Category Archives: Phages and viruses

December 15, 2023

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Today’s digest features house mice gut microbiome, infant gut DNA bacteriophage strain persistence, maternal gut microbiome in pregnancy, and more.

Do not miss Francine Marques’s opinion on rethinking culture to unlock the potential of research.

See you at #MVIF next week!

Respiratory microbiome

Review: Winds of change a tale of: asthma and microbiome – David Galeana-Cadena – Frontiers in Microbiology

Gut microbiome

Review: The maternal gut microbiome in pregnancy: implications for the developing immune system – Omry Koren – Nature Reviews Gastroenterology & Hepatology

Bioactive glycans in a microbiome-directed food for children with malnutrition – Matthew C. Hibberd – Nature

Shotgun metagenomics reveals interkingdom association between intestinal bacteria and fungi involving competition for nutrients – Zixuan Xie – Microbiome

Gut microbiota-related metabolite alpha-linolenic acid mitigates intestinal inflammation induced by oral infection with Toxoplasma gondii – Jing Yang – Microbiome

Fiber-deficient diet inhibits colitis through the regulation of the niche and metabolism of a gut pathobiont – Peter Kuffa – Cell Host & Microbe

Animal microbiome

Subspecies divergence, hybridisation and the spatial environment shape phylosymbiosis in the microbiome of house mice – Susana C. M. Ferreira – bioRxiv

Turnover of strain-level diversity modulates functional traits in the honeybee gut microbiome between nurses and foragers – Gilles L. C. Baud – Genome Biology

Seasonal and environmental factors contribute to the variation in the gut microbiome: a large-scale study of a small bird – Martta Liukkonen – bioRxiv

Plant-Root-Soil microbiome

Genome-resolved metatranscriptomics reveals conserved root colonization determinants in a synthetic microbiota – Nathan Vannier – Nature Communications

Virome

Infant gut DNA bacteriophage strain persistence during the first 3 years of life – Yue Clare Lou – Cell Host & Microbe

Techniques

High-throughput anaerobic screening for identifying compounds acting against gut bacteria in monocultures or communities – Patrick Müller – Nature Protocols

Bioinformatics

MAGqual: A standalone pipeline to assess the quality of metagenome-assembled genomes – James P.J. Chong – bioRxiv

October 18, 2023

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Human gut microbiome

Association between gut microbiota and influenza: a bidirectional two-sample mendelian randomization study – Xu et al. – BMC Infectious Diseases

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

LACC1 regulates changes in the intestinal flora in a mouse model of inflammatory bowel disease – Xu & Wang – BMC Gastroenterology

Animal microbiome (for animals in the wild)

[PREPRINT]Sex-specific gut bacteria manipulation impacts offspring production in the honeybee parasite small hive beetle, Aethina tumida Murray – Biswas et al. – bioRxiv

Selective enrichment of founding reproductive microbiomes allows extensive vertical transmission in a fungus-farming termite – Sinotte et al. – Proc. R. Soc. B

Microbiome variations among age classes and diets of captive Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) in Thailand using full-length 16S rRNA nanopore sequencing – Klinsawat et al. – Scientific Reports

Temporal and spatial variations in body mass and thermogenic capacity associated with alterations in the gut microbiota and host transcriptome in mammalian herbivores – Ren et al. – Science of The Total Environment

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

Metagenome sequencing and recovery of 444 metagenome-assembled genomes from the biofloc aquaculture system – Rajeev et al. – Scientific Data

Net-spinning caddisflies create denitrifier-enriched niches in the stream microbiome – Bertagnolli et al. – ISME Communications

Parasites, Phages and viruses

Effects of heat tolerance on the gut microbiota of Sarcophaga peregrina (Diptera: Sarcophagidae) and impacts on the life history traits – Ren et al. – Parasites & Vectors

Bioinformatics / Techniques

[PREPRINT]Comprehensive Identification of Pathogenic Microbes and Antimicrobial Resistance Genes in Food Products Using Nanopore Sequencing-Based Metagenomics – Wing-Tung et al. – bioRxiv

