June 25, 2015

Vitamin B12 modulates skin microbiome transcription, viruses in fluvial systems, and a webserver for annotation of gut microbiome genes.

Human skin microbiome

Vitamin B12 modulates the transcriptome of the skin microbiota in acne pathogenesis – Dezhi Kang – Science Translational Medicine

Human oral microbiome

Review: Shaping the oral mycobiota: interactions of opportunistic fungi with oral bacteria and the host – H Xu – Current Opinion in Microbiology

Human gut microbiome

Virulence genes are a signature of the microbiome in the colorectal tumor microenvironment – Michael B. Burns – Genome Medicine

Randomised clinical trial: gut microbiome biomarkers are associated with clinical response to a low FODMAP diet in children with the irritable bowel syndrome – B. P. Chumpitazi – Alimentary Pharmacology & Therapeutics

Review: Host-microbiome interactions in health and disease – Liam O’Mahony – Clinical Liver Disease

 

Review: Regulation of intestinal TH17 and Treg cells by gut microbiota – Takeshi Tanoue – Inflammation and Regeneration

Review: Gut microbial short-chain fatty acids in host defense and immune regulation – Hiroshi Ohno – Inflammation and Regeneration

Review: Gut Microbiota-derived Outer Membrane Vesicles: Under-recognized Major Players in Health and Disease? – Maurizio Muraca – Discovery Magazine

Review: The Interplay between the Microbiota and Enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli – Reed Pifer – ASM Microbiology Spectrum

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

An in-depth analysis of actinobacterial communities shows their high diversity in grassland soils along a gradient of mixed heavy metal contamination – Tomáš Větrovský – Biology and Fertility of Soils

Review: Endophytic actinobacteria of medicinal plants: diversity and bioactivity – Patrycja Golinska – Antonie van Leeuwenhoek

Differences in Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungal Community Composition in Soils of Three Land Use Types in Subtropical Hilly Area of Southern China – Caihuan Wang – PLOS ONE

Water microbiome

Long-term effects of the antibacterial agent triclosan on marine periphyton communities – K. Martin Eriksson – Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry

Revealing the unexplored fungal communities in deep groundwater of crystalline bedrock fracture zones in Olkiluoto, Finland – Elina Sohlberg – Frontiers in Microbiology

Prevalence of tetracycline resistance genes among multi-drug resistant bacteria from selected water distribution systems in southwestern Nigeria – Ayodele. T. Adesoji – Annals of Clinical Microbiology and Antimicrobials

Functional gene pyrosequencing reveals core proteobacterial denitrifiers in boreal lakes
Jatta Saarenheimo – Frontiers in Microbiology

Review: Virus ecology of fluvial systems: a blank spot on the map? – Peter Peduzzi – Biological Reviews

Built Environment Microbiome

Microbially influenced corrosion communities associated with fuel-grade ethanol environments – Charles H. D. Williamson – Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology

Metagenomics and bioinformatics

MetaQuery: a web server for rapid annotation and quantitative analysis of specific genes in the human gut microbiome – Stephen Nayfach – Bioinformatics

Review: Biotechnological applications of functional metagenomics in the food and pharmaceutical industries – Laura M. Coughlan – Frontiers in Microbiology

Techniques

Label-free NIR-SERS discrimination and detection of foodborne bacteria by in situ synthesis of Ag colloids – Longyan Chen – Journal of Nanobiotechnology

Microbes in the news

How To Prevent Acne: Vitamin B12, Found In Meat And Dairy, Alters Bacteria And Leads To Pimples – Susan Scutti – Medical Daily

When Gut Bacteria Changes Brain Function: Some researchers believe that the microbiome may play a role in regulating how people think and feel – David Kohn – The Atlantic

Klaus Nielsen, scientist who tried to smuggle contagious bacteria, begins sentencing hearing – CBC News

Squares, triangles, circles: regardless of their form, bacteria can figure out where to split – TU Delft / Kavli Foundation

 

Students Find, Name Bacteriophages in Massive Team Project – Illinois Wesleyan University

BacteriaHysteria

Shocking images reveal how a Glastonbury wristband could ‘harbour 20 TIMES more bacteria than clothes’ – Daily Mail

BlackBerry Ltd May Have Plans To Develop Bacteria-Free Phones – Aman Jain – Value Walk

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June 23, 2015

Gill structure and microbiome of clownfish (Nemo), the Ocean Sampling Day consortium, and capturing prokaryotic dark matter genomes.

Human respiratory microbiome

The use of Next Generation Sequencing in the diagnosis and typing of respiratory infections – Fiona Thorburn – Journal of Clinical Virology

Effects of Vaccination with 10-Valent Pneumococcal Non-Typeable Haemophilus influenza Protein D Conjugate Vaccine (PHiD-CV) on the Nasopharyngeal Microbiome of Kenyan Toddlers – Leah M. Feazel – PLOS ONE

Human vaginal microbiome

Isolation of Vaginal Lactobacilli and Characterization of Anti-Candida Activity – Carola Parolin – PLOS ONE

Letter: Accuracy of Self-Report of Sexual Activity among Adolescent Girls: Implications for Interpretation of Vaginal Flora Patterns – Christina A. Muzny – mBio

Human gut microbiome

Effects of a Formula Containing Two Types of Prebiotics, Bifidogenic Growth Stimulator and Galacto-oligosaccharide, and Fermented Milk Products on Intestinal Microbiota and Antibody Response to Influenza Vaccine in Elderly Patients: A Randomized Controlled Trial – Nagafuchi S – Pharmaceuticals

Systemic Sclerosis is Associated with a Unique Colonic Microbial Consortium – E. Volkmann – Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases

Review: Influence of the human intestinal microbiome on obesity and metabolic dysfunction – Herbert Tilg and Timon E. Adolph

Review: Is intestinal inflammation linking dysbiosis to gut barrier dysfunction during liver disease? – Katharina Brandl – Expert Review of Gastroenterology & Hepatology

Review: Microbiome-generated amyloid and potential impact on amyloidogenesis in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) – Yuhai Zhao – Journal of Nature and Science

Animal models

Non Digestible Oligosaccharides Modulate the Gut Microbiota to Control the Development of Leukemia and Associated Cachexia in Mice – Laure B. Bindels – PLOS ONE

Engineering the gut microbiota to treat hyperammonemia – Ting-Chin David Shen – Journal of Clinical Investigation

Animal microbiome

Exposure of clownfish larvae to suspended sediment levels found on the Great Barrier Reef: Impacts on gill structure and microbiome – Sybille Hess – Scientific Reports

Longitudinal analysis reveals characteristically high proportions of bacterial vaginosis-associated bacteria and temporal variability of vaginal microbiota in northern pig-tailed macaques (Macaca leonina) – Lin Zhu – Zoological Research

Review: Giving microbes their due – animal life in a microbially dominant world – Margaret J. McFall-Ngai – The Journal of Experimental Biology

Plant, root and soil microbiome

Context dependency and saturating effects of loss of rare soil microbes on plant productivity – Gera Hol – Frontiers in Plant Science

Genetic Diversity and Functional Traits of Jacq. Associated with Symbiotic Microbial Communities in Caribbean Swamp Forests in Relation to Insular Distribution, Salinity and Flooding – Amadou Bâ – Wetlands

Terminal Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism Analysis of Soil Bacterial Communities under Different Vegetation Types in Subtropical Area – Zeyan Wu – PLOS ONE

Water microbiome

The ocean sampling day consortium – Anna Kopf and many others – Gigascience

Thesis: Analysis of the Microbial Community Along Three Sites of the Rio Grande by Denaturing Gradient Gel Electrophoresis – Rebeca Imelda Castro – Texas A&M International University

Bioinformatics

On the Origins and Control of Community Types in the Human Microbiome – Travis E. Gibson – ArXiv

