Category Archives: Human gut

June 30, 2020

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Hallo und Guten Morgen from Germany! I hope you are well and have the time and energy to enjoy some microbiome related reading hours. I included a number of interesting reviews, related to mental and general health, soil microbiome and amphibian skin microbiome.
There is also a nice variety of new microbe research, including the influence of temperature changes on the microbiome of lizards and the microbiome’s association with heat tolerance, seasonal cycles of microbial communities in the Baltic Sea and the influence of hydrocarbons pollutants on the human skin microbiome.
Enjoy the reading!

SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19

Preprint: Role of Anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in different cohorts: Can they provide clues for appropriate patient triaging? – Manohar B Mutnal – bioRxiv

General microbiome

Review: Impact of Human Microbiome on Health – Sujata Das – Microbial Diversity, Interventions and Scope

Review: Inflammation in Mental Disorders: Is the Microbiota the Missing Link? – Sophie Ouabbou – Neuroscience Bulletin

Human skin microbiome

Changes of the human skin microbiota upon chronic exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon pollutants – Marcus H. Y. Leung – Microbiome

Human gut microbiome

Review: Current Limitations for the Assessment of the Role of the Gut Microbiome for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) – Andreas Hiergeist – Frontiers in Psychiatry

Animal microbiome

*Lizard gut microbiome changes with temperature and is associated with heat tolerance – Andrew H. Moeller – Applied and Environmental Microbiology

Review: The Amphibian Skin Microbiome and Its Protective Role Against Chytridiomycosis – Eria A. Rebollar – Herpetologica

Bacterial diversity associated with the abdomens of naturally Plasmodium-infected and non-infected Nyssorhynchus darlingi – Tatiane Marques Porangaba Oliveira – BMC Microbiology

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Review: Deliberate introduction of invisible invaders: A critical appraisal of the impact of microbial inoculants on soil microbial communities – Panji Cahya Mawarda – Soil Biology and Biochemistry

Plant microbiota modified by plant domestication – Esperanza Martínez-Romero – Systematic and Applied Microbiology

Water and extremophile microbiome

A genomic view of trophic and metabolic diversity in clade-specific Lamellodysidea sponge microbiomes – Sheila Podell – Microbiome

Functional Associations and Resilience in Microbial Communities – Maria-Luisa Avila-Jimenez – Microorganisms

*Autumn to spring microbial community in the northern Baltic Sea: temporal variability in bacterial, viral and nanoflagellate abundance during the cold-water season – Laura Kaikkonen – Polar Biology

Food microbiology

Reservoirs of antimicrobial resistance genes in retail raw milk – Jinxin Liu – Microbiome

Bioinformatics

Correlation-Centric Network (CCN) representation for microbial co-occurrence patterns: new insights for microbial ecology – Pengshuo Yang – NAR Genomics and Bioinformatics

Review: From bag-of-genes to bag-of-genomes: metabolic modelling of communities in the era of metagenome-assembled genomes – Clémence Frioux – Computational and Structural Biotechnology Journal

June 23, 2020

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Human gut microbiome

US nativity and dietary acculturation impact the gut microbiome in a diverse US population – Peters et al. – The ISME Journal


GlycA, a novel marker for low grade inflammation, reflects gut microbiome diversity and is more accurate than high sensitive CRP in reflecting metabolomic profile – Mokkala et al. – Metabolomics

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

Black tea benefits short‐chain fatty acid producers but inhibits genus Lactobacillus in the gut of healthy Sprague–Dawley rats – Gao et al. – Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture

Animal microbiome (for animals in the wild)

A role for gut microbiota in host niche differentiation – Greene et al. – The ISME Journal


Host-microbiota interaction helps to explain the bottom-up effects of climate change on a small rodent species – Li – The ISME Journal

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Recovery of fen peatland microbiomes and predicted functional profiles after rewetting – Emsens – The IMSE Journal
Water and extremophile microbiome (sea, rivers, lakes, glaciers, permafrost, high-salt)

Genomic and transcriptomic insights into methanogenesis potential of novel methanogens from mangrove sediments – Zhang et. al – Microbiome

Antibiotic resistance

Chlorine disinfection promotes the exchange of antibiotic resistance genes across bacterial genera by natural transformation – Jin et al. – The ISME Journal

