Category Archives: Microbial Ecology

September 8, 2022

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Today’s microbiome digest includes ten rules for teaching yourself R, food safety profiles of ready-to-eat raw minced meat, teaching that addresses eco-anxiety, as well as both pathogenic and entomopathogenic fungi!

Human gut microbiome

Meals, Microbiota and Mental Health in Children and Adolescents (MMM-Study): A protocol for an observational longitudinal case-control study – Asbjornsdottir et al. – PLOS One

Strongyloides stercoralis infection induces gut dysbiosis in chronic kidney disease patients – Hai et al. – PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Mycoparasitism capability and growth inhibition activity of Clonostachys rosea isolates against fungal pathogens of grapevine trunk diseases suggest potential for biocontrol – Geiger et al. – PLOS One

Impact of endophytic colonization by entomopathogenic fungi on the behavior and life history of the tobacco peach aphid Myzus persicae var. nicotianae – Wilberts et al. – PLOS One

Food microbiology

Bacteriological quality and antimicrobial susceptibility profiles of isolates of ready-to-eat raw minced meat from hotels and restaurants in Arba Minch, Ethiopia – Tonjo et al. – PLOS One

Bioinformatics

Ten simple rules for teaching yourself R – Lawlor et al. – PLOS Computational Biology

Techniques

Laboratory evaluation of RealStar Yellow Fever Virus RT-PCR kit 1.0 for potential use in the global yellow fever laboratory network – Basile et al. – PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases

Science, publishing, and career )

Insufficient yet improving involvement of the global south in top sustainability science publications – Dangles et al. – PLOS One

Adapt conservation biology teaching to address eco-anxiety in students – São Pedro et al. – PLOS Biology

August 24, 2022

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General microbiome

[REVIEW]Detecting bacterial adaptation within individual microbiomes – Liebermann – Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

[REVIEW]Soil microbiomes and one health – Banerjee & van der Heijden – Nature Reviews Microbiology

Pregnancy and early life

Microbial Analysis of Umbilical Cord Blood Reveals Novel Pathogens Associated with Stillbirth and Early Preterm Birth – Vander Haar et al. – mBio

Human respiratory microbiome

The respiratory microbiota alpha-diversity in chronic lung diseases: first systematic review and meta-analysis – Avalos-Fernandez et al. – Respiratory Research

Human saliva microbiome

Saliva microbiome, dietary, and genetic markers are associated with suicidal ideation in university students – Ahrens et al. – Scientific Reports

Human gut microbiome

The gut microbiota is associated with immune cell dynamics in humans – Schluter et al. – Nature

The systemic anti-microbiota IgG repertoire can identify gut bacteria that translocate across gut barrier surfaces – Vujkovic-Cvijin et al. – Science Translational Medicine

Higher pathogen load in children from Mozambique vs. USA revealed by comparative fecal microbiome profiling – Kim et al. – ISME Communications

Correlation of inflammatory biomarkers with the diversity of Bacteroidaceae, Bifidobacteriaceae, Prevotellaceae and Lactobacillaceae families in the intestinal microbiota of patients with end stage renal disease – Asgharian et al. – Advances in Medical Sciences

Impact of the Host Microbiome on Vaccine Responsiveness: Lessons Learned and Future Perspective – Stefanetti & Kasper – Biochemistry

Location-specific signatures of Crohn’s disease at a multi-omics scale – Gonzalez et al. – Microbiome

Association of food insecurity on gut microbiome and metabolome profiles in a diverse college-based sample – Mohr et al. – Scientific Reports

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

The Diversity and Functional Capacity of Microbes Associated with Coastal Macrophytes – Miranda et al. – mSystems

Microbes in space

Machine learning algorithm to characterize antimicrobial resistance associated with the International Space Station surface microbiome – Madrigal et al. – Microbiome

Bioinformatics

[PREPRINT]Extending and improving metagenomic taxonomic profiling with uncharacterized species with MetaPhlAn 4 – Blanco-Miguez et al. – bioRxiv

