Category Archives: Human reproductive or urinary

August 16, 2020

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Today’s quite diverse digest features: a study on antimicrobial resistance in the drinking water microbiome in disinfected and disinfection-free drinking water systems, how Antarctic soil microorganisms stay energised and hydrated, and several awesome webinars and podcasts. Happy reading/listening!

General microbiome

Development of Microbiome Biobanks – Challenges and Opportunities – M.J. Ryan – Trends in Microbiology

Review: STROBE-metagenomics: a STROBE extension statement to guide the reporting of metagenomics studies – Tehmina Bharucha – The Lancet Infectious Diseases

Theme issue: The role of the microbiome in host evolution – compiled and edited by Oren Kolodny, Benjamin J. Callahan and Angela E. Douglas – Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

Selected papers:
Review: Microbiota–host interactions shape ageing dynamics – Miriam Popkes and Dario Riccardo Valenzano – Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

Opinion: Pathogen resistance may be the principal evolutionary advantage provided by the microbiome – Michael R. McLaren and Benjamin J. Callahan – Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

Gut microbiome

A Randomized Clinical Trial of Fecal Microbiota Transplant for Alcohol Use Disorder – Jasmohan S Bajaj – Hepatology

Urogenital microbiome

Comparative Genomic Study of Lactobacillus jensenii and the Newly Defined Lactobacillus mulieris Species Identifies Species-Specific Functionality – Catherine Putonti – mSphere

Vaginal Estrogen Therapy Is Associated with Increased Lactobacillus in the Urine of Post-Menopausal Women with OAB Symptoms – Dr. Krystal Thomas-White – American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology

Vaginal microbiome

Vaginal microbiota, genital inflammation, and neoplasia impact immune checkpoint protein profiles in the cervicovaginal microenvironment – Paweł Łaniewski –npj Precision Oncology

Lateral Gene Transfer Shapes Diversity of Gardnerella spp. – Lindsey L. Bohr – Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology

Variation of the vaginal microbiome during and after pregnancy in Chinese women – Xiaoai Zhang – medRxiv

Review: Diversity of Vaginal Microbiome in Pregnancy: Deciphering the Obscurity – Parakriti Gupta – Frontiers in Public Health

Pregnancy and early life

Evidence for contamination as the origin for bacteria found in human placenta rather than a microbiota – Rémi Gschwind – PlosOne

Respiratory microbiome

A Novel Description of the Human Sinus Archaeome During Health and Chronic Rhinosinusitis – Brett Wagner Mackenzie – Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology

Animal microbiome

Temporal changes in the gut microbiota in farmed Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) outweigh the response to diet supplementation with macroalgae – Ciara Keating – bioRxiv

Broiler Chickens and Early Life Programming: Microbiome transplant-induced cecal bacteriome dynamics and phenotypic effects – Gustavo A. Ramírez – bioRxiv

Rumen metaproteomics: Closer to linking rumen microbial function to animal productivity traits – Thea Os Andersen – Methods

Fast and Slow-Growing Management Systems: Characterisation of Broiler Caecal Microbiota Development throughout the Growing Period – Laura Montoro-Dasi – animals

Animal experiment

Mucosal or systemic microbiota exposures shape the B cell repertoire – Hai Li – Nature

The immune system fails to mount a protective response to Gram-positive or Gram-negative bacterial prostatitis – Federico Lupo – bioRxiv

Oncogenic Gene Fusions in Non-Neoplastic Precursors as Evidence that Bacterial Infection Initiates Prostate Cancer – Eva Shrestha – bioRxiv

Microbiome-derived inosine modulates response to checkpoint inhibitor immunotherapy – Lukas F. Mager – Science

Lung and gut microbiota are altered by hyperoxia and contribute to oxygen-induced lung injury in mice – Shanna L. Ashley – Science Translational Medicine

Plant/root/soil microbiome

*A genome compendium reveals diverse metabolic adaptations of Antarctic soil microorganisms – Maximiliano Ortiz – bioRxiv

Healthy soils for healthy plants for healthy humans – Heribert Hirt – EMBO reports

The Impact of Mercury Selection and Conjugative Genetic Elements on Community Structure and Resistance Gene Transfer – James P. J. Hall – Frontiers in Microbiology

Review: Plant–microbiome interactions: from community assembly to plant health – Pankaj Trivedi – Nature Reviews Microbiology

Water microbiome

*Differential prevalence and host-association of antimicrobial resistance traits in disinfected and non-disinfected drinking water systems – Maria Sevillano – Science of The Total Environment

MiDAS 3: An ecosystem-specific reference database, taxonomy and knowledge platform for activated sludge and anaerobic digesters reveals species-level microbiome composition of activated sludge – Marta Nierychlo – Water Research

Metagenomic profiling of ammonia- and methane-oxidizing microorganisms in two sequential rapid sand filters – Lianna Poghosyan – Water Research

Shotgun metagenomics of indigenous bacteria collected from the banks of the San Jacinto River for biodegradation of aromatic waste – Rupa Iyer and Ashish Damania – FEMS Microbiology Letters

Viruses and phages

Viruses in wastewater: occurrence, abundance and detection methods – Mary Vermi Aizza Corpuz – Science of The Total Environment

Viromes outperform total metagenomes in revealing the spatiotemporal patterns of agricultural soil viral communities – Christian Santos-Medellin – bioRxiv

Techniques

Correlative Light Electron Ion Microscopy reveal in vivo localisation of bedaquiline in Mycobacterium tuberculosis infected lungs – Antony Fearns – bioRxiv

Label-free smartphone quantitation of bacteria by darkfield imaging of light scattering in fluoropolymer micro capillary film allows portable detection of bacteriophage lysis – Sultan İlayda Dönmez – Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical

Bioinformatics

Raven: a de novo genome assembler for long reads – Robert Vaser and Mile Sikic – bioRxiv

SHAMAN: a user-friendly website for metataxonomic analysis from raw reads to statistical analysis – Stevenn Volant – BMC Bioinformatics

Rapid discovery of novel prophages using biological feature engineering and machine learning – Kimmo Sirén – bioRxiv

Critical Relevance of Stochastic Effects on Low-Bacterial Biomass 16S rRNA Gene Analysis – John R. Erb-Downward – mBio

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

Inclusion of Oxford Nanopore long reads improves all microbial and viral metagenome‐assembled genomes from a complex aquifer system – Will A. Overholt – Environmental Microbiology

Webinar

Microbiome, machine learning and network models – Amy Willis and Ben Bloem-Reddy – Northwest Data Science Seminar Series

The Gut Brain Axis across the Life Span – John Cryan – iScience webinar

Pushing the Envelope: Remodeling the Gram-negative Outer Membrane – M. Stephen Trent – SG BUG (Singapore Bacterial Ultra Group) seminar series

Podcast

Getting to Know Your Friendly Neighbourhood Microbiologist – Lucie Semenec and Amy Cain – The Joint Academic Microbiology Seminars podcast

Does not compute – Sanjay Srivastava, Alexa Tullett, and Simine Vazire – The Black Goat podcast

July 31, 2020

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Today’s digest features studies on hospital-associated bacterial communities on window components, the effect of urbanization on the vaginal microbiota of Amerindians, nitrate as a potential prebiotic for oral health, and the latest news in bioinformatics. Happy reading!

General microbiome

Microbial species interactions determine community diversity in fluctuating environments – Shota Shibasaki – bioRxiv

Review: The host-associated archaeome – Guillaume Borrel – Nature Reviews Microbiology

Oral microbiome

*Nitrate as a potential prebiotic for the oral microbiome – Bob T. Rosier – Scientific Reports

Skin microbiome

Deep skin dysbiosis in vitiligo patients: link with mitochondrial and immune changes – Hanene Bzioueche – medRxiv

Gut microbiome

Review: The microbiome: An emerging key player in aging and longevity– Minhoo Kim and Bérénice A. Benayoun – Translational Medicine of Aging

Immunoglobulin recognition of fecal bacteria in stunted and non-stunted children: findings from the Afribiota study – Kelsey E. Huus – Microbiome

Vaginal microbiome

*Changes in the vaginal microbiota across a gradient of urbanization – Daniela Vargas-Robles – Scientific Reports

Comparison between a novel molecular tool and conventional methods for diagnostic classification of bacterial vaginosis: is integration of the two approaches necessary for a better evaluation? – Margherita Scapaticci – New Microbiologica

Genome-wide mutagenesis identifies factors involved in Enterococcus faecalis vaginal adherence and persistence – Norhan Alhajjar – bioRxiv

Association between Vaginal Bacterial Microbiota and Vaginal Yeast Colonization – McKenna C Eastment – The Journal of Infectious Diseases

Urinary microbiome

Review: The microbiome in urological diseases – Kwang Woo Lee – Investigive and Clinical Urology

Review: FimH and Anti-Adhesive Therapeutics: A Disarming Strategy Against Uropathogens – Meysam Sarshar – Antibiotics

Characterization of urinary microbiome in patients with bladder cancer: Results from a single-institution, feasibility study – Juan Chipollini – Urologic Oncology: Seminars and Original Investigations

Animal microbiome

Resistance to change: AMR gene dynamics on a commercial pig farm with high antimicrobial usage – Jolinda Pollock – Scientific Reports

Vaginal Microbiota Changes During Estrous Cycle in Dairy Heifers – Juan J. Quereda – Frontiers in Veterinary Science

Animal experiment

The gut microbiome switches mutant p53 from tumour-suppressive to oncogenic – Eliran Kadosh – Nature

An Enteric Pathogen Subverts Colonization Resistance by Evading Competition for Amino Acids in the Gut – Gustavo Caballero-Flores – Cell Host & Microbe

Consumption of a Western-Style Diet Modulates the Response of the Murine Gut Microbiome to Ciprofloxacin – Damien J. Cabral – mSystems

Water and extremophile microbiome

Determining the primary sources of fecal pollution using microbial source tracking assays combined with land-use information in the Edwards Aquifer – Jessica Hinojosa – Water Research

Diverse Microorganisms in Sediment and Groundwater Are Implicated in Extracellular Redox Processes Based on Genomic Analysis of Bioanode Communities – Tyler J. Arbour – Frontiers in Microbiology

Food microbiome

Discovering microbiota and volatile compounds of surströmming, the traditional Swedish sour herring – Luca Belleggia – Food Microbiology

Built environment

*Viable bacterial communities on hospital window components in patient rooms – Patrick F. Horve – PeerJ

Microbiome and Metagenome Analyses of a Closed Habitat during Human Occupation – Ganesh Babu Malli Mohan – mSystems

Phages and viruses

Viral Metagenomic Content Reflects Seawater Ecological Quality in the Coastal Zone – Anastasia Tsiola – Viruses

Bioinformatics

Evaluating metagenomics tools for genome binning with real metagenomic datasets and CAMI datasets – Yi Yue – BMC Bioinformatics

Untangling Species-Level Composition of Complex Bacterial Communities through a Novel Metagenomic Approach – Christian Milani – mSystems

Automated prediction and annotation of small proteins in microbial genomes– Matthew G Durrant and Ami S Bhatt – bioRxiv