Causal inference on microbiome-metabolome relations in observational host-microbiome data via in silico in vivo association pattern analyses – Hertel et al. – Cell Reports Methods

Rank selection for non-negative matrix factorization – Cai, Gu & Kenney

September 13, 2023

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General microbiome

[Resource]BugSigDB captures patterns of differential abundance across a broad range of host-associated microbial signatures – Geistlinger et al. – Nature Biotechnology

Human oral microbiome

[REVIEW]The oral microbiome: diversity, biogeography and human health – Baker et al. – Nature Reviews Microbiology

Dysbiosis of oral microbiome persists after dental treatment-induced remission of periodontal disease and dental caries – Yama et al. – mSystems

Human nearly-sterile sites (blood, organs, brain)

Proton pump inhibitor treatment aggravates bacterial translocation in patients with advanced cirrhosis and portal hypertension – Sturm et al. – mBio

Human gut microbiome

A faecal metabolite signature of impaired fasting glucose: results from two independent population-based cohorts – Nogal et al. – Diabetes

Composition and functional profiles of gut microbiota reflect the treatment stage, severity, and etiology of acute pancreatitis – Wang et al. – Microbiology Spectrum

Animal microbiome

Langerhans cells shape postnatal oral homeostasis in a mechanical-force-dependent but microbiota and IL17-independent manner – Jaber et al. – Nature Communications

Specific pathway abundances in the neonatal calf faecal microbiome are associated with susceptibility to Cryptosporidium parvum infection: a metagenomic analysis – Hares et al. – Animal Microbiome

Phage-microbe dynamics after sterile faecal filtrate transplantation in individuals with metabolic syndrome: a double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled clinical trial assessing efficacy and safety – Wortelboer et al. – Nature Communications

Gut microbiota of old mice worsens neurological outcome after brain ischemia via increased valeric acid and IL-17 in the blood – Zeng et al. – Microbiome

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Different bacterial and fungal community patterns in restored habitats in coal-mining subsidence areas – Wang et al. – Environmental Science and Pollution Research

June 13, 2023

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Today’s microbiome digest includes quite a few host-microbe studies, including one published by my colleague and highlighted below which focuses on the hindgut microbiome of the American cockroach.

Human gut microbiome

Gut microbiota interspecies interactions shape the response of Clostridioides difficile to clinically relevant antibiotics – Hromada – and Venturelli – PLOS Biology

Construction of model animals to explore intestinal microbiome for detection of breast cancer – Ji et al. – PLOS One

Animal experiments

**Disentangling hindgut metabolism in the American cockroach through single-cell genomics and metatranscriptomics – Dukes et al. – Frontiers in Microbiology

Evaluation of microbial and vancomycin treatments in ulcerative colitis in murine models – Hasan and Yang – PLOS One

Animal microbiome

Geography, not lifestyle, explains the population structure of free-living and host-associated deep-sea hydrothermal vent snail symbionts – Hauer et al. – Microbiome

Insect phylogeny structures the bacterial communities in the microbiome of psyllids (Hemiptera: Psylloidea) in Aotearoa New Zealand – Martoni et al. – PLOS One

Water and extremophile microbiome

In the right place, at the right time: the integration of bacteria into the Plankton Ecology Group model – Park et al. – Microbiome

Phages and viruses

Beyond pathogenesis: Detecting the full spectrum of ecological interactions in the virosphere – Jurburg et al. – PLOS Biology

Phage therapy and the public: Increasing awareness essential to widespread use – McCammon et al. – PLOS One

May 5, 2023

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Today’s microbiome digest is a grab bag that includes ten simple rules for working with other people’s code, an article examining Wolbachia infections in native cockroach populations, and an article examining the role in lactic acid in shaping the human microbiome. Also highlighted is an article focused on human viruses residing within our cells and tissues, which demonstrated a unique virome in nine different human organs through targeted-enrichment viral metagenomics and virus specific qPCRs.

Happy reading!

