Category Archives: Pregnancy and birth

February 12, 2021

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Today’s quite diverse digest features: the role of gut commensal fungi mycobiota in shaping the human protective IgG antibody repertoire, Mouse Microbial Genome Collection, gut microbiome – lymphocytes – diet link, competition between Gardnerella species, microbiota-derived bile acids pool as a mediator of host–microbiota interactions, multiscale variation in genome graphs, and a list of awesome webinars, courses and podcasts. Check out two cool science and art projects, Bacterial Alphabet and Microbe Crayon. Happy Friday!

Gut microbiome

*Human gut mycobiota tune immunity via CARD9-dependent induction of anti-fungal IgG antibodies – Itai Doron – Cell

*Functional and taxonomic comparison of mouse and human gut microbiotas using extensive culturing and metagenomics – Benjamin S. Beresford-Jones – bioRxiv

*High intake of vegetables is linked to lower white blood cell profile and the effect is mediated by the gut microbiome – Cristina Menni – BMC Medicine

The Reactobiome Unravels a New Paradigm in Human Gut Microbiome Metabolism – Gholamreza Bidkhori – bioRxiv

Spatial analysis of gut microbiome reveals a distinct ecological niche associated with the mucus layer – Kellyanne Duncan – Gut Microbes

Review: Diversity and dynamism of IgA−microbiota interactions – Kelsey E. Huus – Nature Reviews Immunology

Antibiotic-associated dysbiosis affects the ability of the gut microbiota to control intestinal inflammation upon fecal microbiota transplantation in experimental colitis models – Francesco Strati – Microbiome

Adherent-invasive E. coli metabolism of propanediol in Crohn’s disease regulates phagocytes to drive intestinal inflammation – Monica Viladomiu – Cell Host & Microbe

Adults with Prader–Willi syndrome exhibit a unique microbiota profile – Wendy J. Dahl – BMC Research Notes

Vaginal microbiome

*Population density affects the outcome of competition in co-cultures of Gardnerella species isolated from the human vaginal microbiome – Salahuddin Khan and Janet E. Hill – bioRxiv

Review: Lactic acid-containing products for bacterial vaginosis and their impact on the vaginal microbiota: A systematic review – Erica L. Plummer – PlosOne

Urinary microbiome

Functional and Taxonomic Dysbiosis of the Gut, Urine, and Semen Microbiomes in Male Infertility – Scott D. Lundy – European Urology

Review: The microbiome and host mucosal interactions in urinary tract diseases – Bernadette Jones-Freeman – Mucosal Immunology

Epidemiology of urinary tract infections in children: Causative bacteria and antimicrobial therapy – Yuhei Tanaka – Paediatrics International

Human milk microbiome

Repeatability and reproducibility assessment in a large-scale population-based microbiota study: case study on human milk microbiota – Shirin Moossavi – Microbiome

Respiratory microbiome

Review: Respiratory microbiome in mechanically ventilated patients: a narrative review – Mélanie Fromentin – Intensive Care Medicine

Animal microbiome

Genomic and functional analyses of fungal and bacterial consortia that enable lignocellulose breakdown in goat gut microbiomes – Xuefeng Peng – Nature Microbiology

Metagenomics of antimicrobial and heavy metal resistance in the cecal microbiome of fattening pigs raised without antibiotics – Paiboon Tunsagool – Applied and Environmental Microbiology

Unravelling the Role of Rumen Microbial Communities, Genes, and Activities on Milk Fatty Acid Profile Using a Combination of Omics Approaches – Sokratis Stergiadis – Frontiers in Microbiology

Evaluation of the ocular surface mycobiota in clinically normal horses – Mary L. Walsh – PlosOne

Animal experiments

Colonization at birth with human CST IV cervicovaginal microbiota alters development and increases neonatal mortality in mice – Eldin Jašarević – bioRxiv

Novel gut pathobionts confound results in a widely used mouse model of human inflammatory disease – Samuel C Forster – bioRxiv

Low-dose exposure of glyphosate-based herbicides disrupt the urine metabolome and its interaction with gut microbiota – Jianzhong Hu – Scientific Reports

