Category Archives: Human reproductive or urinary

October 29, 2021

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Sorry for the delayed post, WordPress was playing some mean tricks on me today and there were no treats! Good morning all and happy spooky season! It’s been a moment since I’ve written a post and I write to you now as a freshly (pepper)minted PhD! I’m feeling gourd and can’t wait to pumpkin spice things up with some fangtastic papers.

Some of the highlights include a paper by McAlpine et al. examining interkingdom relationships between bacteria and fungi. Specifically, they found that the gut commensal species Lactobacillus can produce a small molecule that blocks filamentous growth of the opportunistic pathogen Candida albicans. Another interesting paper comes from Michael Adams lab at the University of Georgia, Athens which showed that members of the gut microbiota have the capacity to assimilate the metal tungsten which, in turn, allows these microbes to oxidize a broad range of aldehydes in the gut. Additionally, a paper by Plummer et al. looked at the vaginal microbiota of women who have recurrent bacterial vaginosis as well as the penile microbiota of their partners, and found that when males also underwent antibiotic treatment it led to a decrease in bacterial vaginosis in their female partners.

Hope you enjoy reading these fa-boo-lous papers and may you eat, drink, and be scary this Halloween!

General Microbiome
A small molecule produced by Lactobacillus species blocks Candida albicans filamentation by inhibiting a DYRK1-family kinase. – MacAlpine, J. et al., Nature Communications.

Pregnancy and Early-Life
Bifidobacterium species associated with breastfeeding produce aromatic lactic acids in the infant gut. – Laursen, M.F. et al., Nature Microbiology.

Bifidobacterium catabolism of human milk oligosaccharides overrides endogenous competitive exclusion driving colonization and protection. – Heiss, B.E. et al., Gut Microbes.

Mother’s Milk Microbiome Shaping Fecal and Skin Microbiota in Infants with Food Allergy and Atopic Dermatitis: A Pilot Analysis. – Gołębiewski. M. et al., Nutrients.

Early-life formula feeding is associated with infant gut microbiota alterations and an increased antibiotic resistance load. – Pärnänen, K.M.M. et al., The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Human Vaginal Microbiome
A Prospective, Open-Label Pilot Study of Concurrent Male Partner Treatment for Bacterial Vaginosis. – Plummer, E.L. et al., mBio.

Human Gut Microbiome
Tungsten enzymes play a role in detoxifying food and antimicrobial aldehydes in the human gut microbiome. – Schut, G.J. et al., PNAS.

Commensal bacteria promote endocrine resistance in prostate cancer through androgen biosynthesis. – Pernigoni, N. et al., Science.

Vertebrate host phylogeny influences gut archaeal diversity. – Youngblut, N.D. et al., Nature Microbiology.

Gut microbiota dysbiosis contributes to the development of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. – Li, N. et al., Respiratory Research.

Oral Administration of Latilactobacillus sakei ADM14 Improves Lipid Metabolism and Fecal Microbiota Profile Associated With Metabolic Dysfunction in a High-Fat Diet Mouse Model. – Won, S.-M. et al., Frontiers in Microbiology.

Human Oral Microbiome
Discrimination of Bacterial Community Structures among Healthy, Gingivitis, and Periodontitis Statuses through Integrated Metatranscriptomic and Network Analyses. – Nemoto, T. et al., mSystems.

Animal Experiments
Commensal segmented filamentous bacteria-derived retinoic acid primes host defense to intestinal infection. – Woo, V. et al., Cell Host & Microbe.

Intestinal microbiota shapes gut physiology and regulates enteric neurons and glia. – Vicentini, F.A. et al., Microbiome.

Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG Derived Extracellular Vesicles Modulate Gut Microbiota and Attenuate Inflammatory in DSS-Induced Colitis Mice. – Tong, L. et al., Nutrients.

Animal Microbiome
Phage Treatment Trial to Eradicate LA-MRSA from Healthy Carrier Pigs. – Tuomala, H. et al., Viruses.

Characterization of the Eukaryotic Virome of Mice from Different Sources. – Zhang, C. et al., Microorganisms.

Supplemental L-Arginine Improves the Embryonic Intestine Development and Microbial Succession in a Chick Embryo Model. – Dai, D. et al., Frontiers in Nutrition.

Water and Extremophile Microbiome
Plastic-Degrading Potential across the Global Microbiome Correlates with Recent Pollution Trends. – Zrimec, J. et al., mBio.

Acrylate protects a marine bacterium from grazing by a ciliate predator. – Teng, Z.-J. et al., Nature Microbiology.