Thesis: Exploring microbial community structure and resilience through visualization and analysis of microbial co-occurrence networks – Sarah Isa Esther Perez – University of British Columbia

Metagenomics

Phylogeny and physiology of candidate phylum ‘Atribacteria’ (OP9/JS1) inferred from cultivation-independent genomics – Masaru K Nobu – The ISME Journal

Review: Capturing prokaryotic dark matter genomes – Cyrielle Gasc – Research in Microbiology

Viruses and phages

Large tailed spindle viruses of Archaea: A new way of doing viral business – Rebecca Hochstein – Journal of Virology

Draft Genome Sequences of Marine RNA Viruses SF-1, SF-2, and SF-3 Recovered from San Francisco Wastewater – Alexander L. Greninger – Genome Announcements

Microbial ecology

Backbones of evolutionary history test biodiversity theory for microbes – James P. O’Dwyer – PNAS

Techniques

Effect of DNA Extraction Methods on the Apparent Structure of Yak Rumen Microbial Communities as Revealed by 16S rDNA Sequencing – Ya-Bing Chen – Polish Journal of Microbiology

Microbes in the news

Bacteria may help bats to fight deadly fungus: As white-nose syndrome spreads, researchers are trialling ways to stop colonies from collapsing – Nala Rogers – Nature

This mushroom might alter gut bacteria for the better, study finds – Catherine Woods – PBS Newshour

Can the Bacteria in Your Gut Explain Your Mood? The rich array of microbiota in our intestines can tell us more than you might think – Peter Andrey Smith – New York Times

Urban microbes come out of the shadows: Genomic sequences reveal cities’ teeming masses of bacteria and viruses – Rachel Ehrenberg – Nature

NIH Earmarks $1.5M to Fund Human Microbiome Research Projects – GenomeWeb

Fat, sugar cause bacterial changes that may relate to loss of cognitive function – Oregon State University

Why Would Anyone Get a Fecal Transplant? Watch a Brother and Sister Explain – Maryn McKenna – National Geographic

Bik’s Picks

Astronaut Terry Virts on the Power of Space Photography – Andrew Katz – Time

Dangerous cervical lesions reduced since start of HPV vaccination – Kathryn Doyle – Reuters

This cockroach-inspired robot will scurry right into your nightmares: Crawling soon to a rescue squad near you – Arielle Duhaime-Ross – The Verge

 

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June 16, 2015

Human oral microbiome

The cultivable microbiota of primary and secondary infected root canals, their susceptibility to antibiotics and association with the signs and symptoms of infection – M. E. Łysakowska – International Endodontic Journal

DGGE: Profiling of Oral and Nasal Microbiome in Children With Cleft Palate – Min Zhang – The Cleft Palate–Craniofacial Journal

Human gut microbiome

Stool consistency is strongly associated with gut microbiota richness and composition, enterotypes and bacterial growth rates – Doris Vandeputte – Gut

Bacterial Composition of the Human Upper Gastrointestinal Tract Microbiome Is Dynamic and Associated with Genomic Instability in a Barrett’s Esophagus Cohort – Alevtina Gall – PLOS ONE

Alterations in Intestinal Microbiota Correlate with Susceptibility to Type 1 Diabetes – Aimon K. Alkanani – Diabetes

Specific gut microbiota features and metabolic markers in postmenopausal women with obesity – LK Brahe – Nutrition & Diabetes

Inter- and intra-individual variations in seasonal and daily stabilities of the human gut microbiota in Japanese – Takayoshi Hisada – Archives of Microbiology

Editorial: Gut bacteria feed a healthy brain – Denise Waldron – Nature Reviews Microbiology

Review: The gut microbiota of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease: current methods and their interpretation – Niels van Best – Hepatology International

Review: Can we change our microbiome to prevent colorectal cancer development? – Roberta M. Manzat-Saplacan – Acta Oncologica

Human genital microbiome

Penile Microbiota and Female Partner Bacterial Vaginosis in Rakai, Uganda – Cindy M. Liu – mBio

Models of microbiome

In pigs: Neonatal environment exerts a sustained influence on the development of the intestinal microbiota and metabolic phenotype – Claire A Merrifield – ISME Journal

In goats: Postnatal bacterial succession and functional establishment of hindgut in supplemental feeding and grazing goats – J. Z. Jiao – Journal of Animal Science

In termites: Multiple analyses of microbial communities applied to the gut of the wood-feeding termite Reticulitermes flavipes fed on artificial diets – Cédric Tarayre – Symbiosis

Animal microbiome

Sponges: Pyrosequencing revealed shifts of prokaryotic communities between healthy and disease-like tissues of the Red Sea sponge Crella cyathophora – Zhao-Ming Gao – PeerJ

Sponges: Microbial diversity and putative diazotrophy in high and low microbial abundance Mediterranean sponges – Marta Ribes – Applied and Environmental Microbiology

Plant root and soil microbiome

Tree genotype mediates covariance among communities from microbes to lichens and arthropods – Louis J. Lamit – Journal of Ecology

Assessment of microbial communities in mung bean (Vigna radiata) rhizosphere upon exposure to phytotoxic levels of Copper – Murali Sharaff – Journal of Basic Microbiology

Analyzing the antagonistic potential of the lichen microbiome against pathogens by bridging metagenomic with culture studies – Tomislav Cernava – Frontiers in Microbiology

Response of rhizosphere microbial community structure and diversity to heavy metal co-pollution in arable soil – Linjing Deng – Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology

Soil Microbial Functions After Forest Fires Affected by the Compost Quality – René Guénon – Land Degradation & Development

Vertical Distribution of Soil Denitrifying Communities in a Wet Sclerophyll Forest under Long-Term Repeated Burning – Xian Liu – Microbial Ecology

Metagenome Sequencing Reveals Rhodococcus Dominance in Farpuk Cave, Mizoram, India, an Eastern Himalayan Biodiversity Hot Spot Region – Surajit De Mandal – Genome Announcements

The stability of textile azo dyes in soil and their impact on microbial phospholipid fatty acid profiles – Muhammad Imran – Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety

Endophyte community composition is associated with dieback occurrence in an invasive tree – Tracey V. Steinrucken – Plant and Soil

Multi-Analytical Approach Reveals Potential Microbial Indicators in Soil for Sugarcane Model Systems – Acacio Aparecido Navarrete – PLOS ONE

Resilience of soil microbial and nematode communities after biofumigant treatment with defatted seed meals – S. Mocali – Industrial Crops and Products

Effect of cassava mill effluent on biological activity of soil microbial community – Etinosa O. Igbinosa – Environmental Monitoring and Assessment

Editorial: An interkingdom partnership – Naomi Attar – Nature Reviews Microbiology

Review: Synergisms between microbial pathogens in plant disease complexes: a growing trend – Jay Ram Lamichhane – Frontiers in Plant Science

Review: Plant Virus Metagenomics: Advances in Virus Discovery – Marilyn J. Roossinck – Phytopathology

Water microbiome

Microbial ecology in a future climate: effects of temperature and moisture on microbial communities of two boreal fens – Krista Peltoniemi – FEMS Microbiology Ecology

A Multi Size-Level Assessment of Benthic Marine Communities in a Coastal Environment: Are They Different Sides of the Same Coin? – Claudia Vannini – PLOS ONE

Manganese-Cycling Microbial Communities Inside Deep-Sea Manganese Nodules – Marco Blöthe – Environmental Science & Technology

Editorial: Deep sequencing of the global oceans – Cláudio Nunes-Alves – Nature Reviews Microbiology

Extremophile microbiome

Microbial diversity of hypersaline environments: a metagenomic approach – Antonio Ventosa – Current Opinion in Microbiology