General microbiome

The structure of prevacuolar compartments in Neurospora crassa as observed with super-resolution microscopy – Bowman – PLOS One

Phylogenetic trees of closely related bacterial species and subspecies based on frequencies of short nucleotide sequences – Nakano et al. – PLOS One

***Unmasking the tissue-resident eukaryotic DNA virome in humans – Pyöriä et al. – Nucleic Acids Research

Predicting partner fitness based on spatial structuring in a light-driven microbial community – Sakkos et al. – PLOS Computational Biology

Multi-site human microbiome

Evaluation of alcohol-free mouthwash for studies of the oral microbiome – Yano et al. – PLOS One

A systematically biosynthetic investigation of lactic acid bacteria reveals diverse antagonistic bacteriocins that potentially shape the human microbiome – Zhang et al. – Microbiome

Human gut microbiome

Positive mood-related gut microbiota in a long-term closed environment: a multiomics study based on the “Lunar Palace 365” experiment – Hao et al. – Microbiome

Animal microbiome

Wolbachia infection in native populations of Blattella germanica and Periplaneta americana – Choubdar et al. – PLOS One

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Bacterial and fungal community composition and community-level physiological profiles in forest soils – Kunito et al. – PLOS One

Water and extremophile microbiome

Predicting microbial community compositions in wastewater treatment plants using artificial neural networks – Liu et al. – Microbiome

Open ocean and coastal strains of the N2-fixing cyanobacterium UCYN-A have distinct transcriptomes – Muñoz-Marín et al. – PLOS One

Meta-organism gene expression reveals that the impact of nitrate enrichment on coral larvae is mediated by their associated Symbiodiniaceae and prokaryotic assemblages – Tong et al. – Microbiome

Bioinformatics

Ten simple rules for working with other people’s code – Pilgrim et al. – PLOS Computational Biology

Predicting microbe organisms using data of living micro forms of life and hybrid microbes classifier – Raza et al. – PLOS One

iPHoP: An integrated machine learning framework to maximize host prediction for metagenome-derived viruses of archaea and bacteria – Roux et al. – PLOS Biology

April 19, 2023

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Pregnancy and early life

[REVIEW]The maternal gut microbiome during pregnancy and its role in maternal and infant health – Sinha et al. – Current Opinion in Microbiology

Human oral microbiome

Independent Effects of HIV and Antiretroviral Therapy on the Oral Microbiome Identified by Multivariate Analyses – Beall et al. – mBio

[REVIEW]Oral microbial changes and oral disease management before and after the treatment of hematological malignancies: a narrative review – Lin et al. – Clinical Oral Investigations

Human vaginal microbiome

[REVIEW]Gardnerella Revisited: Species Heterogeneity, Virulence Factors, Mucosal Immune Responses, and Contributions to Bacterial Vaginosis – Shvartsman et al. – Infection and Immunity

Human gut microbiome/virome

[REVIEW]Intrahost evolution of the gut microbiota – Barreta & Gordo – Nature Reviews Microbiology

The gut microbiota contributes to the pathogenesis of anorexia nervosa in humans and mice – Fan et al. – Nature Microbiology

Altered human gut virome in patients undergoing antibiotics therapy for Helicobacter pylori – Wang et al. – Nature Communications

Antibiotic treatment using amoxicillin-clavulanic acid impairs gut mycobiota development through modification of the bacterial ecosystem – Spatz et al. – Microbiome

Metabolic independence drives gut microbial colonization and resilience in health and disease – Watson et al. – Microbiome

Development of the gut microbiota in the first 14 years of life and its relations to internalizing and externalizing difficulties and social anxiety during puberty – Ou et al. – European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry

Reconstructing the landscape of gut microbial species across 29,000 diverse individuals – Segota et al. – NAR

Microbiomic profiles of bile in patients with benign and malignant pancreaticobiliary disease – Poudel et al. – PLOS One

Seasonal variations in gut microbiota and disease course in patients with inflammatory bowel disease – Tani et al. – PLOS One