Phages and viruses

Narnaviruses: novel players in fungal–bacterial symbioses – Espino-Vazquez – The ISME Journal

June 22, 2020

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General microbiome
Impact of feeding and stirring regimes on the internal stratification of microbial communities in the fermenter of anaerobic digestion plants – Robert Heyera – Bioresource Technology

Human microbiome
REVIEW: Role of the Microbiome in Allergic Disease Development – Andrea C. Aguilera, – Pediatric Allergy and Immunology

Optimization and standardization of the culturomics technique for human microbiome exploration – Ami Diakite – Scientific Reports

Human skin microbiome
The microbiome of diabetic foot ulcers: a comparison of swab and tissue biopsy wound sampling techniques using 16S rRNA gene sequencing – J. Travis – BMC Microbiology

Human gut microbiome
Interpersonal Gut Microbiome Variation Drives Susceptibility and Resistance to Cholera Infection – Salma Alavi – Cell

EDITORIAL: Gut microbes effects on host metabolic alterations in health and disease – Suzana D. Savkovic – Gut Microbes

Revealing links between gut microbiome and its fungal community in Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus among Emirati subjects: A pilot study – Mohammad Tahseen Al Bataineh – Scientific Reports

Alterations in the Gut Microbiome in the Progression of Cirrhosis to Hepatocellular Carcinoma – Yelena Lapidot – mSystems

Human respiratory microbiome
Taxonomic diversity of sputum microbiome in lung cancer patients and its relationship with chromosomal aberrations in blood lymphocytes – V. G. Druzhinin – Scientific Reports

Pregnancy and early life
Human milk microbiota development during lactation and its relation to maternal geographic location and gestational hypertensive status – Yi Wan – Gut Microbes

Maternal Microbiota, Cortisol Concentration, and Post-PartumWeight Recovery Are Dependent on Mode of Delivery – Marta Selma-Royo – Nutrients

Human ancient microbiome
Analysis of oral microbiome from fossil human remains revealed the significant differences in virulence factors of modern and ancient Tannerella forsythia – Anna Philips – BMC Genomics

Animal experiments
Zebrafish microbiome studies make waves – Keaton Stagaman – Lab Animal

Animal microbiome
An Insight into Diversity and Functionalities of Gut Microbiota in Insects – Shengchen Wang – Current Microbiology

Plant, root, and soil microbiome
Microbial assimilation dynamics differs but total mineralization from added root and shoot residues is similar in agricultural Alfisols – Yingde Xu – Soil Biology and Biochemistry

Effects of increasing concentrations of unamended and gypsum modified bauxite residues on soil microbial community functions and structure – A mesocosm study – Camille Fourrier – Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety

Microbiome approaches provide the key to biologically control postharvest pathogens and storability of fruits and vegetables – Peter Kusstatscher – FEMS Microbiology Ecology

Variations of rhizospheric soil microbial communities in response to continuous Andrographis paniculata cropping practices – Junren Li – Botanical Studies

Seed Metabolism and Pathogen Resistance Enhancement in Pisum sativum During Colonization of Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi: An Integrative Metabolomics-Proteomics Approach – Nima Ranjbar Sistani – Frontiers in Plant Science

Water microbiome
Differential Responses of a Coastal Prokaryotic Community to Phytoplanktonic Organic Matter Derived from Cellular Components and Exudates – Hiroaki Takebe – Microbes and Environments

Built environment
MINI-REVIEW: Microorganisms populating the water-related indoor biome – Monika Novak Babič – Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology

Pre-print
Shotgun metagenomics reveals signicant gut microbiome features in different grades of acute pancreatitis – Shanshan Yu – Research Square

Characteristics of Esophagus Flora in Patients with Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma in Central China – Shuixiang He – Research Square

Can root-associated fungi mediate the impact of abiotic conditions on the growth of a High Arctic herb? – Magdalena Wutkowska – bioRxiv

Microbes on the market
Finch Therapeutics Announces Positive Topline Results from Randomized Controlled Trial of CP101, an Oral Microbiome Drug, for the Prevention of Recurrent C. difficile Infection – Finch Therapeutics

Microbes in the news
Gut reaction: How the gut microbiome may influence the severity of COVID-19 – Shirin Moossavi – The Conversation

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 20th, 2020

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Glad midsommar!