Application of a Bayesian nonparametric model to derive toxicity estimates based on the response of Antarctic microbial communities to fuel-contaminated soil – Julyan Arbel – Ecology and Evolution

Bioreactor microbiome

Evaluation of surfactants on waste activated sludge fermentation by pyrosequencing analysis – Aijuan Zhou – Bioresource Technology

Impact of the contemporary environment on denitrifying bacterial communities – Sarah K. Hathaway – Ecological Engineering

Food microbiology

Review: Wine microbiome, a dynamic world of microbial interactions – Youzhong Liu

Metagenomics and bioinformatics

Unusual biology across a group comprising more than 15% of domain Bacteria – Christopher T. Brown – Nature

Complete Genome Sequence of the Bacterium Aalborg_AAW-1, Representing a Novel Family within the Candidate Phylum SR1 – Morten Simonsen Dueholm – Genome Announcements

BUSCO: assessing genome assembly and annotation completeness with single-copy orthologs – Felipe A. Simão – Bioinformatics

Educating Future Nursing Scientists: Recommendations for Integrating Omics Content in PhD Programs – Yvette P. Conley – Nursing Outlook

Minireview: Combining metagenomics, metatranscriptomics and viromics to explore novel microbial interactions: Towards a systems-level understanding of human microbiomes – Bikel Shirley – Computational and Structural Biotechnology Journal

Metabolomics and Proteomics

In dogs: Consumption of Cooked Navy Bean Powders Modulate the Canine Fecal and Urine Metabolome – M. Forster – Current Metabolomics

Needles in the Blue Sea: Sub-Species Specificity in Targeted Protein Biomarker Analyses Within the Vast Oceanic Microbial Metaproteome – Mak A. Saito – Proteomics

New aminopeptidase from “microbial dark matter” archaeon – Karolina Michalska – The FASEB Journal

Review: Recent Advances in Metabolomics – E. Smith – Current Metabolomics

Microbial Ecology

Transplantability of a circadian clock to a noncircadian organism – Anna H. Chen – Science Advances

Review: Black Queen evolution: the role of leakiness in structuring microbial communities – J. Jeffrey Morris – Trends in Genetics

Techniques

Preferential Amplification of Pathogenic Sequences – Fang Ge – Scientific Reports

Phasing of single DNA molecules by massively parallel barcoding – Erik Borgström – Nature Communications

Minor revision to V4 region SSU rRNA 806R gene primer greatly increases detection of
SAR11 bacterioplankton – Amy Apprill – Aquatic Microbial Ecology

Microbes in the news

Newfound groups of bacteria are mixing up the tree of life – Robert Sanders – UC Berkeley

Report: Santa Cruz’s river bacteria comes from birds, not people – Samantha Clark – San Jose Mercury News

Shark Tank Product Improves Oral Health, Measuring Levels Of Bacteria That Cause Bad Breath – Samantha Olson – Medical Daily

Manatee County, not the animal: Bacteria Could Clean Manatee Water Supply – Associated Press

Bacteria Could Help Clean Groundwater Contaminated by Uranium Ore Processing, Rutgers Study Finds – Rutgers Today

BacteriaHysteria

How much bacteria is on money in your pocket? – Click2Houston

WHO: 200 disease-causing bacteria may be found in the kitchen – ABC/CBN news

Science, publishing, and career

Science forum: RIPOSTE: a framework for improving the design and analysis of laboratory-based research – Nicholas GD Masca – eLIFE

Dancers in the Dark: Scientific Careers According to a Gender-Blind Model of Promotion
Ana M. González Ramos – Interdisciplinary Science Reviews

Incidence of Data Duplications in a Randomly Selected Pool of Life Science Publications – Morten P. Oksvold – Science and Engineering Ethics

Five things I learned when my research went viral – Heidi Appel – The Conversation

Bik’s Picks

Foie Gras: The goose genome sequence leads to insights into the evolution of waterfowl and susceptibility to fatty liver – Lizhi Lu – Genome Biology

An estimate of the number of tropical tree species – JW Ferry Slik – PNAS

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June 3, 2015

Microbiomes of seahorses, diet and human stool, gut microbes influencing CNS, lichen-associated bacteria, sequencing beer, and news from #ASM2015.

Human gut microbiome

Fecal Microbiota in Healthy Subjects Following Omnivore, Vegetarian and Vegan Diets: Culturable Populations and rRNA DGGE Profiling – Ilario Ferrocino – PLOS ONE

Animal models of microbiome research

Host microbiota constantly control maturation and function of microglia in the CNS – Daniel Erny – Nature Neuroscience

Effects of Dietary Linseed Oil and Propionate Precursors on Ruminal Microbial Community, Composition, and Diversity in Yanbian Yellow Cattle – Xiang Z. Li – PLOS ONE

Animal microbiome

A Metagenomic Survey of Viral Abundance and Diversity in Mosquitoes from Hubei Province – Chenyan Shi – PLOS ONE

Comparison of the Intestinal Bacterial Flora in Healthy and Intestinal-diseased Seahorses Hippocampus trimaculatus, Hippocampus erectus, and Hippocampus spinosissimus – Feng Li – Journal of the World Aquaculture Society

Plant and soil microbiome

Analysis of the Peltigera membranacea metagenome indicates that lichen-associated bacteria are involved in phosphate solubilization – Margrét Auður Sigurbjörnsdóttir – Microbiology

Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi Community Structure, Abundance and Species Richness Changes in Soil by Different Levels of Heavy Metal and Metalloid Concentration – Ramasamy Krishnamoorthy – PLOS ONE

Built environment microbiome

Chamber Bioaerosol Study: Outdoor Air and Human Occupants as Sources of Indoor Airborne Microbes – Rachel I. Adams – PLOS ONE

Survey of Microbial Diversity in Flood Areas during Thailand 2011 Flood Crisis Using High-Throughput Tagged Amplicon Pyrosequencing – Wuttichai Mhuantong – PLOS ONE

Metagenomic Insights into the Bioaerosols in the Indoor and Outdoor Environments of Childcare Facilities – Su-Kyoung Shin – PLOS ONE

Food microbiology

PCR-DGGE assessment of the bacterial diversity in Spanish-style green table-olive fermentations – Helena Lucena-Padrós – International Journal of Food Microbiology

Microbial ecology

Perspectives on the context-dependency of stream community responses to contaminants – William H. Clements – Freshwater Biology

Metacommunity speciation models and their implications for diversification theory – Nicolas Hubert – Ecology Letters

The complex relationship between microbial growth rate and yield and its implications for ecosystem processes – David A. Lipson – Frontiers in Microbiology

Techniques

The Effect of Sampling and Storage on the Fecal Microbiota Composition in Healthy and Diseased Subjects – Danyta I. Tedjo – PLOS ONE

Microbes in the news

Sequence your beer: BeerDeCoded: the 1,000 beer genomes

#ASM2015 – Soil microbes ally with plants to fight disease and tolerate stress – Phys.org

#ASM2015 video: A Critical Role of the Plant Microbiome for Immunocompetency – ASM

#ASM2015: Share a Bathroom With Other People? Here’s Something You May or May Not Want to Know About Your Toothbrush – Liz Klimas – The Blaze

All About Flora: How Important Gut Health Really Is. Don’t be grossed out – those little guys living in your guts are your friends – Lacie Glover – US News
Ancient algae found deep in tropical glacier – Biology News

Microbes, biodiversity and the benefits of getting dirty – David Suzuki – National Observer

Former COD Theater Major Researches Microbiology in South Africa – Mitchell11 – Chicago Tribune

Interview with Jessica Richman of uBiome – Tracy Mac – The Power of Poop

Bacteria study may curb antibiotics use – Jeremy Watson – The Times

Could remnants of the earliest life be preserved in volcanic glass? Controversy about microbial “biotextures” – Shalini Saxena – ArsTechnica

