Category Archives: Human gut

November 3, 2020

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Greetings Everyone!!

Happy reading of an interesting digest for November 3, 2020.

General microbiome
The perfect condition for the rising of superbugs: person-to-person contagion and antibiotic use are the key factors responsible for the positive correlation between antibiotic resistance gene diversity and virulence gene diversity in human metagenomes -Domingues et al – bioRxiv

Human gut microbiome
Parallel and non-parallel changes of the gut microbiota during trophic diversification in repeated young adaptive radiations of sympatric cichlid fish – Härer et al – Microbiome

Exploring the resident gut microbiota of stranded odontocetes: high similarities between two dolphin species Tursiops truncatus and Stenella coeruleoalba – Abdelrhman et al – Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom

Animal experiments
Investigating the cow skin and teat canal microbiomes of the bovine udder using different sampling and sequencing approaches – Dean et al – Journal of Dairy Science

Animal microbiome
Review: Defining Coral Bleaching as a Microbial Dysbiosis within the Coral Holobiont – Boilard et al – microorganisms

Plant, root, and soil microbiome
Free Iron and Iron-Reducing Microorganisms in Permafrost and Permafrost-Affected Soils of Northeastern Siberia – Rivkina et al – Eurasian

Soil Science
Behaviors of cadmium in rhizosphere soils and its interaction with microbiome communities in phytoremediation – Niu et al – Chemosphere

Water and extremophile microbiome
Uncovering the genomic potential of the Amazon River microbiome to degrade rainforest organic matter – Santos-Júnior et al – Microbiome

Microbiome variability across the native and invasive range of the ascidian Clavelina oblonga – Goddard-Dwyer et al – Applied and Environmental Biology

Microbiome of the Black Sea water column analyzed by genome centric metagenomics – Cabello-Yeves et al – bioRxiv

Built environment
Review: Understanding building-occupant-microbiome interactions toward healthy built environments: A review – Li et al – Frontiers of Environmental Science & Engineering

Microbes in space
Molecular repertoire of Deinococcus radiodurans after 1 year of exposure outside the International Space Station within the Tanpopo mission – Ott et al – Microbiome

Bioinformatics
NBZIMM: negative binomial and zero-inflated mixed models, with application to microbiome/metagenomics data analysis – Zhang and Yi – BMC Bioinformatics

Techniques
MASI: microbiota—active substance interactions database – Zeng et al – Nucleic Acids Research

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 30, 2020

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COVID19
Cancer inpatients with COVID-19: A report from the Brazilian National Cancer Institute – de Melo et al. – PLOS One

Few bacterial co-infections but frequent empiric antibiotic use in the early phase of hospitalized patients with COVID-19: results from a multicentre retrospective cohort study in The Netherlands – Karami – et al. – Infectious Diseases

Infection of dogs with SARS-CoV-2 – Sit et al. – Nature

General microbiome/metabolome

Metabolomics of primary cutaneous melanoma and matched adjacent extratumoral microenvironment – Taylor et al. PLOS One

Human gut microbiome

Microbial signature in IgE-mediated food allergies – Goldberg et al. – Genome Medicine

Gut microbiota profiles of treatment-naïve adult acute myeloid leukemia patients with neutropenic fever during intensive chemotherapy – Rattanathammethee et al. – PLOS One

[Book Chapter]Understanding Polyphenols’ Health Effects Through the Gut Microbiota – Selma et al. – Dietary Polyphenols : Their Metabolism and Health Effects

[REVIEW]Gut Microbiota: Its Potential Roles in Pancreatic Cancer – Li et al. – Front. Cell. Infect. Microbiol.