Linear and nonlinear correlation estimators unveil undescribed taxa interactions in microbiome data – Lin, Eggesbø & Peddada – Nature Communications

Techniques

Primers matter: Influence of the primer selection on human fungal detection using high throughput sequencing – Wiemann et al. – Gut Microbes

Using Nanopore Sequencing to Obtain Complete Bacterial Genomes from Saliva Samples – Baker et al. – mSystems

August 19, 2022

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Today’s digest is short and sweet! We have articles on the gut microbiota in rats, the influence of host genetics on the leaf fungal microbiome, and biofilm fouling in drinking water. There are also two manuscripts which provide tips for pathway enrichment analysis and biomarker discovery.

Happy reading! Also, if you’re in Scotland, consider checking out the enormous E. coli in Edinburgh this weekend!

Animal experiments

Effects of sea salt intake on metabolites, steroid hormones, and gut microbiota in rats – Chanmuang et al. – PLOS One

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

The changing influence of host genetics on the leaf fungal microbiome throughout plant development – Karasov & Lundberg – PLOS Biology

Water and extremophile microbiome

Impacts of temperature and hydraulic regime on discolouration and biofilm fouling in drinking water distribution systems – Fish et al. – PLOS Water

Bioinformatics

Nine quick tips for pathway enrichment analysis – Chicco & Agapito – PLOS Computational Biology

Ten quick tips for biomarker discovery and validation analyses using machine learning – Diaz-Uriarte et al. – PLOS Computational Biology

August 5, 2022

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Today’s digest is brief and includes research examining the association between the gut microbiota and Gulf War illness, determining the distribution of psychrophilic microorganisms in a beef slaughterhouse, measuring the quality of DNA sequences via degradation, and more.

Happy Friday!

General microbiome

Measuring quality of DNA sequence data via degradation – Karr et al. – PLOS One

Atypical integrative element with strand-biased circularization activity assists interspecies antimicrobial resistance gene transfer from Vibrio alfacsensis – Nonaka et al. – PLOS One

Human vaginal microbiome

Association of key species of vaginal bacteria of recurrent bacterial vaginosis patients before and after oral metronidazole therapy with short- and long-term clinical outcomes – Mollin et al. – PLOS One

Human gut microbiome

Examining the association between the gastrointestinal microbiota and Gulf War illness: A prospective cohort study – Kates et al. – PLOS One

Food microbiology

Distribution of psychrophilic microorganisms in a beef slaughterhouse in Japan after cleaning – Nakamura et al. – PLOS One

Science, publishing, and career

Ten simple rules for leveraging virtual interaction to build higher-level learning into bioinformatics short courses – Bacon et al. – PLOS Computational Biology

July 28, 2022

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Today’s digest includes research on the gut microbiome of infants, ruminants, and sand flies! There is also a preprint about sewage microbiomes as well as a research article about photosynthetic bacterial communities in crop fields.

Happy reading!

Human skin microbiome

Lichen Planopilaris: The first biopsy layer microbiota inspection – Pinto et al. – PLOS One

Human gut microbiome

Adaptation of the infant gut microbiome during the complementary feeding transition – McKeen et al. – PLOS One

Animal microbiome

Metagenomic insights into the microbe-mediated B and K2 vitamin biosynthesis in the gastrointestinal microbiome of ruminants – Jiang et al. – Microbiome

Comparative analysis of the gut microbiota of sand fly vectors of zoonotic visceral leishmaniasis (ZVL) in Iran; host-environment interplay shapes diversity – Karimian et al. – PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Metagenomic analysis of the dynamical conversion of photosynthetic bacterial communities in different crop fields over different growth periods – Cheng et al. – PLOS One

Built environment

Preprint: A metagenomic investigation of spatial and temporal changes in sewage microbiomes across a university campus – Fierer et al. – bioRxiv

July 14, 2022

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Today’s digest has multiple articles on statistical and bioinformatic techniques! Also included is a job ad from my research team, so check it out if you’re interested in gaining geomicrobiology research experience at a national laboratory.