Microbiota control of maternal behavior regulates early postnatal growth of offspring – Yujung Michelle Lee – Science Advances

Probiotics

Minireview: Lactic acid bacteria as probiotics for the nose? – Ilke De Boeck – Microbial Biotechnology

*Lactobacillus bile salt hydrolase substrate specificity governs bacterial fitness and host colonization – Matthew H. Foley – PNAS

Probiotic nasal spray development by spray drying – Katarina Jokicevic – European Journal of Pharmaceutics and Biopharmaceutics

Water microbiome

Microbiota analysis of rural and urban surface waters and sediments in Bangladesh identifies human waste as driver of antibiotic resistance – Ross S. McInnes – bioRxiv

Depth-discrete metagenomics reveals the roles of microbes in biogeochemical cycling in the tropical freshwater Lake Tanganyika – Patricia Q. Tran – The ISME Journal

Soil microbiome

Trace gas oxidizers are widespread and active members of soil microbial communities – Sean K. Bay – Nature Microbiology

Bacterial communities regulate temporal variations of the antibiotic resistome in soil following manure amendment – Jianhua Cheng – Environmental Science and Pollution Research

Techniques

Quantifying Variation in Bacterial Reproductive Fitness: a High-Throughput Method – Pascal M. Frey – mSystems

Bioinformatics

*Enabling multiscale variation analysis with genome graphs – Brice Letcher – bioRxiv

HMD-ARG: hierarchical multi-task deep learning for annotating antibiotic resistance genes – Yu Li – Microbiome

BAGET 2.0: an updated web tool for the effortless retrieval of prokaryotic gene context and sequence – Benjamin Hepp – Bioinformatics

Metagenomics workflow for hybrid assembly, differential coverage binning, metatranscriptomics and pathway analysis (MUFFIN) – Renaud Van Damme – Plos Computational Biology

PATO: Pangenome Analysis Toolkit – Miguel D. Fernández-de-Bobadilla – bioRxiv

Struo2: efficient metagenome profiling database construction for ever-expanding microbial genome datasets – Nicholas D. Youngblut and Ruth E. Ley – bioRxiv

Webinars

UCC Science Society STEMinar: The Gut Microbiome, Health & Disease. You truly are what you eat – Paul O’Toole – 15 February

SGBUG (Singapore Bacterial Ultra Group) seminar: Human Gut Bacteria, Bile Acids, and Host Physiology – Sloan Devlin – 18 February

MicroSeminars 2021 – Free Web-based Microbiology Seminar Series

Biofilm Baithak – An India-specific Meetup – India Biofilms Society- 20-27 February 2021.

Klebsiella Virtual Seminar Series 2021 #KlebClub2021 – Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Michigan

Courses

Bioinformatics for Biologists: An Introduction to Linux, Bash Scripting, and R – The Wellcome Genome Campus

Next Generation Sequencing Bioinformatics course – Wellcome Genome Campus Advanced Courses & Scientific Conferences – H3Abionet

Biobanking – Institut Pasteur

Podcasts

Season 2, Ep. 2: Building Biomes with Jack Gilbert – Ruairi Robertson – Biomes

Reverse mentoring with Martin Dougherty – Alice Matimba – Your Digital Mentor

Episode 17: Post-docs Part 2: Hiring – Stephanie Hicks and John Muschelli – The Corresponding Author

Episode 235: Green algae and fatty acids – Vincent Racaniello, Elio Schaechter, Michele Swanson, and Michael Schmidt – This week in microbiology podcast

Dr. Heer Mehta: Antibiotic Resistance and Experimental Evolution – Leo Elworth – The Bioinformatics and Beyond Podcast

Science and Art

Microbe Crayon Project – Anne A. Madden

Drawing the #BacterialAlphabet – Noémie Matthey

February 10, 2021

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Hello from snowy Lübeck,
today we have selected, among others, some papers about soil microbiota, associations of bacteria in healthy humans across different populations (in gut) and a couple of bioinformatic papers. Happy reading!