Happy midsummer to everyone from Sweden. Today’s digest is heavy on the preprints with a couple of thought-provoking editorials from the journal Nature. You will notice a lot of articles related to COVID-19. There is an interesting study that proposes the use of dogs and their sensory powers to detect CoV infections. More importantly, a preprint discusses the use of a tyrosine kinase as a potential drug and another preprint discusses the results of a massive FDA-approved drug repurposing screen for COVID. Also in the digest is an article where the researchers have shown that the gut microbiome produces neurotransmitters and another article that explains how Streptomyces spores hitchhike. Another article, although not related to our general theme, is super interesting as well. A group of scientists have proposed that the first egg of the dinosaurs was probably soft-shelled and not like the hard eggs we imagined all this time!

I am sorry for doing a lousy job today at providing a proper context and some informative introduction to today’s digest as it is the most awaited Midsommar holiday and the barbecue is calling! I hope everyone is enjoying the summer. Make sure to follow social distancing guidelines!

COVID-19

Preprint: Bcr-Abl tyrosine kinase inhibitor imatinib as a potential drug for COVID-19 – Nirmitee Sanjay Mulgaonkar, et al.

Preprint: Variant analysis of SARS-CoV-2 strains in Middle Eastern countries – Khalid M Bindayna and Shane Crinion

Preprint: Polymorphism and selection pressure of SARS-CoV-2 vaccine and diagnostic antigens: implications for immune evasion and serologic diagnostic performance – Eric Dumonteil and Claudia Herrera

Preprint: Disruption of Adaptive Immunity Enhances Disease in SARS-CoV-2 Infected Syrian Hamsters – Rebecca Brocato, et al.

Preprint: High-density amplicon sequencing identifies community spread and ongoing evolution of SARS-CoV-2 in the Southern United States – Ryan P McNamara, et al.

Preprint: Proteotyping SARS-CoV-2 virus from nasopharyngeal swabs: a proof-of-concept focused on a 3 min mass spectrometry window – Duarte Gouveia, et al.

Preprint: A single dose of recombinant VSV-∆G-spike vaccine provides protection against SARS-CoV-2 challenge – Yfat Yahalom-Ronen, et al.

Preprint: Antiviral treatment of SARS-CoV-2-infected hamsters reveals a weak effect of favipiravir and a complete lack of effect for hydroxychloroquine – Suzanne JF Kaptein, et al.

Preprint: Drug repurposing screens reveal FDA approved drugs active against SARS-Cov-2 – Mark Dittmar, et al.

Preprint: Dog Savior: Immediate Scent-Detection of SARS-COV-2 by Trained Dogs – Omar Vesga, et al.

Preprint: Evaluation of the performance of SARS-CoV-2 serological tools and their positioning in COVID-19 diagnostic strategies. – Aurélie Velay, et al.

General Microbiome

Preprint: Exploring the Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease Bacterial Pathobiome – Deborah Iwanowicz, et al.

Preprint: Hi-C deconvolution of a textile-dye degrader microbiome reveals novel taxonomic landscapes and link phenotypic potential to individual genomes – Ayixon Sanchez-Reyes, et al.

A metabolic pathway for bile acid dehydroxylation by the gut microbiome – Masanori Funabashi, et al. – Nature

A neurotransmitter produced by gut bacteria modulates host sensory behaviour – Michael P. O’Donnell, et al. – Nature

Proteome

Preprint: Novel functional insights from the Plasmodium falciparum sporozoite-specific proteome by probabilistic integration of 26 studies – Lisette Meerstein-Kessel, et al.

Bacteria

Preprint: Conjugal DNA transfer in the maternally inherited symbiont of tsetse flies Sodalis glossinidius – Christopher G Kendra, et al.

Preprint: Systematic analysis of REBASE identifies numerous Type I restriction-modification systems that contain duplicated, variable hsdS specificity genes that randomly switch methyltransferase specificity by recombination. – John M. Atack, et al.

Preprint: The role of LmeA, a mycobacterial periplasmic protein, in stabilizing the mannosyltransferase MptA and its product lipomannan under stress – Kathryn C Rahlwes, et al.