Plant, Root, and Soil Microbiome
The fungal root endophyte Serendipita vermifera displays inter-kingdom synergistic beneficial effects with the microbiota in Arabidopsis thaliana and barley. – Mahdi, L.K. et al., ISME Journal.

Spatial Characterization of Microbial Communities on Multi-Species Leafy Greens Grown Simultaneously in the Vegetable Production Systems on the International Space Station. – Hummerick, M.E. et al., Life (Basel).

Relationships between community composition, productivity and invasion resistance in semi-natural bacterial microcosms. – Jones, M.L. et al., Elife.

Probiotics
High-efficiency delivery of CRISPR-Cas9 by engineered probiotics enables precise microbiome editing. – Neil, K. et al., Molecular Systems Biology.

Techniques
Visualizing transfer of microbial biomolecules by outer membrane vesicles in microbe-host-communication in vivo. – Bittel, M. et al., Journal of Extracellular Vesicles.

October 8, 2021

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Today’s digest features a metagenomic meta-study on faecal microbiota transplantation, RibDif for count and compare 16S rRNA genes within a genus, and more. Also, there is a new FEMS Microbiology Letters collection of articles highlighting the evolution of education during the COVID-19 pandemic.

There is still time to join in the second 🌎 Microbiome Virtual International Forum 🌏. Recordings from previous MVIF can be found here.

And, the #Microber2021 just started! Check out this microbe edition of #Inktober drawing challenge – during October, every day a new scientific art on microbiology topic.

Global microbiome

Cultivating Healthy Connections: Exploring and Engineering the Microbial Flow That Shapes Microbiomes – Travis J. Wiles – mSystems

Neonatal microbiome

Presence of distinctive microbiome in the first-pass meconium of newborn infants – Jenni Turunen – Scientific Reports

Respiratory microbiome

Divergence of bacterial communities in the lower airways of CF patients in early childhood – John B. O’Connor – PlosOne

Gut microbiome

Drivers and Determinants of Strain Dynamics Following Faecal Microbiota Transplantation – Thomas Schmidt – bioRxiv

Western and non-western gut microbiomes reveal new roles of Prevotella in carbohydrate metabolism and mouth–gut axis – Vishnu Prasoodanan P. K. – npj Biofilms and Microbiomes

Animal microbiome

Phylogenetic systematics of Butyrivibrio and Pseudobutyrivibrio genomes illustrate vast taxonomic diversity, open genomes and an abundance of carbohydrate-active enzyme family isoforms – Sara E. Pidcock – Microbial Genomics

Animal experiment

Metabolic modulation of tumours with engineered bacteria for immunotherapy – Fernando P. Canale – Nature

Citrobacter amalonaticus Inhibits the Growth of Citrobacter rodentium in the Gut Lumen – Caroline Mullineaux-Sanders – mBio

Regulation of blood–brain barrier integrity by microbiome-associated methylamines and cognition by trimethylamine N-oxide – Lesley Hoyles – bioRxiv

Effects of prebiotic oligofructose-enriched inulin on gut-derived uremic toxins and disease progression in rats with adenine-induced chronic kidney disease – Ebru Melekoglu – PlosOne

Plant microbiome

Prevalence and Specificity of Chemoreceptor Profiles in Plant-Associated Bacteria – Claudia Sanchis-López – mSystems

Food

Bacteriocinogenic lactic acid bacteria in the traditional cereal-based beverage Boza: a genomic and functional approach – Luciano Lopes Queiroz – bioRxiv

Bioinformatics

metaGEM: reconstruction of genome scale metabolic models directly from metagenomes – Francisco Zorrilla – Nucleic Acids Research

RibDif: can individual species be differentiated by 16S sequencing? – Mikael Lenz Strube – Bioinformatics Advances

eggNOG-mapper v2: Functional Annotation, Orthology Assignments, and Domain Prediction at the Metagenomic Scale – Carlos P Cantalapiedra – Molecular Biology and Evolution

Sequencing DNA with nanopores: Troubles and biases – Clara Delahaye and Jacques Nicolas – PlosOne

Webinars &c

Conference: Microbiome Virtual International Conference #MVIF – October 14 (Pacific Live)/15 (Atlantic Reply)

Webinar: EMBARK Fall Webinars – a webinar series focused on AMR research

Microscopy Live! – Geology – an hour of live electron microscopy, guided by the audience – Plymouth Electron Microscopy Centre (October 29)

For more, check out a collection of microbiome events HERE!

Happy #Microber2021, sci-art October!