General microbiome

[REVIEW]Blautia—a new functional genus with potential probiotic properties? – Liu et al. – Gut Microbes

The sum is greater than the parts: exploiting microbial communities to achieve complex functions – Zaramela et al. – Current Opinion in Biotechnology

Pregnancy and early life

Influence of Lactobacillus crispatus, Lactobacillus iners and Gardnerella vaginalis on bacterial vaginal composition in pregnant women – Witkin et al. – Archives of Gynecology and Obstetrics

Human gut microbiome

The faecal metabolome in COVID-19 patients is altered and associated with clinical features and gut microbes – Lv et al. – Analytica Chimica Acta

Bacterial associations in the healthy human gut microbiome across populations – Loftus, Hassouneh & Yooseph – Scientific Reports

The Pre‐treatment Gut Microbiome is Associated with Lack of Response to Methotrexate in New Onset Rheumatoid Arthritis – Artacho et al. – Arthitis & Rheumatology

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

Antibiotic-associated dysbiosis affects the ability of the gut microbiota to control intestinal inflammation upon fecal microbiota transplantation in experimental colitis models – Strati et al. – Microbiome

Black Current Anthocyanins Improve Lipid Metabolism and Modulate Gut Microbiota in High‐Fat Diet‐Induced Obese Mice – Song et al. – Molecular Nutrition & Food Research

Animal microbiome (for animals in the wild)

Japanese quail (Coturnix japonica) as a novel model to study the relationship between the avian microbiome and microbial endocrinology-based host-microbe interactions – Lyte et al. – Microbiome

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Impacts of earthworm introduction and cadmium on microbial communities composition and function in soil – Ren et al. – Environmental Toxicology and Pharmacology

Tree‐induced alterations to soil properties and rhizoplane‐associated bacteria following 23 years in a common garden – Yates et al. – Plant and Soil

Influence of imidacloprid on bacterial community diversity of mango orchard soil assessed through 16S rRNA sequencing-based metagenomic analysis – Garg et al. – Environmental Monitoring and Assessment

Bioinformatics

[PREPRINT]Multi-Block Sparse Functional Principal Components Analysis for Longitudinal Microbiome Multi-Omics Data – Jiang et al. – arXiv.org

Model-based microbiome data ordination: A variational approximation approach – Zeng, Zhao & Wang – Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics

VirSorter2: a multi-classifier, expert-guided approach to detect diverse DNA and RNA viruses – Guo et al. – Microbiome

February 03, 2021

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Job market

Postdoctoral Associate in quantitative microbial dynamics in the Clark lab at Duke University

General microbiome

[COMMENT]Microbiome innovations for a sustainable future – D’Hondt et al. – Nature Microbiology

Kin selection explains the evolution of cooperation in the gut microbiota – Simonety & McNally – PNAS

[REVIEW]Crossing Kingdoms: How the Mycobiota and Fungal-Bacterial Interactions Impact Host Health and Disease – Santus, Devlin & Behnsen – Infection and Immunity

Pregnancy and early life

Pregnant women who develop preeclampsia have lower abundance of the butyrate-producer Coprococcus in their gut microbiota – Altemani et al. – Pregnancy Hypertension

Human oral microbiome

Toothbrush microbiomes feature a meeting ground for human oral and environmental microbiota – Blaustein et al. – Microbiome

The role of Saccharibacteria (TM7) in the subginival microbiome as a predictor for secondary cardiovascular events – Schulz et al. – International Journal of Cardiology

Human gut microbiome

The seasonal changes of the gut microbiome of the population living in traditional lifestyles are represented by characteristic species-level and functional-level SNP enrichment patterns – Zhu et al. – BMC Genomics

The pleiotropic effects of prebiotic galacto-oligosaccharides on the aging gut – Arnold et al. – Microbiome

[REVIEW]Priming for Life: Early Life Nutrition and the Microbiota-Gut-Brain Axis – Ratsika et al. – Nutrients

[REVIEW]Gut Microbial Signatures in Sporadic and Hereditary Colorectal Cancer – Mori & Pasca – Int. J. Mol. Sci.