Preprint: Microbial piggy-back: how Streptomyces spores are transported by motile soil bacteria – Alise R. Muok, et al.

Viruses

Preprint: Herbivore-induced activation of viral phosphatase disarms plant antiviral immunities for pathogen transmission – Pingzhi Zhao, et al.

Preprint: Quantifying the acquisition and retention of lumpy skin disease virus by haematophagus insects and the implications for transmission and control – Beatriz Sanz-Bernardo, et al.

Preprint: Identification of a critical horseshoe-shaped region in the nsp5 (Mpro, 3CLpro) protease interdomain loop (IDL) of coronavirus mouse hepatitis virus (MHV) – Benjamin C. Nick, et al.

Preprint: A sweep of earth’s virome reveals host-guided viral protein structural mimicry; with implications for human disease – Gorka Lasso, et al.

Others

The first dinosaur egg was soft – Mark A. Norell, et al. – Nature

Junior researchers hit by coronavirus-triggered hiring freezes – Chris Woolston – Nature

Peer review should be an honest, but collegial, conversation – Nature

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 16, 2020

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Sorry for the late afternoon digest. We are in the midst of trying to get our lab back up and running! There are several interesting papers today, including a commentary on the holobiont model and the usefulness of integrating microbiome and GWAS data, the development of a “Microbiome-Derived Metabolism Screen” for personalized medicine published in Cell, and a paper investigating phylosymbiosis in the skin microbiome of fish. My non-microbiology pick is a urine sampling method to assess diet, which could be very useful to gut microbiome scientists.

General microbiome

Commentary: Re-evaluating the relationship between missing heritability and the microbiome – Gavin M. Douglas – Microbiome

Book chapter: Pharmacomicrobiomics – Weihua Huang – Pharmacogenomics in Precision Medicine

Human gut microbiome

Review: Altered Composition of Gut Microbiota in Depression: A Systematic Review – Zahra Amirkhanzadeh Barandouzi – Frontiers in Psychiatry

Review: Tryptophan Metabolites Along the Microbiota-Gut-Brain Axis: An Interkingdom Communication System Influencing the Gut in Health and Disease – Annalisa Bosi – International Journal of Tryptophan Research

Personalized Mapping of Drug Metabolism by the Human Gut Microbiome – Bahar Javdan – Cell

Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron-derived outer membrane vesicles promote regulatory dendritic cell responses in health but not in inflammatory bowel disease – Lydia Durant – Microbiome

Animal microbiome

The skin microbiome of elasmobranchs follows phylosymbiosis, but in teleost fishes, the microbiomes converge – Michael P. Doane – Microbiome

Whole-genome sequence analysis of environmental Escherichia coli from the faeces of straw-necked ibis (Threskiornis spinicollis) nesting on inland wetlands – Ethan R Wyrsch – Microbial Genomics

Intestinal Microbiota Analyses of Litopenaeus vannamei During a Case of Atypical Massive Mortality in Northwestern Mexico – Alejandro López-Cortés – Current Microbiology

Identification of hepatitis C virus in the common bed bug–a potential, but uncommon route for HCV infection? – Jiaxin Ling – Emerging Microbes & Infections

Eggshell and environmental bacteria contribute to the intestinal microbiota of growing chickens – Joel J. Maki – Journal of Animal Science and Biotechnology

Topography of the respiratory tract bacterial microbiota in cattle – Christopher McMullen – Microbiome

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Exploring slope spatial heterogeneity by nitrogen transfer and arbuscular mycorrhizal community – Yanyan Yu – Journal of Soils and Sediments

Disentangling drivers of soil microbial potential enzyme activity across rain regimes: An approach based on the functional trait framework – Gabin Piton – Soil Biology and Biochemistry

Microbial communities in petroleum-contaminated seasonally frozen soil and their response to temperature changes – Xusheng Wang – Chemosphere

Review: The Plant Microbiome: From Ecology to Reductionism and Beyond – Connor R. Fitzpatrick – Annual Review of Microbiology

Biogeographic patterns of microbial co-occurrence ecological networks in six American forests – Qichao Tu – Soil Biology and Biochemistry

Water, air, and extremophile microbiome

Microbial communities of container aquatic habitats shift in response to Culex restuans larvae – Ephantus J. Muturi – FEMS Microbiology Ecology