September 06, 2021

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General microbiome

[PREPRINT]Host-microbiome protein-protein interactions capture mechanisms in human disease – Zhou, Beltran & Brito – bioRxiv

Prognostic correlations with the microbiome of breast cancer subtypes – Banerjee et al. – Cell Death & Disease

Pregnancy and early life

[REVIEW]Composition of the vaginal microbiota during pregnancy in women living in sub-Saharan Africa: a PRISMA-compliant review – Juliana et al. – BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth

Aberrant gut-microbiota-immune-brain axis development in premature neonates with brain damage – Seki et al. – Cell Host & Microbe

Multi-site human microbiome

[PREPRINT]Comparing Fecal, Saliva, and Chicha Microbiomes Between Mothers and Children in an Indigenous Ecuadorian Cohort – Adams et al. – bioRxiv

Human respiratory microbiome

Alterations of gut microbiota in patients with active pulmonary tuberculosis in China: A pilot study – Shi et al. – International Journal of Infectious Diseases

Human oral microbiome

The effects of periodontitis associated microbiota on the development of oral squamous cell carcinoma – Hu, Shen & Tian – Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications

Human gut microbiome

Parasites and diet as main drivers of the Malagasy gut microbiome richness and function – Mondot et al. – Scientific Reports

[REVIEW]The second brain: The connection between gut microbiota composition and multiple sclerosis = Farshbafnadi, Agah & Rezaei – Journal of Neuroimmunology

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

Thymic development of gut-microbiota-specific T cells – Zegarra-Ruiz et al – Nature

High-fat diet alters stress behavior, inflammatory parameters and gut microbiota in Tg APP mice in a sex-specific manner – Yanguas-Casas – Neurobiology of Diesease

Sex-dependent effects on the gut microbiota and host metabolome in type 1 diabetic mice – Zhang et al. – Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA) – Molecular Basis of Disease

Bioinformatics

Efficient computation of Faith’s phylogenetic diversity with applications in characterizing microbiomes – Armstrong et al. – Genome Research

August 6, 2021

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Today’s digest features a detailed temporal profiling of the rhizosphere and endosphere microbiomes of rice plants exposed to different drought durations, a review on microbiome and recurrent urinary tract infections, a new therapeutic strategy for treating pregnancy disorders via modulation of the maternal gut microbiome in mice, and more. Also, check out a collection of microbiome podcasts. Happy Friday!

First, important NEWS:
If you've recently published an Open-Access paper or Green-OA in peer-reviewed journals or a preprint on a publicly available repository, you can SUBMIT it as Open-Access Paper Highlight and present your work to the worldwide audience at the Microbiome Virtual International Forum!
And, today you can join the 2021 NSURP Closing Ceremony or later you can check out the presentations by NSURP students and their summer internship work on microbiology and immunology here!
New studies:

Global microbiome

A Scale-Free, Fully Connected Global Transition Network Underlies Known Microbiome Diversity – Gongchao Jing – mSystems

Gut microbiome

Perspective: Crosstalk between γδ T cells and the microbiota – Pedro H. Papotto – Nature Microbiology

Opinion: Microbiota and sleep: awakening the gut feeling – Paromita Sen – Trends in Molecular Medicine

Structural and quantitative alterations of gut microbiota in experimental small bowel obstruction – Jiali Mo – PlosOne

Host adaptation in gut Firmicutes is associated with sporulation loss and altered transmission cycle – Hilary P. Browne – Genome Biology

Urinary microbiome

*Recurrent Urinary Tract Infections: Unraveling the Complicated Environment of Uncomplicated rUTIs – Jonathan Josephs-Spaulding – Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology

Vaginal microbiome

The association between the vaginal microenvironment and fecundability: a register-based cohort study among Chinese women – X Hong – BJOG

Animal experiments

*Maternal microbiota Bifidobacterium promotes placental vascularization, nutrient transport and fetal growth in mice – Jorge Lopez-Tello – bioRxiv

Early invasion of the bladder wall by solitary bacteria protects UPEC from antibiotics and neutrophil swarms in an organoid model – Kunal Sharma – Cell Reports

Root microbiome

*Prolonged drought imparts lasting compositional changes to the rice root microbiome – Christian Santos-Medellín – Nature Plants

Bioinformatics

COPLA, a taxonomic classifier of plasmids – Santiago Redondo‑Salvo – BMC Bioinformatics

Strainberry: automated strain separation in low-complexity metagenomes using long reads – Riccardo Vicedomini – Nature Communications

STRONG: metagenomics strain resolution on assembly graphs – Christopher Quince – Genome Biology

HumGut: a comprehensive human gut prokaryotic genomes collection filtered by metagenome data – Pranvera Hiseni – Microbiome

YouTube Tutorial: How to Critically Evaluate Machine Learning Methods – Thomas P. Quinn

Webinars &c

Conference: Microbiome Virtual International Conference #MVIF – September 14

Hackathon: Petabyte-Scale Sequence Search: Metagenomics Benchmarking Codeathon – Application deadline August 20; Event Dates: Sept. 27-Oct. – The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Data Science Strategy, the National Center for Biotechnology and Information at the National Library of Medicine, and the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Biological and Environmental Research.