Science, publishing, and career

Why we should help people understand our scientific literature – R. W. Abrams – Conservation Biology

Announcing mSystems™: a new ASM open-access journal launching in early 2016 with Jack Gilbert as Founding Editor in Chief – ASM

Scientists Behaving Badly (On Social Media) – Brett Buttliere – PLOS Blogs

Publons and the American Society for Microbiology announce pilot partnership – ASM

Helpful websites for women scientists interested in fellowships, scholarships and funding opportunities – ASM

Bik’s Picks

Chimps Can’t Cook, But Maybe They’d Like To – Michael D. Lemonick – National Geographic

20-year-old invents ingenious system to rid ocean of trash – Olivia Solon – Mirror

Sea lions injured in chlorine attack return to ocean (video) – Chicago Tribune

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June 2, 2015

General human microbiome

The human microbiome in hematopoiesis and hematological disorders – Veronica E. Manzo and Ami S. Bhatt – Blood

Special issue of Microbial Ecology in Health and Disease: Editorial: We all need friends – Jørgen Valeur

Early Factors Leading to Later Obesity: Interactions of the Microbiome, Epigenome, and Nutrition – Lilly Chang, Josef Neu – Current Problems in Pediatric and Adolescent Health Care

Microbiome of pregnancy and birth

Opportunities to assess factors contributing to the development of the intestinal microbiota in infants living in developing countries – Dennis Lang – Microbial Ecology in Health and Disease

Review: Factors affecting infant gut microbiota and possible consequences for health
Merete Eggesbø – Microbial Ecology in Health and Disease

Human gut microbiome

Draft Genome Sequences of 24 Microbial Strains Assembled from Direct Sequencing from 4 Stool Samples – Patricio Jeraldo – Genome Announcements

Book Chapter: Physiology of Digestion and Absorption: The Functional Interdependence Between Food and the Gut – Stephen J. D. O’Keefe – The Principles and Practice of Nutritional Support

Review: With a little help from my enteric microbial friends – Ben Berkhout – Frontiers in Medicine

Editorial: AI-2 to the rescue against antibiotic-induced intestinal dysbiosis? – Zhongke Sun – Trends in Microbiology

Microbiome models

Evidence from Animal Models: Is a Restricted or Conventional Intestinal Microbiota Composition Predisposing to Risk for High-LET Radiation Injury? – Irene Maier – Radiation Research

Rumen Microbiome from Steers Differing in Feed Efficiency – Phillip R. Myer – PLOS ONE

Changes in the composition of intestinal fungi and their role in mice with dextran sulfate sodium-induced colitis – Xinyun Qiu – Scientific Reports

Microbiota prevents cholesterol loss from the body by regulating host gene expression in mice – Chun-Yan Zhong – Scientific Reports

Animal microbiome

Early-life establishment of the swine gut microbiome and impact on host phenotypes – Núria Mach – Environmental Microbiology Reports

Lifestyle Evolution in Cyanobacterial Symbionts of Sponges – Ilia Burgsdorf – mBio

Plant microbiome

Antagonistic interactions between endophytic cultivable bacterial communities isolated from the medicinal plant Echinacea purpurea – Isabel Maida – Environmental Microbiology

Soil microbiome

Distinct soil bacterial communities along a small-scale elevational gradient in alpine tundra – Congcong Shen – Frontiers in Microbiology

Carcass mass has little influence on the structure of gravesoil microbial communities – Sophie Weiss – International Journal of Legal Medicine

Impact of different cropping conditions and tillage practices on the soil fungal abundance of a Phaeozem luvico – Romina P. Gomez – Spanish Journal of Agricultural Research

Biological activity and microbial genetic diversity of bare-fallow and grassland soils – Anna Kot – Acta Agriculturae Scandinavica, Section B — Soil & Plant Science

Masters Thesis: Assessing soil microbial tolerance to salt – Arpita Maheshwari – Lund University

Water microbiome

Microbial metagenomics in the Baltic Sea: Recent advancements and prospects for environmental monitoring – Karolina Ininbergs – AMBIO

Characterizing microbial communities dedicated for conversion of coal to methane in situ and ex situ – Ji Zhang – International Journal of Coal Geology

Dynamics of the bacterial and archaeal communities in the northern South China Sea revealed by 454 pyrosequencing of the 16S rRNA gene – Xia Xiaomin – Deep Sea Research Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography

Editorial: Microbial symbiosis of marine sessile hosts- diversity and function – Suhelen Egan – Frontiers in Microbiology

Review: Biodiversity, community structure and function of biofilms in stream ecosystems – Katharina Besemer – Research in Microbiology

Built environment microbiome

pecunia non olet? Screening Currency Notes for Microbial Pathogens and Antibiotic Resistance Genes Using a Shotgun Metagenomic Approach – Saakshi Jalali – PLOS ONE

Phages and viruses

Dark matter of the biosphere: The amazing world of bacteriophage diversity – Graham F. Hatfull – Journal of Virology

Bioinformatics and metagenomics

VirSorter: mining viral signal from microbial genomic data – Simon Roux – PeerJ

Denoising DNA deep sequencing data—high-throughput sequencing errors and their correction – David Laehnemann – Briefings in Bioinformatics

FCMM: A comparative metagenomic approach for functional characterization of multiple metagenome samples – Jongin Lee – Journal of Microbiological Methods

PuzzleCluster: A Novel Unsupervised Clustering Algorithm for Binning DNA Fragments in Metagenomics – Current Bioinformatics

Shotgun metagenomes and multiple primer pair-barcode combinations of amplicons reveal biases in metabarcoding analyses of fungi – Leho Tedersoo – MycoKeys

ANCOM: Analysis of composition of microbiomes: a novel method for studying microbial composition – Siddhartha Mandal – Microbial Ecology in Health and Disease

Transcriptomics and Metabolomics

MetabNet: an R package for metabolic association analysis of high-resolution metabolomics data – Karan Uppal – Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology

Meta-omics uncover temporal regulation of pathways across oral microbiome genera during in vitro sugar metabolism – Anna Edlund – ISME Journal

Review: Enteric short-chain fatty acids: microbial messengers of metabolism, mitochondria, and mind: implications in autism spectrum disorders – Derrick F. MacFabe – Microbial Ecology in Health and Disease

Techniques

Co-extraction of DNA and PLFA from soil samples – Sheridan Brewer – Journal of Microbial Methods

Microbial ecology

Editorial: Flexible gene pools: hard to interpret the diversity often observed in microbial communities – Michael M. Desai – Science

Fine-scale diversity and extensive recombination in a quasisexual bacterial population occupying a broad niche – Michael J. Rosen – Science

Microbes in the news

Good craft beer can be spoiled by bacteria – Phys.org / American Society for Microbiology

Treating Koala STDs May also Quash Their Essential Gut Microbes – Katherine Harmon Courage – Scientific American

New study: Gut bacteria cooperate when life gets tough – EurekAlert

Metabolic activity and health of the skin microbiome – Medical Xpress / American Society for Microbiology

Is our first line of defense sleeping on the job? – Science Daily / American Society for Microbiology

Growing Up In an UnSterile World –The Importance of a Healthy Gut Through the Lifespan – Sarah Lobisco – Dr. Lobisco

Citizen Scientists Send Microbes Into Space – Science 2.0

Methanogens: Earth organisms survive under low-pressure Martian conditions – Science Daily

Why is the H-pylori bacteria developing a liking for Mumbai police? – Santosh Andhale – DNA India

Book review: The great microbial beauty – Vittorio Capozzi – Trends in Microbiology

Science, publishing, and career

Plagiarism is the most common cause of retractions in BioMed Central journals:
Retractions Often Due to Plagiarism: Study – Kerry Grens – The Scientist