Climate mediates continental scale patterns of stream microbial functional diversity – Félix Picazo – Microbiome

Bacterial diversity of a high-altitude permafrost thaw pond located on Ojos del Salado (Dry Andes, Altiplano-Atacama region) – Júlia Margit Aszalós – Astrobiology  

Effects of active volcanism on bacterial communities in the highest-altitude crater lake of Ojos del Salado (Dry Andes, Altiplano-Atacama Region) – Júlia Margit Aszalós – Astrobiology  

Methanogenesis in the Lake Elton saline aquatic system – Anna Kallistova – Extremophiles

Auxotrophic interactions: A stabilizing attribute of aquatic microbial communities? – Winifred Johnson – FEMS Microbiology Ecology

Food microbiology

Lactic acid accumulation under heat stress related to accelerated glycolysis and mitochondrial dysfunction inhibits the mycelial growth of Pleurotus ostreatus – Zhiyu Yan – Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology

Evaluation and comparison of the microbial communities and volatile profiles in homemade suansun from Guangdong and Yunnan provinces in China – Qianqian Guan – Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture


Non-Microbiology Pick

Developing community-based urine sampling methods to deploy biomarker technology for the assessment of dietary exposure – Amanda J. Lloyd – Public Health Nutrition

June 13, 2020

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Somewhat of a brief digest for today, but to make up for that, the long-awaited results of the PREDICT I study were published in Nature Medicine!

Human gut microbiome

Human postprandial responses to food and potential for precision nutrition – Berry et al. – Nature Medicine

Insect microbiome

Shotgun sequencing of honey DNA can describe honey bee derived environmental signatures and the honey bee hologenome complexity – Bovo et al. – Scientific Reports

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Low Turnover of Soil Bacterial rRNA at Low Temperatures – Schostag et al. – Frontiers in Microbiology

Water and extremophile microbiome

Preprint: Diatom Modulation of Microbial Consortia Through Use of Two Unique Secondary Metabolites – Shibl et al. – bioRxiv

Complementary sampling methods for coral histology, metabolomics, and microbiome – Greene et al. – Methods in Ecology and Evolution

Phages and viruses

Preprint: Phage infection mediates inhibition of bystander bacteria – Chatterjee et al. – bioRxiv

Depth-related variability in viral communities in highly stratified sulfidic mine tailings – Gao et al. – Microbiome

Bioinformatics

GAD: A Python Script for Dividing Genome Annotation Files into Feature-Based Files – Yasser et al. – Interdisciplinary Sciences: Computational Life Sciences

Towards virtual physiological humans: integrating metabolism, physiology, and gut-microbiome

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Science communication on a recently published paper

Precision Medicine

A milestone in precision medicine would be the ability to explore generative models that can capture the real-world complexity of human physiology. If computational models can successfully integrate physiology, metabolism, and host-microbiome data – thereby achieving personalization of predictive models of virtual physiological humans – this would be a key stepping-stone in yielding promising therapeutic targets that are both individual-specific and case-specific. Thus, the science (and art) of generating and exploring virtual physiological humans could be a boon to systems physiology and precision medicine.

Whole-body metabolic reconstructions

Towards this end, Thiele et al. recently published an intriguing paper. Thiele et al. demonstrate building and validation of sex-specific curated Whole-Body Metabolic (WBM) reconstructions. Computational models derived from such WBM reconstructions offer a novel molecular-level, anatomically and physiologically consistent, sex-specific genome-scale reconstructions of human physiology and metabolism. Thiele et al. further demonstrated that the WBM reconstructions can be ‘personalized’ via integration of quantitative physiological data with multi-omics such as metabolomics, and gut-microbiome. Thus, Thiele et al. introduce Harvey and Harvetta, the male and female WBM reconstructions, respectively. These reconstructions and the derived models and analysis enable novel assessment of, e.g., host-microbiome co-metabolism that is individual-specific and is resolved at an organ-level.

Complexity

The extreme complexity of real-world metabolic modelling of host-microbiome in humans can hardly be overstated. Thiele et al. address this critical challenge via constraint-based reconstruction – their models account for the enormous diversity of microbiome-associated microbial genes that are meaningful both physiologically and is individual-specific such as in host-microbiome co-metabolism. Thus this approach allows case-specific investigation of human metabolism, such as for studying inherited metabolic diseases.