Conference: Microbiome Superheroes Connect – September 8 – Australasian Human Microbiome Research Network

Webinar: EMBARK Fall Webinars – a webinar series where invited speakers will be presenting their AMR research and be contrasted to EMBARK members presenting the work performed in the EMBARK project.

For more, check out a collection of microbiome events HERE!

Podcasts

July 14, 2021

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General microbiome

Bacteriophage-Bacteria Interactions in the Gut: From Invertebrates to Mammals – Kirsch et al. – Annual Review of Virology

Helicobacter pylori infection has a detrimental impact on the efficacy of cancer immunotherapies – Oster et al. – Gut

Pregnancy and early life

Cervicovaginal microbiota and metabolome predict preterm birth risk in an ethnically diverse cohort – Flaviani et al. – JCI Insight

[REVIEW][Early-life gut microbiota and its connection to metabolic health in children: Perspective on ecological drivers and need for quantitative approach – Jian et al. – EBBioMedicine

Associations of air pollution and greenness with the nasal microbiota of healthy infants: A longitudinal study – Gisler et al. – Environmental Research

Human respiratory microbiome

Multi-omics profiling predicts allograft function after lung transplantation – Watzenböck et al. – European Respiratory Journal

Metagenomic Analysis Reveals A Possible Association Between Respiratory Infection and Periodontitis – Liu et al. – Genomics, Proteomics & Bioinformatics

Human skin microbiome

[REVIEW]Novel mechanisms of microbial crosstalk with skin innate immunity – Chinnappan & Harris-Tyron – Experimental Dermatology

Shifts in the skin bacterial and fungal communities of healthy children transitioning through puberty – Park et al. – Journal of Investigative Dermatology

Human gut microbiome

Gut-microbiota-targeted diets modulate human immune status – Wastyk et al. – Cell

[REVIEW]Silent hypoxia in COVID-19: a gut microbiota connection – Gopal et al. – Current Opinion in Physiology

[REVIEW]The Athlete and Gut Microbiome: Short-chain Fatty Acids as Potential Ergogenic Aids for Exercise and Training – Bongiovanni, Yin & Heaney

Identification and engraftment of new bacterial strains by shotgun metagenomic sequence analysis in patients with recurrent Clostridioides difficile infection before and after fecal microbiota transplantation and in healthy human subjects – Verma et al. – PLOS One

Kefir Ameliorates Specific Microbiota-Gut-Brain Axis Impairments in a Mouse Model Relevant to Autism Spectrum Disorder – van de Wouw et al. – Brain, Behavior, and Immunity

Animal microbiome

Comparative analysis of oral-gut microbiota between captive and wild long-tailed macaque in Thailand – Sawaswong et al. – Scientific Reports

Impact of the dietary inclusion of dried food residues on the apparent nutrient digestibility and the intestinal microbiota of dogs – Paßlack et al. – Archives of Animal Nutrition

Triphenyltin exposure causes changes in health-associated gut microbiome and metabolites in marine medaka – He et al. – Environmental Pollution

The microbial metabolite p-Cresol induces autistic-like behaviors in mice by remodeling the gut microbiota – Bermudez-Martin et al. – Microbiome

Microbes in space

Seven years of Progress in Determining Fungal Diversity and Characterization of Fungi Isolated from the Japanese Experiment Module KIBO, International Space Station – Satoh et al. – Microbiology and Immunology

Food microbiology

[REVIEW]Virome studies of food production systems: time for ‘farm to fork’ analyses – Mahony & van Sinderen – Current Opinion in Biotechnology

Bioinformatics

D-MANOVA: fast distance-based multivariate analysis of variance for large-scale microbiome association studies – Chen & Zhang – Bioinformatics

Umibato: estimation of time-varying microbial interaction using continuous-time regression hidden Markov model – Hosoda, Fukunaga & Hamada – Bioinformatics

[PREPRINT]Stool Studies Don’t Pass the Sniff Test: A Systematic Review of Human Gut Microbiome Research Suggests Widespread Misuse of Machine Learning – Quinn – arXiv

Techniques

Characterizing Microbiomes via Sequencing of Marker Loci: Techniques To Improve Throughput, Account for Cross-Contamination, and Reduce Cost – Harrison, Randolph & Buerkle – mSystems