Accurate and sensitive detection of microbial eukaryotes from metagenomic shotgun sequencing data – Abigail L. Lind – bioRxiv

MicrobeAnnotator: a user-friendly, comprehensive microbial genome annotation pipeline – Carlos A. Ruiz-Perez – bioRxiv

Topological and kernel-based microbial phenotype prediction from MALDI-TOF mass spectra – Caroline Weis – Bioinformatics

NetCoMi: Network Construction and Comparison for Microbiome Data in R – Stefanie Peschel – bioRxiv

Review: Metagenomic approaches in microbial ecology: an update on whole-genome and marker gene sequencing analyses – Ana Elena Pérez-Cobas – Microbial Genomics

Podcast

Machine learning for drug development with Marinka Zitnik – Jacob Schreiber – The Bioinformatics Chat

July 7, 2020

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Today’s digest features the mighty sourdough microbiome, AGNOSTOS (a computational workflow for genes annotation using clustering and remote homology detection, contextualizing them with genomic and environmental information), and a new episode of the Bioinformatics Chat podcast about reproducible pipelines and NGLess (a user-friendly domain-specific programming language for NGS data processing), and more. Happy reading/listening!

General microbiome

Microbiome definition re-visited: old concepts and new challenges – Gabriele Berg – Microbiome

Positive interactions are common among culturable bacteria – Jared Kehe – bioRxiv

Gut microbiome

An emerging role of Prevotella histicola on estrogen-deficiency induced bone loss through the gut microbiota-bone axis – Zhongxiang Wang – bioRxiv

Identifying novel high-impact rare disease-causing mutations, genes and pathways in exomes of Ashkenazi Jewish inflammatory bowel disease patients – Yiming Wu – medRxiv

Early prediction of liver disease using conventional risk factors and gut microbiome-augmented gradient boosting – Yang Liu – medRxiv

GWAS of stool frequency reveals genes, pathways, and cell types relevant to human gastrointestinal motility and irritable bowel syndrome – Ferdinando Bonfiglio – medRxiv

Relationships of gut microbiota, short-chain fatty acids, inflammation, and the gut barrier in Parkinson’s disease – Velma Aho – medRxiv

Lung microbiome

Genetically diverse Pseudomonas aeruginosa populations display similar transcriptomic profiles in a cystic fibrosis explanted lung – Adrian Kordes – Nature Communications

Genitourinary microbiome

Architecture and function of human uromodulin filaments in urinary tract infections – Gregor L. Weiss – Science

The structure and diversity of strain level variation in vaginal bacteria – Brett A. Tortelli – bioRxiv

Synchronous genitourinary lichen sclerosus signals a distinct urinary microbiome profile in men with urethral stricture disease – Andrew J. Cohen – World Journal of Urology

Human urine 1H NMR metabolomics reveals alterations of the protein and carbohydrate metabolism when comparing habitual Average Danish diet vs. healthy New Nordic diet – Alessia Trimigno – Nutrition

Animal experiments

Lactobacillus rhamnosus probiotic prevents airway function deterioration and promotes gut microbiome resilience in a murine asthma model – Irina Spacova – Gut Microbes

Food microbiome

*The Sourdough Microbiome – Justine Dees – ASM

Strain-Level Diversity Impacts Cheese Rind Microbiome Assembly and Function – Brittany A. Niccum – mSystems

Bioinformatics

*Light into the darkness: Unifying the known and unknown coding sequence space in microbiome analyses – Chiara Vanni – bioRxiv

Welcome to the dark side of genomes and metagenomes – a blog post about the above mentioned study – Antonio Fernandez-Guerra

GraphBin: refined binning of metagenomic contigs using assembly graphs – Vijini Mallawaarachchi – Bioinformatics

Podcast

*Reproducible pipelines and NGLess with Luis Pedro Coelho – Roman Cheplyaka – The Bioinformatics Chat

June 21, 2020

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Hello from the Sonoran Desert! In today’s digest, you’ll find two very interesting reviews! Stagaman and collaborators come back on years of Zebra-fish gut microbiome research and explore the insights gleaned from this awesome model animal. On the other hand, François and Pybus review our understanding of avian viromes in both wild and domesticated bird populations, highlighting the current limitations and pitfalls in this research area.

But today’s digest also contains very interesting research papers! Gulino and collaborators are exploring viromes in New York city wastewater systems. This paper is particularly interesting as bacteriophages are typically left out from urban environments microbiomes studies, despite their abundance and importance in ecosystems.

Finally, today’s non-microbiology pick is a review that comes back on how information theory, developped by Claude Shannon in the late 40s, have been used in computational biology. This paper is particularly interesting for readers wanting to learn more about the basics of information theory and how it is applied today in bioinformatics.

Have a great Sunday!

Pregnancy and early life

Review: The microbiome in pediatric oncology – Rotz et al. – Cancer

Human respiratory microbiome

Metagenomic analysis of the lung microbiome in pulmonary tuberculosis – a pilot study – Hu et al. – Emerging Microbes & infections

Human vaginal microbiome

Taxonomic and Functional Differences in Cervical Microbiome Associated with Cervical Cancer Development –Nkufi Tange et al. – Scientific reports

Human gut microbiome

Preprint: The gut microbiome regulates memory function – Noble et al. – BioRxiV

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

review: Zebrafish microbiome studies make waves – Stagaman et al. – Lab Animal

Built environment (subways, indoor surfaces)

Revealing antimicrobial resistance in stormwater with MinION – Bialasek et al. – Chemosphere

Phages and viruses

Review: Towards an understanding of the avian virome –François et al. – Journal of general Virology