Approach

Previously the Thiele Lab , extensive metabolic modelling of metabolic and physiologically relevant pathways (curated algorithmically and manually) led to a comprehensive model that allows investigation via constraint-based reconstruction of over 80,000 pathways. Thiele et al. approached the problem into a smaller sub-problems that they have previously addressed. First – by compiling organ-specific information from previous literature and including experimental-omics data, Thiele Lab generated WBM reconstructions. Second – Thiele Lab imposed constraints the WBM reconstructions via (large-scale) physiology, dietary constraints and quantitative metabolomic data.

Highlights

A key challenge that Thiele et al. addressed in this current 2020 paper is the integration of more than 80,000 biochemical reactions, that were both anatomically and physiologically consistent. These WBM reconstructions describe 26 organs and 6 blood cell types and capture whole-body organ-resolved metabolism. Importantly, these recapitulate previously known inter-organ metabolic cycles and energy use. Interestingly, WBM models can also predict biomarkers. This might, e.g., elucidate new pathways or targets that are implicated in heritable metabolic diseases.

Take-home-message and future ahead

Exploring such quantitative metabolic models could reveal new molecular insights pertaining to (co-dependence of host-microbiome) metabolism and overall human physiology and homeostasis – both in health and disease. The power of computational models is further exemplified if these allow addressing questions via novel hypothesis-testing that go beyond the scope of wet-lab experiments.

written by: Div Prasad

I’m interested in quantitative biology (at the intersection) of human genetics, machine learning, and host-microbiome interactions.

Twitter: @divyaePrasad
github: divprasad

June 08, 2020

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Today, we present a broad spectrum of new studies covering among others the mycobiome of human milk, gut microbes and their association with brain development and cognitive function, and a catalogue of previously unseen microbial genomes. Of particular interest is a study that integrates different sources of data to model a personalized gut microbiome. Last but not least we selected a pre-print on the design and characterization of multiepitopes vaccine for SARS-CoV.

General microbiome

Cultivation-independent and cultivation-dependent metagenomes reveal genetic and enzymatic potential of microbial community involved in the degradation of a complex microbial polymer – Costa et al. – Microbiome

REVIEW: Conceptualizing the vertebrate sterolbiome – Ridlon – Applied and Environmental Microbiology

Human milk mycobiome

Human milk fungi: environmental determinants and inter-kingdom associations with milk bacteria in the CHILD Cohort Study – Moossavi et al. – BMC Microbiology

Human skin microbiome

Skin microbiota analysis-inspired development of novel anti-infectives – Liu et al. – Microbiome

Human vaginal microbiome

PREPRINT: Vaginal microbiota of adolescents and their mothers: A preliminary study of vertical transmission and persistence – Bassis – bioRxiv

Human gut microbiome

Personalized whole‐body models integrate metabolism, physiology, and the gut microbiome – Thiele et al. – Mol Syst Biol

REVIEW: The gut microbiota profile of adults with kidney disease and kidney stones: a systematic review of the literature – Stanford et al. – BMC Nephrology

PREPRINT: Gut microbes and their genes are associated with brain development and cognitive function in healthy children – Bonham et al. – bioRxiv

Animal microbiome (for animals in the wild)

Microbial environment shapes immune function and cloacal microbiota dynamics in zebra finches Taeniopygia guttata – van Veelen et al. – Animal Microbiome

PREPRINT: Large scale metagenome assembly reveals novel animal-associated microbial genomes, biosynthetic gene clusters, and other genetic diversity – Youngblut – bioRxiv

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

Novel insights into the Thaumarchaeota in the deepest oceans: their metabolism and potential adaptation mechanisms – Zhong et al. – Microbiome

The role of metal contamination in shaping microbial communities in heavily polluted marine sediments – Di Cesare et al. – Environmental Pollution

Techniques

Engineering CRISPR/Cas9 to mitigate abundant host contamination for 16S rRNA gene-based amplicon sequencing – Song & Xie – Microbiome

SARS-CoV-2

PREPRINT: In silico design and characterization of multiepitopes vaccine for SARS-CoV from its Spike proteins – Kathwate – bioRxiv