Two-Target Quantitative PCR To Predict Library Composition for Shallow Shotgun Sequencing – Cho et al. – mSystems

Statistical approaches for differential expression analysis in metatranscriptomics – Zhang et al. – Bioinformatics

Benchmark of 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing using Japanese gut microbiome data from the V1–V2 and V3–V4 primer sets – Kameoka et al. – BMC Genomics

In vitro models of gut digestion across childhood: current developments, challenges and future trends – Fournier et al. – Biotechnology Advances

July 6, 2021

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Several great papers today including a very interesting Cell paper on how Bifidobacterium interacts with the immune system and an mBio article on how different types of dietary fibre shape the gut microbiota.

To our Australian readers I’d like to wish a happy NAIDOC week, which is a time to celebrate the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

General microbiome

Microbiota regulate social behaviour via stress response neurons in the brain – Wu et al. Nature. 

Defining the resilience of the human salivary microbiota by a 520-day longitudinal study in a confined environment: the Mars500 mission – Bacci et al. Microbiome

A MicroRNA Gene Panel Predicts the Vaginal Microbiota Composition. Cheng et al. mSystems

Human gut microbiome

Gut microbiota mediate the FGF21 adaptive stress response to chronic dietary protein-restriction in mice – Martin et al. Nature Communications. 

Gut microbes impact stroke severity via the trimethylamine N-oxide pathway – Zhu et al. Cell Host & Microbe

Dietary Fiber Hierarchical Specificity: the Missing Link for Predictable and Strong Shifts in Gut Bacterial Communities – Centu-Jungles et al. mBio

Pregnancy and Early-Life

Bifidobacteria-mediated immune system imprinting early in life – Henrick et al. Cell

Animal microbiome

Temporal patterns in Ixodes ricinus microbial communities: an insight into tick-borne microbe interactions – Lejal et al. Microbiome

Water Microbiome

Microbiome diversity and host immune functions influence survivorship of sponge holobionts under future ocean conditions – Posadas et al. ISME

Soil microbiome

A Community Effort: Combining Functional Amplicon Sequencing and Metagenomics Reveals Potential Biosynthetic Gene Clusters Associated with Protective Phenotypes in Rhizosphere Microbiomes – Winter. mSystems.

Bioinformatics

METAnnotatorX2: a Comprehensive Tool for Deep and Shallow Metagenomic Data Set Analyses – Milani et al. mSystems

June 25, 2021

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This week, the microbial sciences community worldwide (virtually) united at the World Microbe Forum – meeting highlights you can find here #WorldMicrobeForum.

Today’s digest features studies on group B Streptococcus pathogenesis, dental microbiota and aGVHD Risk, a book about writing and publishing papers, and more. Also, check out a collection of FREE, ONLINE microbiome events. Happy Friday!

Read about the experiences of 338 early career researchers from 36 countries with their mentors in Mentorship in life sciences: voices of mentees by A. Murat Eren (Meren)!

General microbiome

Behind the paper: Describing and naming bacteria in the 21st century – Thomas Hitch – Nature blog

Hierarchical control of microbial community assembly – Sammy Pontrelli – bioRxiv

Resistome

*L-form switching confers antibiotic, phage and stress tolerance in pathogenic Escherichia coli – Aleksandra Petrovic Fabijan – bioRxiv

Gut microbiome

A newly identified protein from Akkermansia muciniphila stimulates GLP-1 secretion – Patrice D. Cani and Claude Knauf – Cell Metabolism

Enrichment of gut microbiome strains for cultivation-free genome sequencing using droplet microfluidics – Anna Pryszlak – arXiv

Dispersal strategies shape persistence and evolution of human gut bacteria – Falk Hildebrand – Cell Host & Microbe

Urinary microbiome

Review: Urinary Microbiome: Yin and Yang of the Urinary Tract – Virginia Perez-Carrasco – Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology

Vaginal microbiome

Cysteine dependence in Lactobacillus iners constitutes a novel therapeutic target to modify the vaginal microbiota – Seth M. Bloom – bioRxiv

*A type VII secretion system in Group B Streptococcus mediates cytotoxicity and virulence – Brady L Spencer – bioRxiv

Life History Recorded in the Vagino-cervical Microbiome Along with Multi-omics – Zhuye Jie – Genomics, Proteomics & Bioinformatics

Predictive functional analysis reveals inferred features unique to cervicovaginal microbiota of African women with bacterial vaginosis and high-risk human papillomavirus infection – Harris Onywera – PlosOne