Animal microbiome (for animals in the wild)

[REVIEW]Mechanisms underlying gut microbiota–host interactions in insects – Schmidt & Engel

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

[REVIEW]Plant microbiome structure and benefits for sustainable agriculture – dos Santos & Olivares – Current Plant Biology

A microbial gene catalog of anaerobic digestion from full-scale biogas plants – Ma et al. – GigaScience

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

Microbial intrusion and seasonal dynamics in the groundwater microbiome of a porous basaltic rock aquifer used as municipal water reservoir – Knobloch et al. – FEMS Microbiology Ecology

Bacterial Diversity and Community Composition Distribution in Cold-Desert Habitats of Qinghai–Tibet Plateau, China – Zhang et al. – Microorganisms

Food microbiology

Bacterial community dynamics during different stages of processing of smoked bacon using the 16S rRNA gene amplicon analysis – Li et al. – International Journal of Food Microbiology

Bioinformatics

[PREPRINT]PredicTF: a tool to predict bacterial transcription factors in complex microbial communities – Monteiro et al. – bioRxiv

tidyMicro: a pipeline for microbiome data analysis and visualization using the tidyverse in R – Carpenter et al. – BMC Bioinformatics

Techniques

In vitro infection models to study fungal-host interaction – Last et al. – FEMS Microbiology Reviews

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

Exploring the Relationship Between the Microbiome, Precision Medicine and Cancer – Tom Williams – Technology Networks

January 29, 2021

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Human gut microbiome

Gut microbiome dysbiosis and correlation with blood biomarkers in active-tuberculosis in endemic setting – Khaliq et al. – PLOS One

Gut microbiota profile of Indonesian stunted children and children with normal nutritional status – Surono et al. – PLOS One

[PREPRINT]Infant gut strain persistence is associated with maternal origin, phylogeny, and functional potential including surface adhesion and iron acquisition – Lou et al. – bioRxiv

Human metabolome

Umbilical cord blood metabolome differs in relation to delivery mode, birth order and sex, maternal diet and possibly future allergy development in rural children – Ross et al. – PLOS One

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

Innate gut microbiota predisposes to high alcohol consumption – Ezquer et al. – Addiction Biology

Animal microbiome

Diet-induced changes in bacterial communities in the jejunum and their associations with bile acids in Angus beef cattle – Liu et al. – Animal Microbiome

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Investigation of the microbiota associated with ungerminated and germinated Norwegian barley cultivars with focus on lactic acid bacteria – Østlie et al. – International Journal of Food Microbiology

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

[PREPRINT]Diversity, activity and abundance of benthic microbes in the southeastern Mediterranean Sea: A baseline for monitoring – Rubin-Blum – bioRxiv

[PREPRINT]Deep-sea plastisphere: long-term colonization by plastic-associated bacterial and archaeal communities in the Southwest Atlantic Ocean – Agostini – bioRxiv

Food microbiology

Systematic assessment of oat β-glucan catabolism during in vitro digestion and fermentation – Bai et al. – Food Chemistry

Bioinformatics

One is not enough: On the effects of reference genome for the mapping and subsequent analyses of short-reads – Valiente-Mullor et al. – PLOS Computational Biology

January 28, 2021

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Happy almost Friday from the US’s west coast, everybody! I recently finished reading “Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants” by Robin Wall Kimmerer and plants have been on my mind so today’s Digest is heavy on the plant microbiome research. Two plant papers I found especially fascinating applied different experimental designs to study the same issue: one looks at how the mono-cropping of maize negatively impacts soil microbial communities and the other found that sugarcane/peanut intercropping enriches for beneficial microbes that promote nitrogen and phosphate release from the soil. There are also several papers looking at the relationship between microbes and the host immune system and an eLife paper in which the popular shelter-in-place hobby of making sourdough and our beloved microbiome field collide. Happy reading!

Pregnancy and Early Life
Fecal Microbiota Nutrient Utilization Potential Suggests Mucins as Drivers for Initial Gut Colonization of Mother-Child Shared Bacteria. – Nilsen, M. et al., Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

Metagenomic insights of the infant microbiome community structure and function across multiple sites in the United States. – Casaburi, G. et al., Scientific Reports.