Events and jobs

Our geomicrobiology research group at the National Energy Technology Lab – Pittsburgh is looking for a technician/researcher. Exact responsibilities are somewhat flexible depending on interest and education-level; we are accepting applications from current students at all levels as well as postdocs.

General microbiome

Mycobacteriophages: From Petri dish to patient – Hatfull – PLOS Pathogens

Animal microbiome

Reconstructing the ecosystem context of a species: Honey-borne DNA reveals the roles of the honeybee – Wirta et al. – PLOS One

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Patterns of microbial communities were shaped by bioavailable P along the elevation gradient of Shergyla Mountain, as determined by analysis of phospholipid fatty acids – Ba et al. – PLOS One

Preprint: Soil chemistry and soil history significantly structure oomycete communities in Brassicaceae crop rotations – Blakney et al. – bioRxiv

Community succession and straw degradation characteristics using a microbial decomposer at low temperature – Zhang et al. – PLOS One

Built Environment

Indoor air microbial load, antibiotic susceptibility profiles of bacteria, and associated factors in different wards of Arba Minch General Hospital, southern Ethiopia – Kayta et al. – PLOS One

Techniques

moreThanANOVA: A user-friendly Shiny/R application for exploring and comparing data with interactive visualization – Jiang et al. – PLOS One

Preparation of biological monolayers for producing high-resolution scanning electron micrographs – Mentor et al. – PLOS One

The accuracy of absolute differential abundance analysis from relative count data – Roche & Mukherjee – PLOS Computational Biology

AC-PCoA: Adjustment for confounding factors using principal coordinate analysis – Wang et al. – PLOS Computational Biology

Microbes in the news

The Art of Science: Students Participate in University’s First-Ever Bio-Art Class – Bernardi – Syracuse University News

July 13, 2022

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Today’s digest features studies on the leaf-microbiome of 🍅 and 🍓 plants (+ bumblebees and mites), human gut and wastewater resistome, and more. Happy reading!

Reproductive tract

Female reproductive tract microbiota and recurrent pregnancy loss: a nested case-control study – Pirkko Peuranpää – Reproductive BioMedicine Online

Gut microbiome

Dynamic metabolic interactions and trophic roles of human gut microbes identified using a minimal microbiome exhibiting ecological properties – Sudarshan A. Shetty – Journal of the International Society for Microbial Ecology

*Within-patient evolution of plasmid-mediated antimicrobial resistance – Javier DelaFuente – bioRxiv

An expanded reference map of the human gut microbiome reveals hundreds of previously unknown species – Sigal Leviatan – Nature Communications

Animal microbiome

Carpenter Bees (Xylocopa) Harbor a Distinctive Gut Microbiome Related to That of Honey Bees and Bumble Bees – Jo-anne C. Holley – Applied and Environmental Microbiology

Animal experiments

Gardnerella Exposures Alter Bladder Gene Expression and Augment Uropathogenic Escherichia coli Urinary Tract Infection in Mice – Nicole M. Gilbert – Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology

Plant microbiome

*The Greenhouse Phyllosphere Microbiome and Associations with Introduced Bumblebees and Predatory Mites – Marie Legein – Microbiology Spectrum

Food microbiome

Longitudinal, multi-platform metagenomics yields a high-quality genomic catalog and guides an in vitro model for cheese communities – Christina C. Saak – bioRxiv

New insights of bacterial communities in fermented vegetables from shotgun metagenomics and identification of antibiotic resistance genes and probiotic bacteria – Muhammad Yasir – Food Research International

Water microbiome

*High-resolution characterisation of short-term temporal variability in the taxonomic and resistome composition of wastewater influent – Kevin Kaibond Chau – bioRxiv

Pilot investigation on biostability of drinking water distribution systems under water source switching – Kejia Zhang – Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology

Bioinformatics

*BinaRena: a dedicated interactive platform for human-guided exploration and binning of metagenomes – Michael J. Pavia – bioRxiv

getSequenceInfo: a suite of tools allowing to get genome sequence information from public repositories – Vincent Moco – BMC Bioinformatics

baseLess: Lightweight detection of sequences in raw MinION data – Ben Noordijk – bioRxiv

July 12, 2022

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Human and General Microbiome

Metagenomic prediction of antimicrobial resistance in critically ill patients with lower respiratory tract infections – Paula Hayakawa Serpa – Genome Medicine

Alterations in gut microbiota of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma patients – Man Kit Cheung – Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology

Altered Pattern of Immunoglobulin A-Targeted Microbiota in Inflammatory Bowel Disease After Fecal Transplantation – Wen-Qi Huang – Frontiers in Microbiology

16S rRNA gene sequencing reveals an altered composition of gut microbiota in children with Mycoplasma pneumoniae pneumonia treated with azithromycin – Qiong Deng – The Journal of General and Applied Microbiology

Clinical and metagenomic profiling of hormonal acne-prone skin in different populations – Nina Hrapovic – Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology

Microbiota diversity in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease and in drug-induced liver injury – Cristina Rodriguez-Diaza – Pharmacological Research

Beneficial Microbes and Compounds

Review: The potential role of prebiotics, probiotics, and synbiotics in adjuvant cancer therapy especially colorectal cancer – Zahoor Alam – Journal of Food Biochemistry

Review: Probiotics, prebiotics and postbiotics for better sleep quality: a narrative review – J E Haarhuis – Beneficial Microbes

Review: Gut Microbiota: A Novel Therapeutic Target for Parkinson’s Disease – Manlian Zhu – Frontiers in Immunology

Animal Model Microbiome

Obesity enriches for tumor protective microbial metabolites and treatment refractory cells to confer therapy resistance in PDAC – Kousik Kesh – Gut Microbes

Profiling of d-alanine production by the microbial isolates of rat gut microbiota – Cindy J. Lee – The FASEB Journal

Non-Model Animal Microbiome

Within-community variation of interspecific divergence patterns in passerine gut microbiota – Jan Kubovčiak – Ecology and Evolution

Bacteriophages

Phage defence by deaminase-mediated depletion of deoxynucleotides in bacteria – Brian Y. Hsueh – Nature Microbiology

Bioinformatics and Microbiome Analysis

Preprint: CheckM2: a rapid, scalable and accurate tool for assessing microbial genome quality using machine learning – Alex Chklovski – biorXiv

Cancer type classification using plasma cell-free RNAs derived from human and microbes – Shanwen Chen – eLife

Temporal Alignment of Longitudinal Microbiome Data – Ran Armoni – Frontiers in Microbiology

A Bottom-up Approach to Testing Hypotheses That Have a Branching Tree Dependence Structure, with Error Rate Control – Yunxiao Li – Journal of the American Statistical Association

July 2, 2022

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Have a nice weekend!

Highlights!

Priority effects shape the structure of infant-type Bifidobacterium communities on human milk oligosaccharides – Miriam N. Ojima – The ISME Journal → this paper contributes to the understanding of the configuration of different bifidobacteria in response to human milk oligosaccharides. 

Genomes of six viruses that infect Asgard archaea from deep-sea sediments – Ian M. Rambo – Nature Microbiology →By using metagenomics, authors describe six relatively large viral genomes, capable to infect members of the Asgard superphylum. The paper remarks on the strange features found in those viral genomes.

TLR4 regulates RORγt+ regulatory T-cell responses and susceptibility to colon inflammation through interaction with Akkermansia muciniphila – Yaojiang Liu – Microbiome → This article demonstrates the existence of “a novel protective role of TLR4 against intestinal inflammation, wherein it can modulate A. muciniphila-associated immune responses”. 