Effect of metronidazole on vaginal microbiota associated with asymptomatic bacterial vaginosis – Daniel Ruiz-Perez – Access Microbiology

Oral microbiome

*Dental Biofilm Microbiota Dysbiosis Is Associated With the Risk of Acute Graft-Versus-Host Disease After Allogeneic Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation – Vitor Heidrich – Frontiers in Immunology

Fusobacterium nucleatum metabolically integrates commensals and pathogens in oral biofilms – Akito Sakanaka – bioRxiv

Animal microbiome

*Microbiomes attached to fresh perennial ryegrass are temporally resilient and adapt to changing ecological niches – Sharon A. Huws – Microbiome

Animal experiments

A standardized gnotobiotic mouse model harboring a minimal 15-member mouse gut microbiota recapitulates SOPF/SPF phenotypes – Marion Darnaud – bioRxiv

Bioinformatics

GUNC: detection of chimerism and contamination in prokaryotic genomes – Askarbek Orakov – BMC Genome Biology

metaMIC: reference-free Misassembly Identification and Correction of de novo metagenomic assemblies – Senying Lai – bioRxiv

Open challenges for microbial network construction and analysis – Karoline Faust – The ISME Journal 2021

STRipy: a graphical application for enhanced genotyping of pathogenic short tandem repeats in sequencing data – Andreas Halman – bioRxiv

Adapting macroecology to microbiology: using occupancy modelling to assess functional profiles across metagenomes – Angus S Hilts – bioRxiv

Webinars &c

Microbiome Virtual International Conference #MVIF – September 14

The International Conference on Group B Strep (ICGBS) – July 20-22

World Enterococcus Day – July 15 – Registration here

BiATA2021 Bioinformatics: from Algorithms to Applications – July 12–15 


LSfM Lecture Series & Workshops : “The Dark Side of Science: Misconduct in Biomedical Research” Dr. Elisabeth Bik – more info here – June 30

EMBARK Webinars – Kimberly Kline “Pathogenesis and persistence during Enterococcus faecalis biofilm-associated infection” and Sofia Forslund “High-throughput measurement of host and microbiota” – EMBARK project – June 30

Writing

Writing and Publishing Scientific Papers: A Primer for the Non-English Speaker – Gábor Lövei – OpenBook Publishers

Art

From Scientist to SciArtist – Eliza Wolfson


June 23, 2021

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Happy Wednesday!

Today’s digest includes a review on the microbial transformations of human bile acids as well as research articles focused on extremophiles including Arthrobacter, Acidithiobacillus, and Atribacteria. Also included are a wide variety of preprints on topics such as CRISPR-Cas, the vaginal microbiome, immunocompetence in pigs, the evaluation of RNAlater for preserving field samples for metaproteomics, and more!

Happy reading!

General microbiome

Preprint: CRISPR-Cas systems are widespread accessory elements across bacterial and archaeal plasmids – Pinilla-Redondo et al. – bioRxiv

Human respiratory microbiome

Indoor bacterial, fungal and viral species and functional genes in urban and rural schools in Shanxi Province, China–association with asthma, rhinitis and rhinoconjunctivitis in high school students – Fu et al. – Microbiome

Human vaginal microbiome

Preprint: Insight into the ecology of vaginal bacteria through integrative analyses of metagenomic and metatranscriptomic data – France et al. – bioRxiv

Human gut microbiome

Review: Microbial transformations of human bile acids – Guzior & Quinn – Microbiome

Preprint: Targeted high-resolution taxonomic identification of Bifidobacterium longum subsp. infantis using human milk oligosaccharide metabolizing genes – Tso et al. – bioRxiv

An integrated gene catalog and over 10,000 metagenome-assembled genomes from the gastrointestinal microbiome of ruminants – Xie et al. – Microbiome

Animal experiments

Preprint: Leveraging host-genetics and gut microbiota to determine immunocompetence in pigs – Ramayo-Caldas et al. – bioRxiv

Joint contributions of the gut microbiota and host genetics to feed efficiency in chickens – Wen et al. – Microbiome

Animal microbiome

Holobiont nitrogen control and its potential for eutrophication resistance in an obligate photosymbiotic jellyfish – Röthig et al. – Microbiome

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Preprint: Microbial metabolism and adaptations in Atribacteria-dominated methane hydrate sediments – Glass et al. – bioRxiv

Preprint: Seed microbiota revealed by a large-scale meta-analysis including 50 plant species – Simonin et al. – bioRxiv

Preprint: The activity and functions of subarctic soil microbial communities vary across vegetation types – Viitamäki et al. – bioRxiv