The convergent application of metabolites from Avena sativa and gut microbiota to ameliorate non-alcoholic fatty liver disease: a network pharmacology study – Oh et al. – Journal of Translational Medicine volume

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

Effects of Extended Cage Component Sanitation Interval on the Microenvironment, Health, and Gastrointestinal Microbiome of Rats (Rattus norvegicus) – Taylor et al. – Journal of the American Association for Laboratory Animal Science

Music-based interventions in the feeding environment on the gut microbiota of mice – Niu et al. – Scientific Reports

Animal microbiome (for animals in the wild)

Characterisation of the koala (Phascolarctos cinereus) pouch microbiota in a captive population reveals a dysbiotic compositional profile associated with neonatal mortality – Maidment et al. – Microbiome

[PREPRINT]Microbiome variability of mosquito lines is consistent over time and across environments – Accoti et al. – bioRxiv

Differences in the luminal and mucosal gut microbiomes and metabolomes of oriental rat snake (Ptyas mucosus) – Wei et al. – Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology

Bioinformatics

Improved eukaryotic detection compatible with large-scale automated analysis of metagenomes – Bazant et al. – Microbiome

Techniques

Functional gene-guided enrichment plus in situ microsphere cultivation enables isolation of new crucial ureolytic bacteria from the rumen of cattle – Liu et al. – Microbiome

April 14, 2023

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Today’s reading recommendation includes microbiome from sites with low anthropogenic impact, drinking water microbiome, and more.

If you have only a minute for reading then your must read is this amazing summary thread on how you should be careful with making assumptions ⬇️

See you at #MVIF next week!

Global resistome

Global trends in antimicrobial resistance on organic and conventional farms – Eldon Ager – bioRxiv

*Microbiome diversity: A barrier to the environmental spread of antimicrobial resistance? – Uli Klümper – bioRxiv

Mother-to-infant microbiome

Mother-to-infant microbiota transmission and infant microbiota development across multiple body sites – Debby Bogaert – Cell Host & Microbe

Human gut microbiome

The Local Tumor Microbiome Is Associated with Survival in Late-Stage Colorectal Cancer Patients – Justine W. Debelius – Microbiology Spectrum

Exploring Bifidobacterium species community and functional variations with human gut microbiome structure and health beyond infancy – Ruben Ladeira, Julien Tap, Muriel Derrien – Microbiome Research Reports

Water microbiome

The microbial dark matter and “wanted list” in worldwide wastewater treatment plants – Yulin Zhang – Microbiome

*Microbiome, resistome and mobilome of chlorine-free drinking water treatment systems – David Calderón-Franco – Water Research

Animal experiment

Probiotics of Lacticaseibacillus paracasei SD1 and Lacticaseibacillus rhamnosus SD11 attenuate inflammation and β-cell death in streptozotocin-induced type 1 diabetic mice – Jongdee Nopparat – PlosOne

Antibiotic treatment using amoxicillin-clavulanic acid impairs gut mycobiota development through modification of the bacterial ecosystem – Madeleine Spatz – Microbiome

*Experimental Factors Influence Diversity Metrics of the Gut Microbiome in Laboratory Mice – Rikeish R. Muralitharan – bioRxiv

Virome & phages

Expanding known viral diversity in the healthy infant gut – Shiraz A. Shah – Nature Microbiology

Large-scale phage cultivation for commensal human gut bacteria – Juntao Shen – Cell Host & Microbe

Methodology

Reducing bias in microbiome research: Comparing methods from sample collection to sequencing – Jolanda Kool – Frontiers in Microbiology

In Vitro Modelling of Oral Microbial Invasion in the Human Colon – Lucie Etienne-Mesmin – Microbiology Spectrum

Bioinformatics

Improved eukaryotic detection compatible with large-scale automated analysis of metagenomes – Wojtek Bazant – Microbiome

March 8, 2023

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Pregnancy and early life

[PREPRINT]The influence of early life exposures on the infant gut virome – Zhang et al. – bioRxiv