Initial Mapping of the New York City Wastewater Virome –Gulino et al. – mSystems

Bioinformatics

Higher order Markov models for metagenomic sequence classification – Burks et al. –Bioinformatics

Preprint: Combinatorial Algorithms for Strain Level Metagenomic Microbial Detection and Quantification –Zhu et al. –BioRxiV

Preprint: Ultra-rapid metagenotyping of the human gut microbiome – Shi et al. – BioRxiV

My non-microbiology pick

Review: Information Theory in Computational Biology: Where We Stand Today – Chanda et al. – Entropy

June 17, 2020

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Hello and welcome to Wednesday’s Digest! Today’s selection includes two separate but complementary papers from Cell Host & Microbe. The first, from Brett Finlay’s lab, investigates what drives the loss of Immunoglobulin A recognition by beneficial bacteria in the gut of undernourished children. The second, from Jeffrey Gordon’s lab, examines the impact of prebiotic and microbial interventions on oral vaccination responses in a mouse model of childhood undernutrition. These papers both highlight the important relationship between nutrition, the microbiota, and host mucosal immunity.

There are also a few fungi-focused papers today as well as some interesting animal microbiome research. Tan et al. compare the microbiome of pigs and their farmers and Andrade-Oliveira et al. found that antimicrobial resistance genes from a feline oral commensal can be transferred to a human-associated staphylococci. I also want to call attention to the techniques section, especially a paper by Song and Xie in which they used CRISPR/Cas9 to deplete host contamination in 16S rRNA gene amplicon samples.

Happy reading, y’all!

Pregnancy and Early-life
Analysis of Immune, Microbiota and Metabolome Maturation in Infants in a Clinical Trial of Lactobacillus Paracasei CBA L74-fermented Formula. Roggero, P. et al. Nature Communications.

Ecological Succession in the Vaginal Microbiota During Pregnancy and Birth. Rasmussen, M.A. et al. The ISME Journal.

Neonatal Diet Alters Fecal Microbiota and Metabolome Profiles at Different Ages in Infants Fed Breast Milk or Formula. Brink, L.R. et al. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Human Milk Fungi: Environmental Determinants and Inter-Kingdom Associations With Milk Bacteria in the CHILD Cohort Study. Moossavi, S. et al. BMC Microbiology.

Profiles of Human Milk Oligosaccharides and Their Relations to the Milk Microbiota of Breastfeeding Mothers in Dubai. Ayoub, C. et al. Nutrients.

Human Milk Microbiota Development During Lactation and Its Relation to Maternal Geographic Location and Gestational Hypertensive Status. Wan, Y. et al. Gut Microbes.

Skin Microbiome
Skin Microbiota Analysis-Inspired Development of Novel Anti-Infectives. Liu, Y. et al. Microbiome.

Review: Skin Microbiome Analysis for Forensic Human Identification: What Do We Know So Far? Tozzo, P. et al. Microorganisms.

Review: Protecting the Outside: Biological Tools to Manipulate the Skin Microbiota. O’Sullivan, J.N. et al. FEMS Microbiology and Ecology.

Vaginal Microbiome
Recovery of Vaginal Microbiota After Standard Treatment for Bacterial Vaginosis Infection: An Observational Study. Lehtoranta, L. et al. Microorganisms.

Alterations in Vaginal Microbiota and Associated Metabolome in Women With Recurrent Implantation Failure. Fu, M. et al. mBio.

Gut Microbiome
Alterations of the Gut Microbiota in Patients With COVID-19 or H1N1 Influenza. Gu, S. et al. Clinical Infectious Diseases.

Alterations in the Gut Microbiome and Suppression of Histone Deacetylases by Resveratrol Are Associated with Attenuation of Colonic Inflammation and Protection Against Colorectal Cancer. Alrafas, H.R. et al. Journal of Clinical Medicine.

Long-term Dietary Intervention Reveals Resilience of the Gut Microbiota Despite Changes in Diet and Weight. Fragiadakis, G.K. et al. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Oral Microbiome
Intraoral Microbial Metabolism and Association With Host Taste Perception. Gardner, A. et al. Journal of Dental Research.

Animal Experiments
Combined Prebiotic and Microbial Intervention Improves Oral Cholera Vaccination Responses in a Mouse Model of Childhood Undernutrition. Di Luccia, B. et al. Cell Host & Microbe.

Commensal Bacteria Modulate Immunoglobulin A Binding in Response to Host Nutrition. Huus, K.E. et al. Cell Host & Microbe.

The interplay between the gut microbiota and NLRP3 activation affects the severity of acute pancreatitis in mice. Xueyang, L. et al. Gut Microbes.

Structural and functional changes of gut microbiota in ovariectomized rats and their correlations with altered bone mass. Ma, S. et al. Aging (Albany NY).

Animal Microbiome
Comparative assessment of faecal microbial composition and metabonome of swine, farmers and human control. Tan, S.C. et al. Scientific Reports.

Staphylococcus nepalensis, a Commensal of the Oral Microbiota of Domestic Cats, Is a Reservoir of Transferrable Antimicrobial Resistance. Andrade-Oliveira, A.L. et al. Microbiology.

Increasing the Hindgut Carbohydrate/Protein Ratio by Cecal Infusion of Corn Starch or Casein Hydrolysate Drives Gut Microbiota-Related Bile Acid Metabolism To Stimulate Colonic Barrier Function. Pi, Y. mSystems.

The Microbial Biogeography of the Gastrointestinal Tract of Preterm and Term Lambs. Chong, C.Y.L. et al. Scientific Reports.

Microbial Ecology of Atlantic Salmon (Salmo Salar) Hatcheries: Impacts of the Built Environment on Fish Mucosal Microbiota. Minich, J.J. et al. Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

Dysbiosis in the Gut Microbiota of Soil Fauna Explains the Toxicity of Tire Tread Particles. Ding, J. et al. Environmental Science and Technology.