Water and extremophile microbiome

Preprint: Revealing the full biosphere structure and versatile metabolic functions in the deepest ocean sediment of the Challenger Deep – Chen et al. – bioRxiv

Preprint: Mechanistic insights into the success of xenobiotic degraders resolved from metagenomes of microbial enrichment cultures – Li et al. – bioRxiv

Low shifts in salinity determined assembly processes and network stability of microeukaryotic plankton communities in a subtropical urban reservoir – Mo et al. – Microbiome

Linking genomic and physiological characteristics of psychrophilic Arthrobacter to metagenomic data to explain global environmental distribution – Shen et al. – Microbiome

Genomic adaptations enabling Acidithiobacillus distribution across wide-ranging hot spring temperatures and pHs – Sriaporn et al. – Microbiome

Built environment

Preprint: Metagenome-based comparisons of decay rates and host-specificity of fecal microbial communities for improved microbial source tracking – Suttner et al. – bioRxiv

Phages and viruses

Preprint: Expanding clinical phage microbiology: Simulating phage inhalation for respiratory tract infections – Porat et al. – bioRxiv

Techniques

Ultra-accurate microbial amplicon sequencing with synthetic long reads – Callahan et al. – Microbiome

Preprint: Evaluation of RNAlater as a field-compatible preservation method for metaproteomic analyses of bacteria-animal symbioses – Jensen et al. – bioRxiv

Preprint: Predicting microbiome compositions through deep learning – Michel-Mata et al. – bioRxiv

May 18, 2021

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Review articles on exciting microbiome topics dominate today’s post. My personal favorite review is by Berthoud et al. on gut-brain communication with focus on understanding functions of the vagus nerve. Others include – rumen microbiome, gut microbiota in neuronal feeding circuits, gut-brain axis in gastrointestinal cancer and a beautiful snapshot illustrating summary of microbiota effects on host physiology. Happy reading!

General Microbiome

Gut microbiota as a transducer of dietary cues to regulate host circadian rhythms and metabolism – Hyoann Choi – Nature Reviews Gatsroenterology and Hepatology

SnapShot: Microbiota effects on host physiology – Jennifer H.Hill – Cell

Roles for the gut microbiota in regulating neuronal feeding circuits – Kristie B. Yu – Journal of Clinical Investigation

Gut-brain communication and obesity: understanding functions of the vagus nerve – Hans-Rudolf Berthoud – Journal of Clinical Investigation

Exploiting unique features of the gut-brain interface to combat gastrointestinal cancer – Alyssa Schledwitz – Journal of Clinical Investigation

Human Microbiome

Evaluation of saliva as a source of accurate whole‐genome and microbiome sequencing data – Anthony F. Herzig – Genetic Epidemiology

The effects of nondigestible fermentable carbohydrates on adults with overweight or obesity: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials – Bocheng Xu – Nutrition Reviews

Altered gut microbiota correlates with cognitive impairment in Chinese children with Down’s syndrome – Shimeng Ren – European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry

A synthetic consortium of 100 gut commensals modulates the composition and function in a colon model of the microbiome of elderly subjects – Marta Perez – Gut Microbes

Animal Microbiome

The rumen microbiome: balancing food security and environmental impacts – Itzhak Mizrahi – Nature Reviews Microbiology

Components of the Gut Microbiome that Influence Bone Tissue‐Level Strength – Marysol Luna – Journal of Bone and Mineral Research

Characterization of growth phenotypes and gastrointestinal tract microbiota in sheep fed with caragana – Ke Zhang – Journal of Applied Microbiology

Techniques

‘GutFeel’: an in silico method for predicting gut health status based on the metabolic functional capabilities of the resident microbiome – Swadha Anand – Febs Letters

MiMeNet: Exploring microbiome-metabolome relationships using neural networks – Derek Reiman – Plos Computational Biology

Bacteria

Anatomy promotes neutral coexistence of strains in the human skin microbiome – Arolyn Conwill – BioRxiv

May 14, 2021

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Today’s digest features Emu for microbial community profiling with expectation-maximization algorithm to generate taxonomic abundance profiles from full-length 16S rRNA reads, glycobiology of UTI, profiling canine fecal microbiome by long-read metagenomics with Nanopore sequencing, spatial-temporal assessment of drinking water microbiome in Puerto Rico, ancient microbial genomes from paleofeces (with 61 previously undescribed species), and more.

Check out a list of awesome webinars, courses and podcasts. Happy Friday!

Today is the last day for #NSURP2021 applications:

The National Summer Undergraduate Research Project – A community-driven initiative to create rewarding remote summer research opportunities for BIPOC and Latinx undergraduate students in the microbial sciences.