Human and General Microbiome

Review: The microbiome and gut homeostasis – Jee-Yon Lee – Science 

Review: The role of microbiome: a novel insight into urolithiasis – Sen-Yuan Hong – Critical Reviews in Microbiology

Review: Symbiosis: the other cells in development – Tyler J Carrier – Development 

Dysbiosis of the Gut Microbiome Is Associated With Histopathology of Lung Cancer – Xiong Qin – Frontiers in Microbiology

Beneficial Microbes and Compounds

Perspective: Leveraging the Gut Microbiota to Predict Personalized Responses to Dietary, Prebiotic, and Probiotic Interventions – Sean M Gibbons – Advances in Nutrition

Akkermansia muciniphila Alters Gut Microbiota and Immune System to Improve Cardiovascular Diseases in Murine Model – Xin He – Frontiers in Microbiology

Impact of probiotics use on clinical outcomes of immune checkpoint inhibitors therapy in cancer patients – Luying Wan – Cancer Medicine

Review: The gut microbiome as possible mediator of the beneficial effects of very low calorie ketogenic diet on type 2 diabetes and obesity: a narrative review – G Defeudis – Eating and Weight Disorders

Animal Microbiome

The coral pathogen Vibrio coralliilyticus kills non-pathogenic holobiont competitors by triggering prophage induction – Weiquan Wang – Nature Ecology & Evolution

Milk microbiomes of three great ape species vary among host species and over time – Sally L Bornbusch – Scientific Reports

Plant Microbiome

Fungal microbiome shifts on avocado fruit associated with a combination of postharvest chemical and physical interventions – Malick Bill – Journal of Applied Microbiology

Environmental Microbiome

Review: Priorities for ocean microbiome research – the Tara Ocean Foundation – Nature Microbiology

Microbiome Analysis Techniques and Tools

Protocol for correlation analysis of the murine gut microbiome and meta-metabolome using 16S rDNA sequencing and UPLC-MS – Xiaoqing Li – STAR Protocols

microbiomeMarker: an R/Bioconductor package for microbiome marker identification and visualization – Yang Cao – Bioinformatics

July 1, 2022

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We made it to the end of the week, we made it through the end of June. To celebrate, check out the two (!) articles about the pig gut microbiome, try out a new tool for network analysis (MicNet Toolbox), or enjoy an NPR Short Waves podcast episode about Agar Art. Or maybe you’re spending the afternoon preparing a research talk or fieldwork event? If that’s the case, check out the article presenting 10 rules for improving communication among scientists or the one on the hidden labor of managing threats to safety by women in fieldwork.

General microbiome

Assessment of disinfectant efficacy in reducing microbial growth – Alajlan et al. – PLOS One

Animal experiments

Metagenomic analysis of the gut microbiota in piglets either challenged or not with enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli reveals beneficial effects of probiotics on microbiome composition, resistome, digestive function and oxidative stress responses – Apiwatsiri et al. – PLOS One

Phylogenetic diversity analysis of shotgun metagenomic reads describes gut microbiome development and treatment effects in the post-weaned pig – Gaio et al. – PLOS One

Preprint: Using axenic and gnotobiotic insects to examine the role of different microbes on the development and reproduction of the kissing bug Rhodnius prolixus (Hemiptera: Reduviidae) – Gilliland et al. – bioRxiv

Bioinformatics

MicNet toolbox: Visualizing and unraveling a microbial network – Favila et al. – PLOS One
Techniques

Evaluating the impact of sample storage, handling, and technical ability on the decay and recovery of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater – Beattie et al. – PLOS One

Microbes in the news

NPR’s Short Wave Podcast: Let’s Get Crafty With Agar Art (11 minute episode)!

Science, publishing, and career

Ten simple rules for improving communication among scientists – Bautista et al. – PLOS Computational Biology

You can’t report your feelings: The hidden labor of managing threats to safety by women in global public health fieldwork – McAuliffe et al. – PLOS Global Public Health