Insect Microbiome
Dietary Adaptation of Microbiota in Drosophila Requires NF-κB-Dependent Control of the Translational Regulator 4E-BP. Vandehoef, C. et al. Cell Reports.

Responses of soil and earthworm gut bacterial communities to heavy metal contamination. Liu, P. et al. Environmental Pollution.

Effect of Life Stage and Pesticide Exposure on the Gut Microbiota of Aedes Albopictus and Culex Pipiens L. Juma, E.O. et al. Scientific Reports.

Caterpillar Gut and Host Plant Phylloplane Mycobiomes Differ: A New Perspective on Fungal Involvement in Insect Guts. Višňovská, D. et al. FEMS Microbiology Ecology.

Plant, Root, and Soil Microbiome
The Response of Soil and Phyllosphere Microbial Communities to Repeated Application of the Fungicide Iprodione: Accelerated Biodegradation or Toxicity? Katsoula, A. et al. FEMS Microbiology Ecology.

Host Genotype Explains Rhizospheric Microbial Community Composition: The Case of Wild Cotton Metapopulations (Gossypium Hirsutum L.) in Mexico. Hernández-Terán, A. et al. FEMS Microbiology Ecology.

Review: Microbiome Approaches Provide the Key to Biologically Control Postharvest Pathogens and Storability of Fruits and Vegetables. Kusstatscher, P. et al FEMS Microbiology and Ecology.

Review: The Plant Microbiome: From Ecology to Reductionism and Beyond. Fitzpatrick, C.R. et al. Annual Review of Microbiology.

Water Microbiome
Persistence of Wastewater Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria and Their Genes in Human Fecal Material. Scaccia, N. et al. FEMS Microbiolgy Ecology.

Review: Microorganisms Populating the Water-Related Indoor Biome. Babič, M.N. et al. Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology.

Phage
Introducing Lu-1, a Novel Lactobacillus Jensenii Phage Abundant in the Urogenital Tract. Miller-Ensminger, T. et al. PLoS ONE.

Review: Bacteriophage-mediated Manipulation of the Gut Microbiome – Promises and Presents Limitations. Rasmussen, T.S. et al. FEMS Microbiology Reviews.

Bioinformatics
gutMEGA: A Database of the Human Gut MEtaGenome Atlas. Zhang, Q. et al. Briefings in Bioinformatics.

Techniques
Engineering CRISPR/Cas9 to mitigate abundant host contamination for 16S rRNA gene-based amplicon sequencing. Song, L. and Xie, K. Microbiome.

Optimization and Standardization of the Culturomics Technique for Human Microbiome Exploration. Diakite, A. et al. Scientific Reports

Direct detection of mRNA expression in microbial cells by fluorescence in situ hybridization using RNase H-assisted rolling circle amplification. Takahashi, H. et al. Scientific Reports.

June 3, 2020

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Today’s post covers articles on role of microbiome in sepsis, early life microbiota related to cystic fibrosis and respiratory syncitial virus disease, promise and challenge with cancer microbiome, effect of probiotics on intestinal homeostasis after chemotherapy and many more!

General microbiome

Predictive biology: modelling, understanding and harnessing microbial complexity – Allison J. Lopatkin – Nature Reviews Microbiology

The Gut Microbiome’s Role in the Development, Maintenance, and Outcomes of Sepsis – Max W Adelman – Critical Care

The Promise and Challenge of Cancer Microbiome Research – Sumeed Syed Manzoor – Genome Biology

Antidiabetic Effects of Flavan-3-ols and Their Microbial Metabolites – Estefanía Márquez Campos – Nutrients

Human microbiome

Longitudinal analysis reveals transition barriers between dominant ecological states in the gut microbiome – Roie Levy – PNAS

Strain-resolved microbiome sequencing reveals mobile elements that drive bacterial competition on a clinical timescale – Soumaya Zlitni – Genome Medicine

Comparative Assessment of Faecal Microbial Composition and Metabonome of Swine, Farmers and Human Control – Shiang Chiet Tan – Scientific Reports

Matching Between Donors and Ulcerative Colitis Patients Is Important for Long-Term Maintenance After Fecal Microbiota Transplantation – Koki Okahara – Journal of Clinical Medicine

Preganancy and early life

Alterations in Vaginal Microbiota and Associated Metabolome in Women With Recurrent Implantation Failure – Min Fu – mBio

Development of the Gut Microbiota in Early Life: The Impact of Cystic Fibrosis and Antibiotic Treatment – Maartje Kristensen – Journal of Cystic Fibrosis

Altered Gut Microbiota in Infants Is Associated With Respiratory Syncytial Virus Disease Severity – Jeffrey N Harding – BMC Microbiology

Ecological Succession in the Vaginal Microbiota During Pregnancy and Birth – M A Rasmussen – Isme Journal

Animal experiments

Host genotype and exercise exhibit species-level selection for members of the gut bacterial communities in the mouse digestive system – R. A. Dowden – Scientific Reports

Repetitive, Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Results in a Progressive White Matter Pathology, Cognitive Deterioration, and a Transient Gut Microbiota Dysbiosis – Mariana Angoa-Pérez – Scientific Reports

Association of Gut Microbiota Composition and Function With an Aged Rat Model of Senile Osteoporosis Using 16S rRNA and Metagenomic Sequencing Analysis – Sicong Ma – Aging

Increasing the Hindgut Carbohydrate/Protein Ratio by Cecal Infusion of Corn Starch or Casein Hydrolysate Drives Gut Microbiota-Related Bile Acid Metabolism To Stimulate Colonic Barrier Function – Yu Pi – mSystems