Bik’s Picks: not-microbial science

Giant Sawfish Have Virgin Births, Rewrite Biology Textbooks – Charles Q. Choi – Live Science

These newly discovered marsupials basically sex each other to death – Elahe Izadi – Washington Post

Seals Help Scientists Probe Remote Seas – Discovery

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May 28, 2015

Catching up after a couple of days in Paris…

General microbiome

Metagenomics meets time series analysis: unraveling microbial community dynamics – Karoline Faust – Current Opinion in Microbiology

What’s Bugging you and your Diet? – Bryn L Yeomans and Nicholas T Bello – Journal of Food and Nutritional Disorders

Pregnancy and birth microbiome

Comparison of Bacterial Composition in Blood and Placentas Using Conventional and Molecular Methods – Tingtao Chen – Clinical Microbiology: Open Access

Gut microbiome composition is associated with temperament during early childhood – Lisa M. Christian – Brain, Behavior, and Immunity

Human genital microbiome

Cervical Microbiota in Women with Preterm Prelabor Rupture of Membranes – Marian Kacerovsky – PLOS ONE

Re: The vaginal microbiome, vaginal anti-microbial defence mechanisms and the clinical challenge of reducing infection-related preterm birth – C Griffin – BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology
Author’s reply re: The vaginal microbiome, vaginal anti-microbial defence mechanisms and the clinical challenge of reducing infection-related preterm birth – SS Witkin – BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology

Human gut microbiome

Human seroreactivity to gut microbiota antigens – Benjamin S. Christmann – Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology

Models of microbiome research

A Role for Gut Microbiota and the Metabolite-Sensing Receptor GPR43 in a Murine Model of Gout – Angélica T. Vieira – Arthritis & Rheumatology

Tumor Grafting Induces Changes of Gut Microbiota in Athymic Nude Mice in the Presence and Absence of Medicinal Gynostemma Saponins – Lei Chen – PLOS ONE

Dynamic vaginal microbiota in pigtail macaques is associated with menstrual cycle and inflammation (MUC9P.753) – Nichole Klatt – The Journal of Immunology

Animal microbiome

Pyrosequencing Characterization of the Microbiota from Atlantic Intertidal Marine Sponges Reveals High Microbial Diversity and the Lack of Co-Occurrence Patterns – Anoop Alex – PLOS ONE

Characterization of the Bacterial Microflora on the Skin of Boreal toads, Anaxyrus (Bufo) boreas boreas, and Columbia Spotted Frogs, Rana luteiventris, in Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming USA – A.M. Hillis – International Journal of Microbiology Research

Soil microbiome

Niche and metabolic principles explain patterns of diversity and distribution: theory and a case study with soil bacterial communities – Jordan G. Okie – The Royal Society – Proceedings B

Book: The Soils of Antarctica – James G. Bockheim

Thesis: Role of Viruses Infecting Bacteria in Subsurface Sediments and Groundwater – Donald Pan – University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Water microbiome

Interaction and signalling between a cosmopolitan phytoplankton and associated bacteria – S. A. Amin – Nature

Towards a better quantitative assessment of the relevance of deep-sea viruses, Bacteria and Archaea in the functioning of the ocean seafloor – R. Danovaro – Aquatic Microbial Ecology

Bioreactor microbiome

Ecological Media Reveal Community Structure Shifts in a Municipal Wastewater Treatment Train – Bergmann RC – Bioremediation & Biodegradation

Extremophile microbiome

Deep-sea hydrothermal vent bacteria related to human pathogenic Vibrio species – Nur A. Hassan – PNAS

Book: The Soils of Antarctica – James G. Bockheim

Techniques

New Perspectives on Microbial Community Distortion after Whole-Genome Amplification – Alexander J. Probst – PLOS ONE

Human Bacterial and Fungal Amplicon Collection and Processing for Sequencing – Julia Oh – Bio-Protocol

Deconstructing the Polymerase Chain Reaction: Understanding and Correcting Bias Associated with Primer Degeneracies and Primer-Template Mismatches – Stefan J. Green – PLOS ONE

Microbial Ecology

Community quorum sensing signalling and quenching: microbial granular biofilm assembly – Chuan Hao Tan – NPJ Biofilms and Microbiomes

Theoretical analysis of the cost of antagonistic activity for aquatic bacteria in oligotrophic environments – Eneas Aguirre-von-Wobeser – Frontiers in Microbiology

More microbiology

Instrumentation: The mystery of the microscope in mud – Brian J. Ford – Nature

Antibiotic alternatives rev up bacterial arms race: From predatory microbes to toxic metals, nature is inspiring new ways to treat infections – Sara Reardon – Nature

Bioinformatics and Metagenomics

obitools: a unix-inspired software package for DNA metabarcoding – Frédéric Boyer – Molecular Ecology Resources

GenoLIB: a database of biological parts derived from a library of common plasmid features – Neil R. Adames – Nucleic Acids Research

PhD Thesis: Scalable Parallel Methods for Analyzing Metagenomics Data at Extreme Scale – Jeffrey A. Daily – Washington State University

Book Chapter: Lessons Learned from Simulated Metagenomic Datasets – Germán Bonilla-Rosso – Encyclopedia of Metagenomics

Review: Discovery of new protein families and functions: new challenges in functional metagenomics for biotechnologies and microbial ecology – Lisa Ufarté – Frontiers in Microbiology

Microbes in the news

The microbial world at our feet – Richard Burn – Society for General Microbiology

‘Bacteria Whisperer’ Bonnie Bassler reveals the secret lives of bacteria in Vancouver – CBC News

Google Ventures: These eight life sciences techs are the most promising – and worthy of investment – Meghana Keshavan – MedCityNews

Fast food versus the African diet, the bacteria battle waged in your gut – Carina Storrs – CNN

Toddler temperament could be influenced by different types of gut bacteria – Science Daily

Is Your Nervous System Being Hacked by Bacteria in Your Gut? – Gaia Vince – Gizmodo

Bacteria appears to help bats fight deadly white-nose syndrome – Mary Beth Griggs – Popular Science

Invisible helpers of the sea: Marine bacteria boost growth of tiny ocean algae – Phys.org

Some like it hot: Extremophile bacteria could be key to solving nuclear problems – Seaes Manchester

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May 11, 2015

General microbiome / Microbial ecology

Microbiomes raise privacy concerns: DNA from microbes living on the human body can be used to identify individuals – Ewen Callaway – Nature

Identifying personal microbiomes using metagenomic codes – Eric A. Franzosa – PNAS USA

Unraveling interactions in microbial communities – from co-cultures to microbiomes – Justin Tan – Journal of Microbiology

Antagonistic interactions are sufficient to explain self-assemblage of bacterial communities in a homogeneous environment: a computational modeling approach – Román Zapién-Campos – Frontiers in Microbiology

Human oral microbiome

Hospitalisation impacts on oral hygiene: an audit of oral hygiene in a metropolitan health service – Rachael Danckert – Scandinavian Journal of Caring Sciences

DGGE: Dynamic Shifts in the Oral Microbiome during Radiotherapy – Tine De Ryck – Clinical Research in Infectious Diseases

Effects of Source- versus Household Contamination of Tubewell Water on Child Diarrhea in Rural Bangladesh: A Randomized Controlled Trial – Ayse Ercumen – PLOS ONE

Human vaginal microbiome

Review: Biofilms: An Underappreciated Mechanism of Treatment Failure and Recurrence in Vaginal Infections – Christina A. Muzny – Clinical Infectious Diseases

Human gut microbiome

Editorial: The Gut Microbiota Strikes Again – Debra D. Poutsiaka – Clinical Infectious Diseases
Belongs to:
Acute Gastrointestinal Graft-vs-Host Disease Is Associated With Increased Enteric Bacterial Bloodstream Infection Density in Pediatric Allogeneic Hematopoietic Cell Transplant Recipients – Anya Levinson – Clinical Infectious Diseases