[PREPRINT]Maternal diet and gut microbiome composition modulate early life immune responses – Grant et al. – bioRxiv

Human oral microbiome

Smoking-induced subgingival dysbiosis precedes clinical signs of periodontal disease – Tamashiro et al. – Scientific Reports

Human gut microbiome

Gut microbiota and risk of five common cancers: A univariable and multivariable Mendelian randomization study – Wei et al. – Cancer Medicine

The role of the sex hormone-gut microbiome axis in tumor immunotherapy – Wang et al. – Gut Microbes

[REVIEW]The Influence of the Microbiome on Aggressive Behavior: an Insight into Age Related Aggression – Gulledge, Oyebode & Donaldson – FEMS Microbiology Letters

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

Gnotobiotic mice housing conditions critically influence the phenotype associated with transfer of faecal microbiota in a context of obesity – Daoust et al. – Gut

Animal microbiome (for animals in the wild)

[REVIEW]The coral microbiome: Towards an understanding of the molecular mechanisms of coral-microbiota interactions – Mohamed et al. – FEMS Microbiology Reviews

Comparison of the gut microbiome and resistome in captive African and Asian elephants on the same diet – Feng et al. – Front. Vet. Sci.

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

Core and conditionally rare taxa as indicators of agricultural drainage ditch and stream health and function – Shi et al. – BMC Microbiology

Species invasions shift microbial phenology in a two-decade freshwater time series – Rohwer et al. – PNAS

Bioinformatics

Controlling taxa abundance improves metatranscriptomics differential analysis – Ji & Ma – BMC Microbiology

coda4microbiome: compositional data analysis for microbiome cross-sectional and longitudinal studies – Luz Calle, Pujolassos & Susin – BMC Bioinformatics

[PREPRINT]You can move, but you can’t hide: identification of mobile genetic elements with geNomad – Camargo et al. – bioRxiv

Assembling the perfect bacterial genome using Oxford Nanopore and Illumina sequencing – Wick, Judd & Holt – PLOS Computational Biology

February 25th, 2023

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Bonjour from Paris, France !

In today’s digest you will find a broad range of amazing preprints and published papers! Fontana and collaborator performed a fascinating meta-analysis of publicly datasets obtained from fecal samples of healthy athletes and healthy sedentary adults and revealed the microbiota changes associated with competitive athletes lifestyle.

Today’s non-microbiology pick is an preprint exploring postdoctoral and PhD student’s career self-efficacy in US biological sciences and showed how women and non US citizen have a significant lower level of career self-efficacy compared to their male and US citizen peers. The authors discuss potential causes for these differences and offer recommendations for increasing trainee career self-efficacy.

Have a great Saturday!

Pregnancy and early life

Preprint: Co-localization of antibiotic resistance genes is widespread in the infant gut microbiome and associates with an immature gut microbial composition – Li et al. – BioRXiv

Human gut microbiome

The human gut microbiome of athletes: metagenomic and metabolic insights – Fontana et al. – Microbiome

Review: Gut microbiome-based strategies for host health and disease – Wang et al. – Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition

The role of diet in shaping human gut microbiota – Rinninella et al. – Best practive & Research clinical Gastroenterology

Preprint: Community composition and the environment modulate the population dynamics of type VI secretion in human gut bacteria – Robitaille et al. – BioRXiv

Genetic-Phenotype Analysis of Bifidobacterium bifidum and Its Glycoside Hydrolase Gene Distribution at Different Age Groups – Wei et al. – Foods

Animal microbiome

Preprint: Life stage and vaccination shape the gut microbiome of hatchery-reared Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) – Andres et al. – BioRXiv

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Preprint: Short- and long-term effects of continuous compost amendment on soil microbiome community – Kraut-Cohen et al. – BioRXiv

Awaking the Dormant Virome in the Rhizosphere – Braga and Schumacher – Molecular ecology

Water and extremophile microbiome

Preprint: A novel order-level lineage of ammonia-oxidizing Thaumarchaeota is widespread in marine and terrestrial environments – Zheng et al. – BioRXiv