Plant, root and soil microbiome

Using Soil Bacterial Communities to Predict Physico-Chemical Variables and Soil Quality – Syrie M Hermans – Microbiome

Analysis of bacterial and archaeal communities associated with Fogo volcanic soils of different ages – Corinne Biderre-Petit – Fems Microbial Ecology

Water microbiome

Functional potential and assembly of microbes from sediments in a lake bay and adjoining river ecosystem for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon biodegradation – Zaisheng Yan – Environmental Microbiology

Functional foods

Effect of Probiotics on the Maintenance of Intestinal Homeostasis After Chemotherapy: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Pre-Clinical Studies – W G Lima – Beneficial Microbes

Non microbiology picks

Racial Disparities in Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices Related to COVID-19 in the USA– Wilson M Alobuia – Journal of Public Health

Ozone Treatment for Elimination of Bacteria and SARS-CoV-2 for Medical Environments – Craig Westover – BioRxiv

May 1, 2020

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Greetings from Durham, NC!

Hope everyone is doing well and staying healthy. Today’s digest includes several host-microbiome studies, environmental microbiome studies, and an intriguing EurekAlert news article.
In this light digest of today, I wanted to highlight a cool review about correlation of the oral microbiome with children’s health and a very interesting article on cell wall architecture of the gram-positive bacteria.
COVID-19 pandemic has opened a sort of Pandora’s box filled with great science along with pseudoscience. So, the digest has these two great articles from Nature: one about chloroquine and other about the race for coronavirus vaccines.
Staying at home is difficult for everyone, here is a fun activity to do: coloring space microbes book.

Stay Safe and entertained at home!!!!

COVID-19 news articles

The race for coronavirus vaccines: a graphical guide – Callaway – Nature

Chloroquine hype is derailing the search for coronavirus treatments – Ledford – Nature

General microbiome
*The architecture of the Gram-positive bacterial cell wall– Pasquina-Lemonche et al. – Nature

Pregnancy and early life
Maternal H. pylori is associated with differential fecal microbiota in infants born by vaginal delivery – Hernandez et al. – Scientific Reports

Metabolic Effects of Bovine Milk Oligosaccharides on Selected Commensals of the Infant Microbiome—Commensalism and Postbiotic Effects – Jakobsen et al. – Metabolites

Multi-site human microbiome
*Review: Oral microbiome: possible harbinger for children’s health – Xiao et al. – Nature International Journal of Oral Science

Animal microbiome
Links between the rumen microbiota, methane emissions and feed efficiency of finishing steers offered dietary lipid and nitrate supplementation – Bowen et al. – PLOS ONE

Plant, root, and soil microbiome
Variation in rhizosphere microbial communities and its association with the symbiotic efficiency of rhizobia in soybean – Han et al. – The ISME Journal

Water and extremophile microbiome
Review: Exopolysaccharides from marine bacteria: production, recovery and applications – Dave et al. – Environmental Sustainability

Stromatolitic digitate sinters form under wide‐ranging physicochemical conditions with diverse hot spring microbial communities – Sriaporn et al. – gebiology

Built environment
Comparative analysis of bacterial community and functional species in oil reservoirs with different in situ temperatures – Tian et al. – International Microbiology

Bioinformatics
Medusa: Software to build and analyze ensembles of genome-scale metabolic network reconstructions – Medlock et al. – PLOS Computational Biology

Review: The National Microbiome Data Collaborative: enabling microbiome science – Wood-Charlson et al. – Nature Reviews Microbiology

Probiotics / prebiotics
Lactobacillus plantarum NA136 ameliorates nonalcoholic fatty liver disease by modulating gut microbiota, improving intestinal barrier integrity, and attenuating inflammation – Zhao et al. -Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology

Microbes in the news
Scientists explore links between genetics, gut microbiome and memory – DOE/PACIFIC NORTHWEST NATIONAL LABORATORY

April 11, 2020

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Happy Saturday morning, y’all! I’m excited for my first contribution to the digest, and hope you enjoy my picks over a luxurious weekend meal. Today’s digest starts with some preprints about COVID including research on a drug that may inhibit viral replication. Other research highlights include an examination of the relationship between the vaginal microbiome and pre-term birth, a preprint on the oral microbiome in space, and a potential new technique for low cost, high-throughput metagenome profiling. Scroll all the way to the end for information about a fun project by a University of Wyoming student called The Microbestiary.

COVID-19
Preprint: Genomic determinants of pathogenicity in SARS-CoV-2 and other human coronaviruses. Auslander, N. et al.

Preprint: Nelfinavir inhibits replication of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 in vitro. Yamamoto, N. et al.

Preprint: Understanding the B and T cells epitopes of spike protein of severe respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2: A computational way to predict the immunogens. Vashi, Y. et al.

General Microbiome
Preprint: From iron to antibiotics: Identification of conserved bacterial-fungal interactions across diverse partners. Pierce, EC. et al.

Human Gut Microbiome
Review: Unraveling Host-Gut Microbiota Dialogue and Its Impact on Cholesterol Levels. Villette R. et al. Frontiers in Pharmacology.

Metagenomics analysis reveals features unique to Indian distal gut microbiota. Kaur, K. et al. PLOS ONE.

Gut Microbiota Modulate CD8 T Cell Responses to Influence Colitis-Associated Tumorigenesis. Yu, A.I. et al. Cell Reports.

Human Oral Microbiome
Preprint: Characterization of the oral microbiome of medically controlled type-2 diabetes patients. Santos, A. et al.