Review: Exploring the role of environmental enteropathy in malnutrition, infant development and oral vaccine response – Allissia A. Gilmartin , William A. Petri – Philosophical Transactions B

Review: Role of the gastrointestinal ecosystem in the development of type 1 diabetes – Joseph G Daft – Pediatric Diabetes

Plant and soil microbiome

Ectomycorrhizal fungal communities coinvading with Pinaceae host plants in Argentina: Gringos bajo el bosque – Jeremy Hayward – New Phytologist

Atmospheric N Deposition Alters Connectance, but not Functional Potential Among Saprotrophic Bacterial Communities – Zachary B. Freedman – Molecular Ecology

Rhizospheric changes of fungal and bacterial communities in relation to soil health of multi-generation apple orchards – F. Caputo – Biological Control

Permafrost microbial community traits and functional diversity indicate low activity at in situ thaw temperatures – Jessica G. Ernakovich – Soil Biology and Biochemistry

Switchgrass Biochar Effects on Plant Biomass and Microbial Dynamics in Two Soils from Different Regions – Charlene N. Kelly – Pedosphere

Water microbiome

Melting glacier impacts community structure of Bacteria, Archaea and Fungi in a Chilean Patagonia fjord – Marcelo H. Gutiérrez – Environmental Microbiology

Evaluation of water sampling methodologies for amplicon-based characterization of bacterial community structure – Christopher Staley – Journal of Microbiological Methods

Thesis: Bacterial Community Structure and Petroleum Hydrocarbon Degradation in the Baltic Sea – Anna Reunamo – University of Turku

Phages and viruses

Editorial: A CRISPR sense of self – Naomi Attar – Nature Reviews Microbiology

Bioinformatics and metagenomes

Nucleotide 9-mers Characterize the Type II Diabetic Gut Metagenome – Balazs Szalkai – ArXiv

CS-SCORE: Rapid identification and removal of human genome contaminants from metagenomic datasets – Mohammed Monzoorul Haque – Genomics

antiSMASH 3.0—a comprehensive resource for the genome mining of biosynthetic gene clusters – Tilmann Weber – Nucleic Acids Research

Review: Alignment of Next-Generation Sequencing Reads – Knut Reinert – Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics

Metabolic dependencies drive species co-occurrence in diverse microbial communities – Aleksej Zelezniak – PNAS USA

Functional Foods

Probiotics can improve the clinical outcomes of hepatic encephalopathy: An update meta-analysis – Li-Na Zhao – Clinics and Research in Hepatology and Gastroenterology

Microbes in the news

How Germs Might Shape the Future of Architecture – Vicky Gan – City Lab

FDA digging into hand cleaners in hospitals – Jonathan Eisen – MicroBEnet

Essay: The Fight Against the Fight Against the Fight Against Bacteria – Daniel Yin – University of Oxford

Freshman Biology, Creativity, and Extra Credit… – Mark O. Martin – MicrobesRule

You Asked: Should I Use Antibacterial Soap? – Markham Heid – Time
About Tim Spector book “The Diet Myth”: Fast food kills gut bacteria that can keep you slim, study finds – Daniel Costa-Roberts

About the Sonnenburgs’ book “The Good Gut”: To be healthy, take care of your microbiome – Kate Allen – The Start

Should you put yogurt on your face? The benefits of probiotics go beyond improved digestion – Victoria Dawson Hoff – Elle Beauty

My Archaea, My Brother – Genome Web

“This Idle No More movement is like bacteria, it has grown a life of its own all across this nation,” – RCMP apologizes for Idle No More ‘bacteria’ comparison – APTN

Calls for global database on bacteria contained in food – Channel News Asia

Antibiotic-Resistant Typhoid Spreading Abroad – Dennis Thompson – WebMD

“You may not want to eat lunch with Misty Bever”: Intestinal fortitude: There’s an illness lurking that causes chronic, debilitating pain. The cure, however, comes from deep within.– Dan England – The Tribune

Bik’s Picks

Mars sunsets are beautiful — and blue, NASA photo shows – Matthew T. Hall – UT San Diego

What do these new alien photos reveal about Roswell UFO crash – Sam Catherman – State Column

Google says its self-driving cars have had 11 crashes – Chris Woodyard – USA Today

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May 8, 2015

Human oral microbiome

Published in Gut but also oral: Human buccal epithelium acquires microbial hyporesponsiveness at birth, a role for secretory leukocyte protease inhibitor – Celia L Menckeberg – Gut

 

Human gut microbiome

Cholesterol gallstones and bile host diverse bacterial communities with potential to promote the formation of gallstones – Yuhong Peng – Microbial Pathogenesis

Development of an enhanced human gastrointestinal epithelial culture system to facilitate patient-based assays – Kelli L VanDussen – Gut

Gut microbiome and innate immune response patterns in IgE-associated eczema – Christina E West – Clinical & Experimental Allergy

Review: The gut microbiome in autoimmunity: Sex matters – Andres Gomez – Clinical Immunology

Review: Chemical communication in the gut: Effects of microbiota-generated metabolites on gastrointestinal bacterial pathogens – Stefanie L. Vogt – Anaerobe

Special issue of Clinical Liver Disease about “Liver and the Microbiome”. Reviews include:

Human genital microbiome

The vaginal and gastrointestinal microbiomes in gynecologic cancers: A review of applications in etiology, symptoms and treatment – Dana Chase – Gynecologic Oncology

Animal models of microbiome

Effects of dietary inulin on bacterial growth, short-chain fatty acid production and hepatic lipid metabolism in gnotobiotic mice – Karolin Weitkunat – The Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry

Plant root and soil microbiome

Covariation of soil bacteria functional diversity and vegetation diversity along an altitudinal climatic gradient in the Western Carpathians – Beata Klimek – Pedobiologia

Changes in fungal communities along a boreal forest soil fertility gradient – Erica Sterkenburg – New Phytologist

Water microbiome

Editorial without citation to the original Nature paper: Deep-ocean microbe is closest living relative of complex cells – Mitch Leslie – Science

Parasites

Not all parasites are protective – Derek M. McKay – Parasite Immunology

Helminths and the microbiota: parts of the hygiene hypothesis – P. Loke – Parasite Immunology

Bioinformatics

Testing in Microbiome-Profiling Studies with MiRKAT, the Microbiome Regression-Based Kernel Association Test – Ni Zhao – AJHG

Sparse and Compositionally Robust Inference of Microbial Ecological Networks – Zachary D. Kurtz – PLOS Computational Biology

Demystifying computer science for molecular ecologists – Mahdi Belcaid and Robert J. Toonen

Techniques

TM7 detection in human microbiome: Are PCR primers and FISH probes specific enough? – Maria V. Sizova – Journal of Microbiological Methods

Microbes in the news

Man’s Best Germs: Does Your Dog Influence Your Health? – Heather Buschman – UC San Diego

Video: Can Poop Cure an Infection? – Anna Rothschild – Gross science

Science, publishing, and career

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to a Neuroscience Career – Marian Joels – Neuron

Recommendation letters: Give women an even chance – Marcia McNutt – Science

Bik’s Picks
Spiders Sprayed with Graphene Spin Super-Strong Silk – Renee Morad – Discovery

Mmm, I always have mixed feelings about papers using these types of animal models. “We made this mouse blind. And then we cured it!” Light in sight: A step towards a potential therapy for acquired blindness – Science Daily

Grocery lists may help shoppers stick to healthier diet, lower weight – Reuters

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May 7, 2015

Events

Human Gut Microbiome and Diseases Congress – 25-26 June 2015, Milano, Italy

Pregnancy and birth microbiome

The Canadian Healthy Infant Longitudinal Development (CHILD) birth cohort study: assessment of environmental exposures – Tim K Takaro – Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology

The Impact of Infancy Antibiotic Intake on Childhood Obesity; Review of Studies – Mohammad Reza Vafa – Advances in Obesity, Weight Management & Control

Human respiratory microbiome

The Host Response to the Lung Microbiome in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease
Marc A Sze – American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine

Human gut microbiome

Approaches to studying and manipulating the enteric microbiome to improve autism symptoms – Richard E. Frye – Microbial Ecology in Health and Disease

Plant root and soil microbiome

Heading to the Origins – Rice Microbiome as Functional Extension of the Host – Pablo R. Hardoim – Journal of Rice Research

Inoculation of Phaseolus vulgaris with the nodule-endophyte Agrobacterium sp. 10C2 affects richness and structure of rhizosphere bacterial communities and enhances nodulation and growth – Saif-Allah Chihaoui – submitted paper

Biochar in Co-Contaminated Soil Manipulates Arsenic Solubility and Microbiological Community Structure, and Promotes Organochlorine Degradation – Samuel J. Gregory – PLOS ONE

Microbial quality of soil from the Pampa biome in response to different grazing pressures – Rafael S. Vargas – Genetics and Molecular Biology

Built environment microbiome

Dysbiotic drift: mental health, environmental grey space, and microbiota – Alan C Logan – Journal of Physiological Anthropology

Extremophiles

Sub-Ice Microalgal and Bacterial Communities in Freshwater Lake Baikal, Russia – Maria V. Bashenkhaeva – Microbial Ecology

Phages and viruses

Protist predation can select for bacteria with lowered susceptibility to infection by lytic phages – Anni-Maria Örmälä-Odegrip – BMC Evolutionary Biology

Microbial Ecology

Evolutionary ecology of microorganisms: from the tamed to the wild – Jay T Lennon – PeerJ

Metagenomics and bioinformatics

MyPro: A seamless pipeline for automated prokaryotic genome assembly and annotation – Yu-Chieh Liao – Journal of Microbiological Methods

PrePrint: Infer Metagenomic Abundance and Reveal Homologous Genomes Based on the Structure of Taxonomy Tree – Yu-Qing Qiu – IEEE/ACM Transactions on Computational Biology and Bioinformatics

Metabolomics

Effects of Uremic Toxins from the Gut Microbiota on Bone: A Brief Look at Chronic Kidney Disease – Ana Paula Black – Therapeutic Apheresis and Dialysis

Microbes in the news

Ulcer-causing bacteria induces stomach stem cell growth in mice, researchers find – Stanford Medicine

Newly named bacteria help honey bee larvae thrive – Kim Kaplan – Phys.org

The smell of death: Scientist reveals how 400 compounds mix to create heady mixture of scents as bacteria rips apart rotting flesh – Moheb Costandi – Daily Mail

Eat your vegetables, feed your microbiome – David Charbonneau – EyeViewKamloops

Microbiome Portrait Experiment for High School Students – Tufts

Bacteria redefine reinforced concrete – RSC Advances Blog

Possible role of gut bacteria in autism – Science Daily

Environmental exposures study tracks more than 3,200 Canadian babies – Simon Fraser University

Final Report Summary – TORNADO (Molecular Targets Open for Regulation by the gut flora – New Avenues for improved Diet to Optimize European health) – CORDIS Europa

Measles Vaccination Saves You From More Than Measles – Maggie Fox – NBC News

Microbes and money

‘Gut microbiome’ startup moving to science accelerator, seeks study volunteers: Prince William Science Accelerator – ISOThrive – Inside Nova

UBiome Seeks Academic Partnerships with the Launch of the uBiome Academic Consortium – WDRB

Science, publishing, and career

Science forum: RIPOSTE: a framework for improving the design and analysis of laboratory-based research – Nicholas G D Masca – eLife

Bik’s Picks

Listen To These Eerie ‘X-Files’ Sounds Recorded At The Edge Of Space – Macrina Cooper-White – Huffington Post

Finding That Babies Born at 22 Weeks Can Survive Could Change Abortion Debate – Lucy Westcott – Newsweek

Samantha Cristoforetti: 5 Memorable Moments From the Italian Astronaut’s Time in Space – Alyssa Newcomb – ABC News
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April 28, 2015

Wow, this was a busy day with about 700 new articles for y’all to screen. Here we go:

Events

May 7th Webinar: George Weinstock Ph.D., will present “The Human Microbiome: Impact on Health and Disease.”

May 13th Webcast at 11am EDT – “Innovations in the microbiome” with Annick Mercenier and Enea Rezzonico – Nature Publishing Group

Human oral microbiome

Periodontal disease in a remote Asian population: association between clinical and microbiological parameters – Christine Kvarnvik – Journal of Investigative and Clinical Dentistry

Human gut microbiome

Comparison of the gut microbiota of people in France and Saudi Arabia – M. Yasir – Nutrition and Diabetes

Fecal microbiota characteristics of patients with colorectal adenoma detected by screening: A population-based study – James J. Goedert – EBioMedicine

Review: Archaea associated with human surfaces: not to be underestimated – Corinna Bang , Ruth A. Schmitz – FEMS Microbiology Reviews

Review: Keeping bugs in check: The mucus layer as a critical component in maintaining intestinal homeostasis – Martin Faderl – IUBMB Life

Review: A day in the life of the meta-organism: diurnal rhythms of the intestinal microbiome and its host – Christoph A Thaiss – Gut Microbes

Review: Effect of Helicobacter pylori Infection on the Composition of Gastric Microbiota in the Development of Gastric Cancer – Cao L. · Yu J. – GastroIntestinal Tumors

Review: Immunogenetic control of the Intestinal Microbiota – Eric Marietta – Immunology

Review: Type 2 diabetes and gut microbiome: at the intersection of known and unknown – Smitha Upadhyaya – Gut Microbes

Review: Host-Microbiota Interactions in the Intestine – Elson C.O. – Digestive Diseases

Review: Control of commensal microbiota by the adaptive immune system – Husen Zhang – Gut Microbes

Animal models of microbiome research

Effects of low dietary protein on the metabolites and microbial communities in the caecal digesta of piglets – Zhen Luo – Archives of Animal Nutrition

Perturbation of the intestinal microbiota of mice infected with Cryptosporidium parvum – Refaat Ras – International Journal of Parasitology

Host litter-associated gut dynamics affect Escherichia coli abundance and adhesion genotype in rats – Michaela D. J. Blyton – Environmental Microbiology Reports

Regulation by gut commensal bacteria of carcinoembryonic antigen-related cell adhesion molecule expression in the intestinal epithelium – Yasuaki Kitamura – Genes to Cells

Bacteria-Mediated Effects of Antibiotics on Daphnia Nutrition – Elena Gorokhova – Environmental Science & Technology

Role of intestinal microbiota in the generation of polyphenol-derived phenolic acid mediated attenuation of Alzheimer’s disease β-amyloid oligomerization – Dongjie Wang – Molecular Nutrition & Food Research

Animal microbiome

Bacterial symbiont sharing in Megalomyrmex social parasites and their fungus-growing ant hosts – Joanito Liberti – Molecular Ecology

Microbial and sponge loops modify fish production in phase-shifting coral reefs – Cynthia B. Silveira – Environmental Microbiology

Coral symbiotic algae calcify ex hospite in partnership with bacteria – Jörg C. Frommlet – PNAS USA

Plant, plant root and soil microbiome

Yeast nitrogen utilization in the phyllosphere during plant lifespan under regulation of autophagy – Kosuke Shiraishi – Scientific Reports