Share your experience as an early career researcher with your academic mentor and take part in this important survey on mentorship!

Gut microbiome

Reconstruction of ancient microbial genomes from the human gut – Marsha C. Wibowo – Nature

Human and preclinical studies of the host–gut microbiome co-metabolite hippurate as a marker and mediator of metabolic health – François Brial – Gut Microbiota

Oral microbiome

*Mechanical biofilm disruption causes microbial and immunological shifts in periodontitis patients – William Johnston – Scientific Reports

Vaginal microbiome

Review: The Complex Link between the Female Genital Microbiota, Genital Infections, and Inflammation – Smritee Dabee – Infection and Immunity

Urinary microbiome

*Review: The glycobiology of uropathogenic E. coli infection: the sweet and bitter role of sugars in urinary tract immunity – Federico Lupo – Immunology

The Good and the Bad: Ecological Interaction Measurements Between the Urinary Microbiota and Uropathogens – Laurens E. Zandbergen – Frontiers in Microbiology

Urinary prostaglandin E2 as a biomarker for recurrent UTI in postmenopausal women – Tahmineh Ebrahimzadeh – Life Science Alliance

Impact of Vaginal Estrogen on the Urobiome in Postmenopausal Women With Recurrent Urinary Tract Infection – Carrie E. Jung – Female Pelvic Medicine & Reconstructive Surgery

Animal microbiome

*Long-read metagenomics retrieves complete single-contig bacterial genomes from canine feces – Anna Cuscó – BMC Genomics

Perinatal exposure to tetracycline contributes to lasting developmental effects on offspring – Elizabeth M. Hill – Animal Microbiome

Drinking water microbiome

*Spatial-temporal targeted and non-targeted surveys to assess microbiological composition of drinking water in Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria – Maria Catalina Sevillano – bioRxiv

Technique

Predicting the presence and abundance of bacterial taxa in environmental communities through flow cytometric fingerprinting – Jasmine Heyse – bioRixv

Sample preservation

Critical evaluation of faecal microbiome preservation using metagenomic analysis – Alena L. Pribyl – ISME Communications

Bioinformatics

*Emu: Species-Level Microbial Community Profiling for Full-Length Nanopore 16S Reads – Kristen D. Curry – bioRxiv

Microbiome differential abundance methods produce disturbingly different results across 38 datasets – Jacob T Nearing – bioRxiv

Improving metagenomic binning results with overlapped bins using assembly graphs – Vijini G. Mallawaarachchi – Algorithms for Molecular Biology

A method for achieving complete microbial genomes and improving bins from metagenomics data – Lauren M. Lui – Plos Computational Biology

Taxonomic annotation of 16S rRNA sequences of pig intestinal samples using MG-RAST and QIIME2 generated different microbiota compositions – J. Lima – Journal of Microbiological Methods

Webinars

EMBARK Spring Webinars – Heike Schmitt “International efforts for One Health surveillance of AMR (WHO Tricycle)” and Etienne Ruppé “On the use of Tricycle in EMBARK” – EMBARK project – May 19
Registration here
More info here

BISMiS Live – GCM 2.0: WDCM 10K Sequencing Project for Type Strains by Juncai Ma – Bergey’s Intl. Society for Microbial Systematics – May 15
Registration here
More info here

Women in Data Science 2021 – Perspectives in Industry and Academia – Bayer AG and de.NBI, Elixir Germany Event – 18 June

PPGSND thesis seminar: The dark side os science: misconduct in biomedical research – Elisabeth Bik – 20 May

mSystems Thinking Series – ASM

Courses

Riffomonas Project – R tutorials and more – PatricK Schloss

Machine learning in Python with scikit-learn – Inria

Introduction to Computer Science and Programming in Python – MIT

Using MOFA for integration of omics data – Ricard Argelaguet – May 25

Data Visualization: Use R, ggplot2, and the principles of graphic design to create beautiful and truthful visualizations of data – Andrew Heiss

Conferences

1st Young AMICI Symposium – Austrian Microbiome Initiative – May 25-26

Microbes, Social Equity, and Rural Health – The Microbes and Social Equity working group and The University of Maine Institute of Medicine – June 14–18

Podcast

Differential gene expression and DESeq2 with Michael Love – The Bioinformatics Chat – Roman Cheplyaka and Jacob Schreiber

The Fake Science Detectives with David Sanders and Elisabeth Bik – Follow the Science – Faye Flam

Research, networking and public perception of science with Linda J Kenney – Microbes and Us – Joseph Shuttleworth

The microbiome: Delicious food and solutions to the climate crisis with Lene Lange – Science Stories – Jens Degett