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Biological invasions alter environmental microbiomes: A meta-analysis – Malacrino et al. – PLOS One

Phages and viruses

[PREPRINT]VirION2: a short- and long-read sequencing and informatics workflow to study the genomic diversity of viruses in nature – Zablocki et al. – bioRxiv

Mycobiome
[REVIEW]T cell immunity to commensal fungi – Scheffold, Bacher & LeibundGut-Landmann – Current Opinion in Microbiology

Bioinformatics

Prometheus, an omics portal for interkingdom comparative genomic analyses – Ko et al. – PLOS One

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

News in Brie! Scientists discover cheese is so smelly because it helps microbes ‘talk’ to the bacteria that makes it ripe – S. Howes – Daily Mail

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 22, 2020

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Good morning! A relatively short collection of articles to share with you today—highlights include a human microbiome study that evaluated disease markers in more than 3,000 subjects, a study of emerging antibiotic resistance in melting Alaskan permafrost, and a preprint that found multiple immune responses typically associated with the microbiome may actually be more closely linked to viruses.

Human gut microbiome

Health and disease markers correlate with gut microbiome composition across thousands of people, Ohad Manor et al., Nature Communications

Newly Explored Faecalibacterium Diversity Is Connected to Age, Lifestyle, Geography, and Disease, Francesca De Filippis et al., Current Biology

Preprint: Extraintestinal pathogenic (ExPEC) lineages explain prolonged faecal carriage of travel-acquired extended-spectrum β-lactamase-producing Escherichia coli, Boas CL van der Putten et al., bioRxiv

Intestinal microbiology shapes population health impacts of diet and lifestyle risk exposures in Torres Strait Islander communities, Fredrick M Mobegi et al., eLife

Animal experiments

A longitudinal study reveals the alterations of the Microtus fortis colonic microbiota during the natural resistance to Schistosoma japonicum infection, Du Zhang et al., Experimental Parasitology

Animal microbiome

Seasonal variation in the gut microbiota of rhesus macaques inhabiting limestone forests of southwest Guangxi, China, Yuhui Li et al., Archives of Microbiology

Preprint: Persistence of the ground beetle (Coleoptera: Carabidae) microbiome to diet manipulation, Anita Silver et al., bioRxiv

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Preprint: Unearthing the Boreal Soil Resistome Associated with Permafrost Thaw, Haan and Drown, bioRxiv

Phages and viruses

Preprint: Enteric viruses evoke broad host immune responses resembling bacterial microbiome, Simone Dallari et al., bioRxiv

October 21, 2020

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Good morning from Northern Germany,

Today’s selection comprises among others new research about intestinal microbiome and breast cancer (by Koren lab), a perspective about the human microbiome in the 21st century and the diversity in marine sediments. Additionally, we selected a study about linking genetics, microbiome and autoimmunity (multiple sclerosis) in a mouse model and a study about postmortomics.

Conferences

The 3rd Microbiome Movement – Skin Health & Dermatology Summit unites leaders from academia and industry to address the unique challenges that working within the skin microbiome possesses, with the goal to accelerate microbiome-targeted therapeutics and cosmetics.
View the event website for more details.

General microbiome

[Review] Metabolomics Signatures of Aging: Recent Advances – Sunil and Yulan – Aging and Disease

The human microbiome in the 21st century – Rackaityte & Lynch – Nature Communications

Human gut microbiome

The intestinal microbiome, weight, and metabolic changes in women treated by adjuvant chemotherapy for breast and gynecological malignancies – Uzan-Yulzari et al. BMC Medicine

[Review] The Role of the Gut Microbiota in Coronary Heart Disease – Liu et al. – Coronary Heart Disease

[Review] Gut microbial molecules in behavioural and neurodegenerative conditions – Needham, Kaddurah & Mazmanian – Nature Reviews Neuroscience

Animal experiments

Interactions between host genetics and gut microbiota determine susceptibility to CNS autoimmunity – Montgomery et al. – PNAS

Bifidobacterium alters the gut microbiota and modulates the functional metabolism of T regulatory cells in the context of immune checkpoint blockade – Sun et al. – PNAS

Bugs and drugs: a systems biology approach to characterising the effect of moxidectin on the horse’s faecal microbiome – Daniels, Swann & Proudman – Animal Microbiome