Human Vaginal Microbiome
Cervicovaginal microbiome and natural history of HPV in a longitudinal study. Usyk, M. et al. PLOS Pathogens.

Meta-Analysis of Vaginal Microbiome Data Provides New Insights Into Preterm Birth. Kosti, I. et al. Frontiers in Microbiology.

Water and Extremophile Microbiome
Microbiota characterization of Exaiptasia diaphana from the Great Barrier Reef. Hartman, L.M. et al. Animal Microbiome.

Microbial Diversity and Metabolic Potential in the Stratified Sansha Yongle Blue Hole in the South China Sea. He, P. et al. Scientific Reports.

Metabolic versatility of freshwater sedimentary archaea feeding on different organic carbon sources. Compte-Port, S. et al. PLOS ONE.

Animal Experiments and Animal Microbiome
The skin microbiome facilitates adaptive tetrodotoxin production in poisonous newts. Vaelli, P.M. et al. eLife.

Metatranscriptomic virome assessment of Rhipicephalus microplus from Colombia. Gomez, G.F. et al. Ticks and Tick-borne Diseases.

Preprint: Metabolic differences between symbiont subpopulations in the deep-sea tubeworm Riftia pachyptila. Hinzke, T. et al.

Preprint: Similar gut bacterial microbiota in two fruit-feeding moth pests collected from different host species and locations. Gong, Q et al.

Plant, Root, and Soil Microbiome
The preceding root system drives the composition and function of the rhizosphere microbiome. Zhou, Y. et al. Genome Biology.

Microbial Co-Occurrence in Floral Nectar Affects Metabolites and Attractiveness to a Generalist Pollinator. Rering, C.C. et al. Journal of Chemical Ecology.

Impact of phages on soil bacterial communities and nitrogen availability under different assembly scenarios. Braga, L.P.P. et al. Microbiome.

A predatory myxobacterium controls cucumber Fusarium wilt by regulating the soil microbial community. Ye, X. et al. Microbiome.

A plant genetic network for preventing dysbiosis in the phyllosphere. Chen, T. et al. Nature.

Fungal communities differentially respond to warming and drought in tropical grassland soil. de Oliveira, T.B. et al. Molecular Ecology.

Built Environment
An in-depth survey of the microbial landscape of the walls of a neonatal operating room. Derilus, D. et al. PLOS ONE.

Microbes in Space
Preprint: Defining the resilience of the human salivary microbiota by a 520 days longitudinal study in confined environment: the Mars500 mission. Bacci, G. et al.

Phages and Viruses
Phage cocktail containing Podoviridae and Myoviridae bacteriophages inhibits the growth of Pectobacterium spp. under in vitro and in vivo conditions. Zaczek-Moczydłowska, M.A. et al. PLOS ONE.

Dynamic genome evolution and complex virocell metabolism of globally-distributed giant viruses. Moniruzzaman M., et al. Nature Communications.

Preprint: Infection with novel Bacteroides phage BV01 alters host transcriptome and bile acid metabolism in a common human gut microbe. Campbell, D.E. et al.

Bioinformatics
Preprint: Integrative and Conjugative Elements (ICE) and Associated Cargo Genes within and across Hundreds of Bacterial Genera. Kaufman, J. et al.

Techniques
A restriction enzyme reduced representation sequencing approach for low-cost, high-throughput metagenome profiling. Hess, M.K. et al. PLOS ONE.

Industrial Microbiome
Open microbiome dominated by Clostridium and Eubacterium converts methanol into i-butyrate and n-butyrate. Huang, S. et al. Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology.

Fun with Microbes
University of Wyoming masters student Erin Bentley was selected for an Arctic Circle Expedition in 2021 where she will characterize microbes and share her discoveries on The Microbestiary.
“The Microbestiary strives to show the public, in welcoming and memorable ways, that the microbial world is populated by strange and beautiful characters,” says Bentley in an article published on the UW website.

April 4, 2020

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Good morning and salutations from Singapore! This is the first digest that I’m contributing for the blog, so I hope my selections are interesting to you all! Today’s digest begins with some recent COVID-19 pre-prints, before getting into papers on a diverse range of microbiome-related topics. Highlights today include a study on cats potentially harbouring SARS-CoV-2 (nooo…), the effect of C-section birth on the vaginal microbiota of adult women, and the impact of the virome on biogeochemical cycling in Lake Baikal.

COVID-19

Preprint: Characterization and treatment of SARS-CoV-2 in nasal and bronchial human airway epithelia – Pizzorno et al.

* Preprint: SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing serum antibodies in cats: a serological investigation – Zhang et al.

Preprint: Direct RNA sequencing and early evolution of SARS-CoV-2 – Taiaroa et al.

General microbiome

Review: Microbiota and metabolites in rheumatic diseases – Tong et al. – Autoimmunity Reviews

Human respiratory microbiome

Preprint: Distinctive airway microbial ecology of smokers and asthmatics – Turek et al.

Microbial burden and viral exacerbations in a longitudinal multicenter COPD cohort – Bouquet et al. – Respiratory Research

Human gut microbiome

An in vitro evaluation of the effects of different statins on the structure and function of human gut bacterial community – Zhao et al. – PLoS ONE

Human vaginal microbiome

* A cross-sectional pilot study of birth mode and vaginal microbiota in reproductive-age women – Stennett et al. – PLoS ONE

Animal experiments

Polysaccharide extracted from WuGuChong reduces high-fat diet-induced obesity in mice by regulating the composition of intestinal microbiota – Wang et al. – Nutrition & Metabolism

Animal microbiome

Intestinal microbes: an axis of functional diversity among large marine consumers – Scott et al. – Proceedings of the Royal Society B

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

The response of soil and phyllosphere microbial communities to repeated application of the fungicide iprodione: Accelerated biodegradation or toxicity? – Katsoula et al. – FEMS Microbiology Ecology

Divergent patterns of microbial community composition shift under two fertilization regimes revealed by responding species – Yao et al. – Applied Soil Ecology

Water and extremophile microbiome

* Preprint: New Viral Biogeochemical Roles Revealed Through Metagenomic Analysis of Lake Baikal – Coutinho et al.