Human Gut Microbiome
Gut bacteria-derived 5-hydroxyindole is a potent stimulant of intestinal motility via its action on L-type calcium channels. – Waclawiková, B. et al., PLoS Biology.

Animal Experiments
Gut CD4+ T cell phenotypes are a continuum molded by microbes, not by TH archetypes. – Kiner, E. et al., Nature Immunology.

Regulation of Gut Microbiota Disrupts the Glucocorticoid Receptor Pathway and Inflammation-related Pathways in the Mouse Hippocampus. – Rao, X. et al., Experimental Neurobiology.

Decreased Ecological Resistance of the Gut Microbiota in Response to Clindamycin Challenge in Mice Colonized with the Fungus Candida albicans. – Markey, L. et al., mSphere.

Gut Commensal Segmented Filamentous Bacteria Fine-Tune T Follicular Regulatory Cells to Modify the Severity of Systemic Autoimmune Arthritis. – Bates, N.A. et al., Journal of Immunology.

Microbial metabolism of L-tyrosine protects against allergic airway inflammation. – Wypych, T.P. et al., Nature Immunology.

Animal Microbiome
Host development overwhelms environmental dispersal in governing the ecological succession of zebrafish gut microbiota. – Xiao, F. et al., npj Biofilms and Microbiomes.

Quantifying fluorescent glycan uptake to elucidate strain-level variability in foraging behaviors of rumen bacteria. – Klassen, L. et al., Microbiome.

Plant, Root, and Soil Microbiome
Complementary Roles of Wood-Inhabiting Fungi and Bacteria Facilitate Deadwood Decomposition. – Tláskal, V. et al., mSystems.

Natural Bacterial Assemblages in Arabidopsis thaliana Tissues Become More Distinguishable and Diverse during Host Development. – Beilsmith, K. et al., mBio.

Colonization of naïve roots from Populus tremula x alba involves successive waves of fungi and bacteria with different trophic abilities. – Fracchia, F. et al., Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

The role of host promiscuity in the invasion process of a seaweed holobiont. – Bonthond, G. et al., The ISME Journal.

Sugarcane/peanut intercropping system improves the soil quality and increases the abundance of beneficial microbes. – Tang, X. et al., Journal of Basic Microbiology.

Variation of rhizosphere microbial community in continuous mono-maize seed production. – Zhao, Y. et al., Scientific Reports.

Food Microbiology
The diversity and function of sourdough starter microbiomes. – Landis, E.A. et al., eLife.

Probiotics
Optimization of probiotic therapeutics using machine learning in an artificial human gastrointestinal tract. – Westfall, S. et al., Scientific Reports.

Metagenomics
How reliably do metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) represent natural populations? Insights from comparing MAGs against isolate genomes derived from the same fecal sample. – Meziti, A. et al., Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

Techniques
Precision modification of the human gut microbiota targeting surface-associated proteins. – Marcos-Fernández, R. et al., Scientific Reports.

High-throughput cultivation and identification of bacteria from the plant root microbiota. – Zhang, J. et al., Nature Protocols.

January 21, 2021

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Today’s post include review article on gut-liver axis, research articles on diet-microbiota interaction in Chinese adults, association between microbiome and type1 diabetes, and new metagenomic profiling method using phylogenetic markers.

General microbiome

Bacterial and eukaryotic extracellular vesicles and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease: new players in the gut-liver axis? – Alexandre Villard – American Joural of Physiology Gastrointestinal and Liver Physiology

Potential Contribution of the Intestinal Microbiome to Phenethylamine-Induced Hyperthermia – Aburahma A. – Brain, Behavior and Evolution

Human microbiome

Long-term diet quality is associated with gut microbiome diversity and composition among urban Chinese adults – Danxia Yu – American Journal of Clinical Nutrition

Long-term dietary intake from infancy to late adolescence is associated with gut microbiota composition in young adulthood – Kolade Oluwagbemigun – American Journal of Clinical Nutrition