A pioneer calf foetus microbiome – Guzman et al. – Scientific Reports

Water and extremophile microbiome

Global diversity of microbial communities in marine sediment – Hoshino et al. – PNAS

Bioinformatics

[Review] Statistical and Machine-Learning Analyses in Nutritional Genomics Studies – Khorraminezhad et al. – nutrients
[Review] A need to consider the evolutionary genetics of host‐symbiont mutualisms – Stoy et al. – Journal of Evolutionary Biology

Techniques

Postmortomics: The Potential of Untargeted Metabolomics to Highlight Markers for Time Since Death – Pesko et al. – OMICS: A Journal of Integrative Biology

October 16, 2020

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In today’s digest read about how food additives affect the intestinal microbiota and induce intestinal inflammation, the role of the gut microbiome in honey bee nestmate recognition, how to use gene-level analysis to identify microbial “genome islands” associated with human health, and more. Check out the list of audiobooks about microbes. Happy Friday!

General microbiome

Time as a microbial resource – Karen G. Lloyd – Environmental Microbiology Reports

Review: The Central Role of Interbacterial Antagonism in Bacterial Life – S. Brook Peterson – Current Biology

Gut microbiome

*Dietary Emulsifiers Directly Impact Adherent-Invasive E. coli Gene Expression to Drive Chronic Intestinal Inflammation – Emilie Viennois – Cell Reports

Microbial Strain Engraftment, Persistence and Replacement after Fecal Microbiota Transplantation – Daniel Podlesny – medRxiv

Characterization of presumptive vancomycin-resistant enterococci recovered during infection control surveillance in Dallas, Texas – Sara Ping – bioRxiv

Metabolic dissimilarity determines the establishment of cross-feeding interactions in bacteria – Samir Giri – bioRxiv

Metabolic Response of Faecalibacterium prausnitzii to Cell-Free Supernatants from Lactic Acid Bacteria – Mathilde Lebas – Microorganisms

A combination of metagenomic and cultivation approaches reveals hypermutator phenotypes within Vibrio cholerae infected patients – Inès Levade – bioRxiv

Safety and functional enrichment of gut microbiome in healthy subjects consuming a multi-strain fermented milk product: a randomised controlled trial – Anne-Sophie Alvarez – Scientific Reports

Skin microbiome

Microbial and transcriptional differences elucidate atopic dermatitis heterogeneity across skin sites – Noora Ottman – Allergy

Respiratory microbiome

Multicenter analysis of sputum microbiota in tuberculosis patients – Claudia Sala – PlosOne

Lacticaseibacillus casei AMBR2 modulates the epithelial barrier function and immune response in a donor-derived nasal microbiota manner – Charlotte De Rudder – Scientific Reports

Animal microbiome

*The gut microbiome defines social group membership in honey bee colonies – Cassondra L. Vernier – Science Advances

Early-life gut dysbiosis linked to juvenile mortality in ostriches – Elin Videvall – Microbiome

Animal experiment

The Immune System Fails to Mount a Protective Response to Gram-Positive or Gram-Negative Bacterial Prostatitis – Federico Lupo – Journal of Immunology

The aging mouse microbiome has obesogenic characteristics – Dana Binyamin – Genome Medicine

Tetracycline Antibiotics Induce Host-Dependent Disease Tolerance to Infection – Henrique G. Colaço – Immunity

Water microbiome

Impact of phosphate dosing on the microbial ecology of drinking water distribution systems: Fieldwork studies in chlorinated networks – Isabel Douterelo – Water Research

Sustained nitrogen loss in a symbiotic association of Comammox Nitrospira and Anammox bacteria – Ekaterina Y. Gottshall – bioRxiv

Viruses and phages

Culturing novel and abundant pelagiphages in the ocean – Zefeng Zhang – Environmental Microbiology

High-throughput mapping of the phage resistance landscape in E. coli – Vivek K. Mutalik – PlosBiology

Fungi

Minireview: Fun(gi)omics: Advanced and Diverse Technologies to Explore Emerging Fungal Pathogens and Define Mechanisms of Antifungal Resistance – Brianna Ball – mBio

