize Is Linked to Plant Health. – Kusstatscher, P. et al., Microorganisms

Disruption of Firmicutes and Actinobacteria abundance in tomato rhizosphere causes the incidence of bacterial wilt disease. – Lee, S-M. et al., The ISME Journal

Keystone Microbiomes Revealed by 14 Years of Field Restoration of the Degraded Agricultural Soil Under Distinct Vegetation Scenarios. – Zhang, Z. et al., Frontiers in Microbiology

Dynamic Changes in the Microbiome of Rice During Shoot and Root Growth Derived From Seeds. – Wang, M. et al., Frontiers in Microbiology

Root-Secreted Coumarins and the Microbiota Interact to Improve Iron Nutrition in Arabidopsis. – Harbort, C.J. et al., Cell Host & Microbe

Review: Pinpointing secondary metabolites that shape the composition and function of the plant microbiome. – Jacoby, R.P. et al., Journal of Experimental Botany

Water and Extremophile Microbiome
Microbiomes of fish, sediment and seagrass suggest connectivity of coral reef microbial populations. – León-Zayas, R. et al., PeerJ

Size Shapes the Active Microbiome of Methanogenic Granules, Corroborating a Biofilm Life Cycle. – Trego, A.C. et al., mSystems

Self-regulating microbiome networks ensure functional resilience of biofilms in sand biofilters during manganese load fluctuations. – Zhao, X. et al., Water Research

Review: Groundwater Microbial Communities in Times of Climate Change. -Retter, A. et al., Current Issues in Molecular Biology

Probiotics/Prebiotics
Combining IL-2-based immunotherapy with commensal probiotics produces enhanced antitumor immune response and tumor clearance. – Shi, L. et al., Journal for the ImmunoTherapy of Cancer

Mom’s diet matters: Maternal prebiotic intake in mice reduces anxiety and alters brain gene expression and the fecal microbiome in offspring. – Hebert, J.C. et al., Brain, Behavior, and Immunity

Prophylactic effects of oral administration of Lactobacillus casei on house dust mite-induced asthma in mice. – Lingzhi, L. et al., Food & Function

Bioinformatics
INTEDE: interactome of drug-metabolizing enzymes. – Yin, J. et al., Nucleic Acid Research.

GIMICA: host genetic and immune factors shaping human microbiota. – Tang, J. et al., Nucleic Acid Research

metaFlye: scalable long-read metagenome assembly using repeat graphs. – Kolmogorov, M. et al., Nature Methods

Diagnosing and Predicting Mixed-Culture Fermentations with Unicellular and Guild-Based Metabolic Models. – Scarborough, M.J. et al., mSystems

Education
The Bean Beetle Microbiome Project: A Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experience in Microbiology. – Zelaya, A.J. et al., Frontiers in Microbiology

October 07, 2020

Posted on by

Grant application (US specific grant)
2020 Biocodex Microbiota Foundation US $50,000 grant, supporting cutting edge research on the relationship between gut microbiota and chronic disease.
Deadline: October 15th.
Link: https://www.biocodexmicrobiotafoundation.com/national-call-projects/usa

General microbiome

Understanding the potential of lactobacilli in recurrent UTI prevention – Vagios, Hesham & Mitchel – Microbial Pathogenesis

Throat microbial community structure and functional changes in post-surgery laryngeal carcinoma patients – Hsueh et al. – Applied and Environmental Microbiology

Bacterial diversity and prevalence of antibiotic resistance genes in the oral microbiome – Almeida et al. – PLOS One

Metagenomics of the modern and historical human oral microbiome with phylogenetic studies on Streptococcus mutans and Streptococcus sobrinus – Achtman & Zhou – Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B

Pregnancy and early life

In utero human intestine harbors unique metabolomic features including bacterial metabolites – Li et al. – JCI insight

Interactions between Environmental Exposures and the Microbiome: Implications for Fetal Programming – Banerjee, Suter & Aagaard – Current Opinion in Endocrine and Metabolic Research

Human nearly-sterile sites (blood, organs, brain)

Alterations in blood microbiota after colonic cancer surgery – Søby et al. – BJS Open

Human gut microbiome

Estimating molecular preservation of the intestinal microbiome via metagenomic analyses of latrine sediments from two medieval cities – Sabin et al. – Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B

Gut microbiota composition in obese and non-obese adult relatives from the highlands of Papua New Guinea – Jonduo et al. – FEMS Microbiology Letters

Fecal Bacteria as Biomarkers for Predicting Food Intake in Healthy Adults – Shinn et al. – The Journal of Nutrition

Animal experiments

Inulin fermentation by lactobacilli and bifidobacteria from dairy calves – Zhu et al. – Applied and Environmental Microbiology

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Microbial Diversity and Community Structure in Alpine Stream Soil – Rasool et al. – Geomicrobiology Journal

Food microbiology

Impact of dietary fibers in infant formula on gut microbiota and the intestinal immune barrier – Kong et al. – Food & Function

Bioinformatics

[PREPRINT] A framework for comparing microbial networks reveals core associations – Rottjers et al. – bioRxiv

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

Gut health benefits begin in utero – Brita Belli – YaleNews

Medieval poo holds clues to health of modern-day gut microbiome – Sara Rigby – Science Focus