The gut microbiota metabolite propionate ameliorates intestinal epithelial barrier dysfunction-mediated Parkinson’s disease via the AKT signaling pathway – Tingting Huang – Neuroreport

Fecal and mucosal microbiota profiling in pediatric inflammatory bowel diseases – Lorenza Putignani – European Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology

Associations between diet, the gut microbiome and short chain fatty acids in youth with islet autoimmunity and type 1 diabetes – Jessica E. Harbison – Pediatric Diabetes

Reproducing the scalp microbiota community: co‐colonization of a 3D reconstructed human epidermis with C. acnes and M. restricta – Marisa Melon – International Journal of Cosmetic Science

Hepatic steatosis relates to gastrointestinal microbiota changes in obese girls with polycystic ovary syndrome – Beza Jobira – PlosOne

Animal microbiome

Infection trains the host for microbiota-enhanced resistance to pathogens – Apollo Stacy – Cell

Changes of Gut Microbiota and Its Correlation With Short Chain Fatty Acids and Bioamine in Piglets at the Early Growth Stage – Renli Qi – Frontiers in Veterinary Science

Functional Foods

Prospecting Human Milk Oligosaccharides as a Defense Against Viral Infections – Rebecca E Moore- ACS Infectious Diseases

Techniques

TIPP2: metagenomic taxonomic profiling using phylogenetic markers – Nidhi Shah – Bioinformatics

Precision long-read metagenomics sequencing for food safety by detection and assembly of Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli in irrigation water – Meghan Maguire – PlosOne

Microbes in news

Your Microbiome Isn’t Shaped Just By What You Feed It – Discover

Taurine Enhances the Microbiome’s Resistance to Future Pathogens – Genetic Engineering and Biotech News

January 15, 2021

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Today’s digest features a collection of reviews, opinion pieces, discussion on prenatal microbiome, pipeline to extract metabolic models from whole metagenome sequencing data (metaGEM), novel type of colistin resistance genes, mechanisms that shape microbial pangenomes, and more. Check out a list of free web-based microbial seminars. Happy reading/listening!

General microbiome

*Mechanisms That Shape Microbial Pangenomes – Maria Rosa Domingo-Sananes
and James O. McInerney – Trends in Microbiology

Evolution to alternative levels of stable diversity leaves areas of niche space unexplored – Ilan Naftali Rubin – bioRxiv

Prenatal microbiome

*The prenatal in utero microbiome controversy: Microbiome or no microbiome: are we looking at the prenatal environment through the right lens? – W. Florian Fricke and Jacques Ravel – BMC Microbiome

Urinary microbiome

The Urinary Microbiome in Postmenopausal Women with Recurrent Urinary Tract Infections – Monique H. Vaughan – bioRxiv

Alterations in Urobiome in Patients With Bladder Cancer and Implications for Clinical Outcome: A Single-Institution Study – Jiarong Zeng – Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology

Bare Versus Hair: Do Pubic Hair Grooming Preferences Dictate the Urogenital Microbiome? – Geynisman-Tan J – Female Pelvic Medicine & Reconstructive Surgery

Vaginal microbiome

Amylases in the Human Vagina – Kenetta L. Nunn – mSphere

Gut microbiome

Predicting drug-metagenome interactions: Variation in the microbial β-glucuronidase level in the human gut metagenomes – Moamen M. Elmassry – PlosOne

Microbiome and ischemic stroke: A systematic review – Yee Teng Lee – PlosOne

Antimicrobial resistance

*A novel type of colistin resistance genes selected from random sequence space – Michael Knopp – Plos Genetics

Identifying novel β-lactamase substrate activity through in silico prediction of antimicrobial resistance – Kara K. Tsang – Microbial Genomics

A framework for identifying the recent origins of mobile antibiotic resistance genes – Stefan Ebmeyer – Communications Biology

Minimal biophysical model of combined antibiotic action – Bor Kavčič – Plos Computational Biology

Mobilization of antibiotic resistance genes differ by resistance mechanism – Tue Kjaergaard Nielsen – bioRxiv