Bioinformatics

Ten simple rules for providing effective bioinformatics research support – Kumuthini et al. – PLoS Computational Biology

Finally, remember that physical isolation doesn’t have to mean social isolation. Call someone you haven’t talked to in a while, I’m sure they’ll appreciate it! You’re doing great 😀

March 24, 2020

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Today’s Digest features a study to use engineered Acinetobacter to boost host immunity against bacterial pneumonia, and a review on the relationship between plant-microbe symbiosis and agriculture.The coronavirus is probably on the mind of all of us. Listen to Dr. Blaser talk about it. Stay well and keep reading.

Job

Research Tech II – CHOP Microbiome Center

COVID-19

Editorial: Coronavirus: three things all governments and their science advisers must do now – Nature

World View: Don’t rush to deploy COVID-19 vaccines and drugs without sufficient safety guarantees – Shibo Jiang – Nature

Q&A: The novel coronavirus outbreak causing COVID-19 – Dale Fisher & David Heymann – BMC Medicine

** Dr. Martin Blaser answers coronavirus questions from Twitter (full video available) – mlive.com

General microbiology

Regulation of fungal decomposition at single-cell level – Michiel Op De Beeck et al. – The ISME Journal

Antimicrobial resistance

** Broad-spectrum suppression of bacterial pneumonia by aminoglycoside-propagated Acinetobacter baumannii – M. Indriati Hood-Pishchany et al. – PLoS Pathogens

Vulnerability and resistance in the spatial heterogeneity of soil microbial communities under resource additions – Kelly Gravuer et al. – PNAS

Discovery of a novel integron-borne aminoglycoside resistance gene present in clinical pathogens by screening environmental bacterial communities – Maria-Elisabeth Böhm et al. – Microbiome

Characterization of antibiotic resistance and host-microbiome interactions in the human upper respiratory tract during influenza infection – Lingdi Zhang et al. – Microbiome

Human gut microbiome

The role of gut microbiota in bone homeostasis – Jyotirmaya Behera et al. – Bone

Animal experiments

Docosahexaenoate-enriched fish oil and medium chain triglycerides shape the feline plasma lipidome and synergistically decrease circulating gut microbiome-derived putrefactive postbiotics – Matthew I. Jackson & Dennis E. Jewell – PLoS One

Animal microbiome

The rodent vaginal microbiome across the estrous cycle and the effect of genital nerve electrical stimulation – Micah Levy et al. – PLoS One

The different dietary sugars modulate the composition of the gut microbiota in honeybee during overwintering – Hongfang Wang et al. – BMC Microbiology

Most dominant roles of insect gut bacteria: digestion, detoxification, or essential nutrient provision? – Tian-Zhong Jing et al. – Microbiome

Predictive ability of host genetics and rumen microbiome for subclinical ketosis – Grum Gebreyesus et al. – Journal of Dairy Science

Plant, root and soil microbiome

** Review: Agriculture and the Disruption of Plant–Microbial Symbiosis – Stephanie S. Porter & Joel L. Sachs – Trends in Ecology & Evolution

Taxon-specific microbial growth and mortality patterns reveal distinct temporal population responses to rewetting in a California grassland soil – Steven J. Blazewicz et al. – The ISME Journal

Reusing oil and gas produced water for agricultural irrigation: Effects on soil health and the soil microbiome – Hannah Miller et al. – Science of the Total Environment

Network analysis reveals the strengthening of microbial interaction in biological soil crust development in the Mu Us Sandy Land, northwestern China – Hong Zhou et al. – Soil Biology and Biochemistry

Water and extremophile microbiome

Performance and functional microbial communities of denitrification process of a novel MFC-granular sludge coupling system – Qiujin Deng et al. – Bioresource Technology

Microbial community structure and functional properties in permanently and seasonally flooded areas in Poyang Lake – Yang Liu et al. – Scientific Reports

Associations between redox-sensitive trace metals and microbial communities in a Proterozoic ocean analogue – Kathryn I. Rico et al. – Geobiology

Reactor configuration influences microbial community structure during high-rate, low-temperature anaerobic treatment of dairy wastewater – Paul G McAteer et al. – Bioresource Technology

Bioinformatics

Multiple-Disease Detection and Classification across Cohorts via Microbiome Search – Xiaoquan Su et al. – mSystems

Microbes in the news

How the mi­cro­biome is in­volved in the de­vel­op­ment of can­cer – Christian Urban – MedicalXpress

How a Fiber-Rich Plant-Based Diet Keeps Your Gut Microbiome Happy and Healthy – Chelsea Debret – One Green Planet

Gerhart: Keeping well during a pandemic – Timothy Gerhart – Your Valley

Study shows positive effect of cover crops on soil microbiome – AgriNews

Microbiome search engine can increase efficiency in disease detection and diagnosis – Chinese Academy of Sciences – EurekAlert

7 Ways A Gastroenterologist Supports His Microbiome & Overall Health – Marvin Singh – mbg Health

Infliximab Helps Gut Microbiome in Children with Crohn’s, Study Finds – Ana Pena – IBD News Today

Microbes on the market

DuPont, APC Microbiome Ireland link up for babies – Melody M. Bomgardner – C&EN