Diverse Marine T4-like Cyanophage Communities Are Primarily Comprised of Low-Abundance Species Including Species with Distinct Seasonal, Persistent, Occasional, or Sporadic Dynamics – Dart et al. – Viruses

Food microbiology

Analysis of the core bacterial community associated with consumer-ready Eastern oysters (Crassostrea virginica) – Hines et al. – Plos One

Phages and viruses

Review: The Role of Temperate Phages in Bacterial Pathogenicity – Gummalla et al. – Microorganisms

Bioinformatics

Review: Bioinformatic Tools for NGS-Based Metagenomics to Improve the Clinical Diagnosis of Emerging, Re-Emerging and New Viruses – Ibanez-Lligona et al – Viruses

Non microbiology pick

Preprint: Citizenship status and career self-efficacy: An intersectional study of biomedical trainees in the United States – Chatterjee et al. – BioRXiv

February 18th, 2023

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Bonjour from Paris, France !

In today’s digest you will find a broad range of amazing preprints and published papers! An amazing read is a fresh preprint from Fritz and collaborator describing an exciting method of sampling in difficult to reach environments. The authors used army ants of the genus Dorylus which are foragers to survey the viral diversity of plants, vertebrate and invertebrates of the tropical forest!

Today’s non-microbiology pick is an opinion piece on the current state and limitation of viral taxonomy. In this piece, Simmonds and collaborators, provide concrete recommendations to guide the development of a coherent and comprehensive virus taxonomy.

Have a great Saturday!

Pregnancy and early life

The investigation of the association of pregnancy weight gain on maternal and neonatal gut microbiota composition and abundance using 16sRNA sequencing – Song and Liu – BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth

Human gut microbiome

The diet rapidly and differentially affects the gut microbiota and host lipid mediators in a healthy population – Bourdeau-Julien et al. – Microbiome

Review: Conversations in the Gut: The Role of Quorum Sensing in Normobiosis – Markus et al. – International Journal of Molecular Sciences

Review: Gut Microbiome and Neurodevelopmental Disorders: A Link Yet to Be Disclosed – Illiodromiti et al. – Microorganisms

Natural Green Spaces, Sensitization to Allergens, and the Role of Gut Microbiota during Infancy – Buchholz et al. – mSystems

Animal experiments

Mimicking seasonal changes in light-dark cycle and ambient temperature modulates gut microbiome in mice under the same dietary regimen – Matsumoto et al – Plos One

Animal microbiome

Preprint: Taurine as a key intermediate for host-symbiont interaction in the tropical sponge Ianthella basta – Moeller et al. – BioRxiV

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Preprint: Transmission of synthetic seed bacterial communities to radish seedlings: impact on microbiota assembly and plant phenotype – Simonin et al. – BioRxiV

Preprint: Viral but not bacterial community succession is characterized by extreme turnover shortly after rewetting dry soils – Santos-Medellin et al. – BioRxiV

Ecological drivers and potential functions of viral communities in flooded arsenic-contaminated paddy soils – Gao et al. – Science of the total environment

Water and extremophile microbiome

Preprint: Redefinition of archetypal phytoplankton-associated bacteria taxa based on globally distributed dinoflagellates and diatoms – Yang et al. – BioRxiV

Preprint: Plastic Leachate Exposure Drives Antibiotic Resistance and Virulence in Marine Bacterial Communities – Vlaanderen et al. – BioRxiV

Phages and viruses

Preprint: African army ants at the forefront of virome surveillance in a remote tropical forest – Fritz et al. – BioRxiV

Techniques

Preprint: Dancing the Nanopore limbo – Nanopore metagenomics from small DNA quantities for bacterial genome reconstruction – Simon et al. – BioRxiV

Preprint: The long and short of it: Benchmarking viromics using Illumina, Nanopore and PacBio sequencing technologies – Cook et al. – BioRxiV

Non microbiology pick

Opinion: Four principles to establish a universal virus taxonomy – Simmonds et al. – PLoS Biology