Technique

Bac-PULCE: Bacterial Strain and AMR Profiling Using Long Reads via CRISPR Enrichment – Andrea Sajuthi – bioRxiv

Bioinformatics

*Gene-level metagenomics identifies genome islands associated with immunotherapy response – Samuel S Minot – bioRxiv

PUMAA: A Platform for Accessible Microbiome Analysis in the Undergraduate Classroom – Keith Mitchell – Frontiers in Microbiology

Raman2imzML converts Raman imaging data into the standard mass spectrometry imaging format – Stefania Alexandra Iakab – BMC Bioinformatics

Scientific writing

Eight problems with literature reviews and how to fix them – Neal R. Haddaway – Nature Ecology & Evolution

Scientific art

Inktober2020 #PathogenPortraits by Dr Eliza Wolfson

Citizen science

The Human Diets & Microbiome Initiative in the US (THDMI): A unique opportunity to become a citizen scientist. Join for FREE to uncover the secret of the gut microbiome.

Books

11 Audiobooks About Microbes – Justine Dees – Joyful Microbe

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 13, 2020

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Today’s mid-week digest is about – meta analysis of metabolic benefits of probiotics, probiotics and synbiotics, microbiome association with narcolepsy type 1, design of microbial consortium for reduced C. difficle colonization, new sequencing technique for pathogen identification in cerebrospinal fluid and many more… Happy reading!

Human microbiome

The effect of probiotics, prebiotics or synbiotics on metabolic outcomes in individuals with diabetes: a systematic review and meta-analysis – Patricia M. Bock – Diabetologia

Effect of a Nonoptimal Cervicovaginal Microbiota and Psychosocial Stress on Recurrent Spontaneous Preterm Birth – Kristin D. Gerson – American Journal of Perinatology

Targeting the microbiome-gut-brain axis for improving cognition in schizophrenia and major mood disorders: A narrative review – Miquel Bioque – Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry

Inflammatory Bowel Disease Environmental Risk Factors: Diet and Gut Microbiota – Sarah Altajar – Current Gastroenterology Reports

Co‐ and polymicrobial infections in the gut mucosa: the host‐microbiota‐pathogen perspective – Teresa Frisan – Cellular Microbiology

Gut microbiota composition is associated with narcolepsy type 1 – Alexandre Lecomte – Neurology

A parental transcriptional response to microsporidia infection induces inherited immunity in offspring – Alexandra R. Willis – BioRxiv

Melamine contamination and associated health risks: Gut microbiota does make a difference – Meenakshi Rajpoot – Biotechnology and Applied Biochemistry

Animal microbiome

Rational design of a microbial consortium of mucosal sugar utilizers reduces Clostridiodes difficile colonization – Fátima C. Pereira – Nature Communications

Effects of seasonality and previous logging on faecal helminth-microbiota associations in wild lemurs – I. I. de Winter – Scientific Reports

Bacterial community analysis on the different mucosal immune inductive sites of gastrointestinal tract in Bactrian camels – Wang-Dong Zhang – PlosOne

Sows affect their piglets’ faecal microbiota until fattening but not their Salmonella enterica shedding status – Guillaume Larivière‐Gauthier – Letters in Applied Microbiology

Plant, root and soil microbiome

Comparison of soil microbial community between reseeding grassland and natural grassland in Songnen Meadow – Ruifen Zhu – Scientific Reports

Evidence for signatures of ancient microbial life in paleosols – Katharina Frindte – Scientific Reports

Techniques

Pathogen identification in culture-negative cerebrospinal fluid specimens of patients with purulent meningitis using next-generation sequencing technology – Xin Men – International Journal of Clinical Experimental Pathology

October 11, 2020

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Hello from the Sonoran Desert! In today’s digest, you’ll find quite a few exciting reads about ancient microbes!

Duchêne and collaborators review recents efforts in paleopathology leading to the genome sequencing of ancient pathogens of historical interest such as the pre-modern bubonic plague (Yersinia pestis), smallpox (Variola virus) and cholera (Vibrio cholerae). In their review, the authors explore this amazing topic that aims to broaden our understanding of the past infectious disease.