Role of root microbiota in plant productivity – Andrzej Tkacz and Philip Poole – Journal of Experimental Botany

Seasonal variation of bacterial endophytes in urban trees – Shu Yi Shen – Frontiers in Microbiology

Plant polysaccharides initiate underground crosstalk with bacilli by inducing synthesis of the immunogenic lipopeptide surfactin – Delphine Debois – Environmental Microbiology Reports

Banana leaf and glucose mineralization and soil organic matter in microhabitats of banana plantations under long-term pesticide use – Elena Blume – Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry

Whole-genome comparative analysis of virulence genes unveils similarities and differences between endophytes and other symbiotic bacteria – Sebastian Lòpez-Fernàndez – Frontiers in Microbiology

Decreases in soil moisture and organic matter quality suppress microbial decomposition following a boreal forest fire – Sandra R. Holden – Soil Biology and Biochemistry

Soil bacterial community response to sulfadiazine in the soil–root zone – Rüdiger Reichel – Journal of Plant Nutrition and Soil Science

Three-dimensional structure and cyanobacterial activity within a desert biological soil crust – Hagai Raanan – Environmental Microbiology

Contrasting spatial patterns and ecological attributes of soil bacterial and archaeal taxa across a landscape – Florentin Constancias – Microbiology Open

Microbial 16S gene-based composition of a sorghum cropped rhizosphere soil under different fertilization managements – Anna Lavecchia – Biology and Fertility of Soils

Non-symbiotic Bradyrhizobium ecotypes dominate North American forest soils – David VanInsberghe – The ISME Journal

Deforestation fosters bacterial diversity and the cyanobacterial community responsible for carbon fixation processes under semiarid climate: a metaproteomics study – Felipe Bastida – Applied Soil Ecology

Soil pH effects on the interactions between dissolved zinc, non-nano- and nano-ZnO with soil bacterial communities – Daniel S. Read – Environmental Science and Pollution Research

Functional diversity of soil microbial communities under Scots pine, Norway spruce, silver birch and mixed boreal forests – Chodak Marcin – Pedobiologia

Water microbiome

Metabolic cascades in marine microbial communities – Andreas F. Haas and Forest Rohwer – PNAS USA

A Rickettsiales Symbiont of Amoebae with Ancient Features – Frederik Schulz – Environmental Microbiology

Bacterial communities of Beijing surface waters as revealed by 454 pyrosequencing of the 16S rRNA gene – Yu-Mei Wei – Environmental Science and Pollution Research

Cyanobacterial dynamics in shallow Lake Apopka (Florida, U.S.A.) before and after the shift from a macrophyte-dominated to a phytoplankton-dominated state – Matthew N. Waters – Freshwater Biology

Extremophile microbiome

Open Access: Metabolic and trophic interactions modulate methane production by Arctic peat microbiota in response to warming – Alexander Tøsdal Tveit – PNAS USA

Organic nitrogen cycling microbial communities are abundant in a dry Australian agricultural soil – Lori A. Phillips – Soil Biology and Biochemistry

Metagenomic and lipid analyses reveal a diel cycle in a hypersaline microbial ecosystem – Karen Andrade – The ISME Journal

Microbiome of the built environment

From Lab to Field: The Influence of Urban Landscapes on the Invasive Potential of Wolbachia in Brazilian Aedes aegypti Mosquitoes – Heverton Leandro Carneiro Dutra – PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases

Bioreactor microbiology

Deciphering Cyanide-Degrading Potential of Bacterial Community Associated with the Coking Wastewater Treatment Plant with a Novel Draft Genome – Zhiping Wang – Microbial Ecology

Seasonal Patterns in Microbial Community Composition in Denitrifying Bioreactors Treating Subsurface Agricultural Drainage – Matthew D. Porter – Microbial Ecology

Food microbiology

Analysis of Bacterial Diversity During Acetic Acid Fermentation of Tianjin Duliu Aged Vinegar by 454 Pyrosequencing – Qian Peng – Current Microbiology

Microbial Ecology

Field experimental evidence that stochastic processes predominate in the initial assembly of bacterial communities – Yi-Qi Hao – Environmental Microbiology

Effect of audible sound in form of music on microbial growth and production of certain important metabolites – Niral Sarvaiya, Vijay Kothari – Microbiology

Techniques

Optimized DNA extraction and metagenomic sequencing of airborne microbial communities – Wenjun Jiang – Nature Protocols
http://www.nature.com/nprot/journal/v10/n5/full/nprot.2015.046.html

Bioinformatics

phylogeo: an R package for geographic analysis and visualization of microbiome data
Zachary Charlop-Powers and Sean F. Brady – Bioinformatics

PhD thesis: Statistical models for large-scale comparative metagenome analysis – Kathrin Petra Aßhauer – Georg-August-Universität Göttingen

Metagenomics

Prokaryotic genes in eukaryotic genome sequences: when to infer horizontal gene transfer and when to suspect an actual microbe – Irena I. Artamonova – Environmental Microbiology

Metagenomic and network analysis reveal wide distribution and co-occurrence of environmental antibiotic resistance genes – Bing Li – The ISME Journal

Metabolomics and proteomics

Review: Microbial metaproteomics for characterizing the range of metabolic functions and activities of human gut microbiota – Weili Xiong – Proteomics

Fate of microbial metabolites of dietary polyphenols in rats: is the brain their target destination? – Mattia Gasperotti – ACS Chemical Neuroscience

Novel Systems Modeling Methodology in Comparative Microbial Metabolomics: Identifying Key Enzymes and Metabolites Implicated in Autism Spectrum Disorders – Colin Heberling – International Journal of Molecular Sciences

Navigating through metaproteomics data: A logbook of database searching –
Thilo Muth – Proteomics

Phages and viruses

Whole genome comparison of a large collection of mycobacteriophages reveals a continuum of phage genetic diversity – Welkin H Pope – eLIFE

Linking environmental prokaryotic viruses and their host through CRISPRs
– Laura Sanguino – FEMS Microbiology Ecology

Microbes in the news

The Healthy Birth: Dyad or Triad? Exploring Birth and the Microbiome – Anne Estes – Science & Sensibility

Designing a Hospital to Better Fight Infection (about the Hospital Microbiome Project) – Robert Lee Hotz – Wall Street Journal
and
WSJ article on the Hospital Microbiome Project – Elisabeth Bik – MicroBEnet

Facts About Our Microbial Menagerie – Infection Control Today

Don’t Trust The Goats; Their Ticks Could Make You Sick – Poncie Rutsch – NPR

Tiny Creatures: The World of Microbes – Anne M. Estes – Mostly Microbes

Time-lapse movie of growth and death in bacterial communities – David Esteban – Experiment.com

Altered saliva shows increased risk for hospitalization in patients with cirrhosis, hepatic encephalopathy – Healio

An arms race of microbial proportions: A war between bacteria and bacteriophages is being fought at the genetic level – Jason Tetro – Popular Science

Microbes and money

uBiome Launches Clinical Laboratory: launch of their CLIA-regulated clinical laboratory to provide clinical tests based on its unique microbial assays – Globe News Wire

New report sheds light on the Global human microbiome market – size, share, segments analysis and outlook to 2020 – Whatech.com

Science, publishing and career

Five Non-Academic Careers for which Ph.D. Holders are Uniquely Qualified… – Colin White – Nature Careers

Study: Peer Review Predicts Success – Ruth Williams – The Scientist

Discussion paper: Appearance and Gender Bias in Academia – Tali Regev – Tel Aviv University

Bik’s Picks
Source of Antarctica’s Eerie ‘Bleeding Glacier’ Found – Becky Oskin – Live Science

Video: Watch an Algae Cell Turn Itself Inside Out – Douglas Main – NewsWeek

How do you find a Burmese python in the Everglades? – Michael Casey – CBS News

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