On the other hand, Eisenhofer and collaborators examine ancient microbial DNA preserved within dental calculus samples from two major cultural periods in Japan: the Jomon period circa 3000 years ago and the Edo period circa 400–150 ago. In this piece, they explore how human oral microbiomes have changed through time in ancient Japanese populations.

Finally, you’ll find in this digest a non-microbiology pick: a “10 simple rules” paper outlining best practices for annotating and submitting sequencing data! Indeed, metadata accompanying sequence datasets is critical to ensure data longevity and reusability by both human and machine agents, and poor metadata can drastically reduce the value of sequencing experiments by limiting its reuse in integrative analyses!

Have a great Sunday!

General Microbiology

Review: The Recovery, Interpretation and Use of Ancient Pathogen Genomes – Duchêne et al. – Current Biology

Multi-site human microbiome

Functional diversity of microbial ecologies estimated from ancient human coprolites and dental calculus – Jacobson et al. – Philosphical transactions of the royal society of Biological sciences.

Human respiratory and oral microbiome

Investigating the demographic history of Japan using ancient oral microbiota – Eisenhofer et al. – Philosphical transactions of the royal society of Biological sciences.

Human gut microbiome

Preprint: Distinct human gut microbial taxonomic signatures uncovered with different sample processing and microbial cell disruption methods for metaproteomic analysis – Garcia-Duran et al. – BioRxiv.

Review: Deciphering diet-gut microbiota-host interplay: Investigations of pectin. – Tan and Nie – Trends in Food Science & Technology

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Book Chapter: Microbes and Environment: Global Warming Reverting the Frozen Zombies. In: Fahad et al. (eds) Environment, Climate, Plant and Vegetation Growth. Springer, Cham.

Taxonomic Diversity of Bacteria and Their Filterable Forms in the Soils of Eastern Antarctica (Larsemann Hills and Bunger Hills) – Kudinova et al. – Microbiology.

Preprint: Long-term warming effects on the microbiome and nitrogen fixation associated with the moss Racomitrium lanuginosum in Icelandic tundra – Klarenberg et al. – bioRxiv

Water and extremophile microbiome

Diversity of Eukaryotic Microorganisms in the Drainage Waters of a Coal Open-Cast Mine – Gruzdev et al. – Microbiology

Dissimilarity of microbial diversity of pond water, shrimp intestine and sediment in Aquamimicry system – Zeng et al. – AMB express.

Comparative diversity analysis of halophiles at two polar saltern systems in Indramayu, West Java, Indonesia – Chasanah et al. – Letters in Applied Microbiology.

Mechanistic model of nutrient uptake explains dichotomy between marine oligotrophic and copiotrophic bacteria – Norris et al. – BioRxiv.

Food microbiology

Review: Microbial diversity of seafood. Parlapani. Current Opinion in Food Science.

Phages and viruses

The first head‐tailed virus, MFTV1, produced by a hyperthermophilic methanogenic deep‐sea archaea – Thiroux et al. – Environmental microbiology.

Review: Single-virus genomics and beyond – Martinez et al. – Nature reviews Microbiology

Bioinformatics

A Rapid Automated Process for Organizing Bacterial Cluster Segments Using Deep Neural Networks – Elroy Martis et al. – IEEE conference

Techniques

FACS-iChip: a high-efficiency iChip system for microbial ‘dark matter’ mining – Liu et al. – Marine Life Science and Technology

Comparison of Nucleic Acid Extraction Methods for a Viral Metagenomics Analysis of Respiratory Viruses – Sabatier et al. – Microorganisms

Science, publishing, and career

Preprint: Advancing science or advancing careers? Researchers’ opinions on success indicators – Aubert Bonn and Pinxten – BioRxiv.

My non-microbiology picks

Ten simple rules for annotating sequencing experiments – Stevens et al. – Plos Computational Biology