Carbapenem and Colistin Resistance in Enterobacter: Determinants and Clones – Zhiyong Zong – Trends in Microbiology

Animal microbiome

Fermented traditional Chinese medicine alters the intestinal microbiota composition of broiler chickens – Peng Huang – Research in Veterinary Science

Plant/root/soil microbiome

Coordination between microbiota and root endodermis supports plant mineral nutrient homeostasis – Isai Salas-González – Science

Food microbiome

Metabolic cooperation and spatiotemporal niche partitioning in a kefir microbial community – Sonja Blasche – Nature Microbiology

Generation of lactose and protease positive probiotic Lacticaseibacillus rhamnosus GG by conjugation with Lactococcus lactis NCDO 712 – Nazar Hussain – Applied and Environmental Microbiology

Phages and Viruses

Engineered Phage Endolysin Eliminates Gardnerella Biofilm without Damaging Beneficial Bacteria in Bacterial Vaginosis Ex Vivo – Christine Landlinger – Pathogens

Bioinformatics

*metaGEM: reconstruction of genome scale metabolic models directly from metagenomes – Francisco Zorrilla – bioRxiv

Whole genome phylogenies reflect the distributions of recombination rates for many bacterial species – Thomas Sakoparnig – eLife

CAFE: a software suite for analysis of paired-sample transposon insertion sequencing data – Anna Abramova – Bioinformatics

Finding orthologous gene blocks in bacteria: the computational hardness of the problem and novel methods to address it – Huy N Nguyen – Bioinformatics

Unraveling city-specific signature and identifying sample origin locations for the data from CAMDA MetaSUB challenge – Runzhi Zhang – Biology Direct

RefSeq: expanding the Prokaryotic Genome Annotation Pipeline reach with protein family model curation – Wenjun Li – Nucleic Acids Research

Techniques

A co-culture microplate for real-time measurement of microbial interactions – Charles Jo – bioRxiv

Webinars

Mind, Mood & Microbes Expert Q&A: From Mechanisms to Clinical Applications – Jane Foster, Mauro Costa-Mattioli, John Cryan, Eldin Jašarević, Aletta D. Kraneveld, Filip Scheperjans, Elaine Hsiao – 21 January

SGBUG (Singapore Bacterial Ultra Group) seminar: Silencing bacterial genes with CRISPR-dCas9: from basic insights to high-throughput screens – David Bikard – 21 January

LoopSeq Solo Webinar: High Resolution Metagenomic Sequencing using DADA2 and LoopSeq Long-Read Sequencing – Benjamin Callahan – 21 January

FEMS Yeast Research Webinar on Genomic Insights into Yeast Diversity and Evolution – FEMS – 28 January

SSB Seminar: Double Trouble: Inappropriate Image Duplications in Biomedical Publications – Elisabeth Bik – 29 January

Geomicrobiology Network Seminar Series – The Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland

Winter 2021 WESTalks – Weekly seminars related to Water and the Environment with speakers from around the globe – IC-IMPACTS Student Engagement Committee (SEC) and the University of British Columbia’s Future Waters

MicroSeminars 2021 – Free Web-based Microbiology Seminar Series

Conferences &c

1st Microbiome PT Summit – The Portuguese Microbiome Community – 4 February

The 2021 UK Cellular Microbiology Network meeting – The Francis Crick Institute – 1-2 March

The Biology and Physics of Bacterial Chromosomes meeting – 4 March

Symposium Celebrating 100th Birthday and Research Accomplishments of Dr. Evelyn M. Witkin – Waksman Institute of Microbiology – 13 April

Podcast

TWiM 233: Antivirals made by bacteria – Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Elio Schaechter, Michele Swanson, and Michael Schmidt – This week in microbiology podcast

January 12, 2021

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Good morning, today we have a quite divers selection of studies. Of special note are the results of the PREDICT 1 study, published in Nature Medicine (Asnicar et al.). Furthermore, we cover among others virome in pregnant women, gut microbiome and PD, some animal microbiome studies, water microbiome, and bioinformatic tools.

General microbiome

[Meeting Report]Microbiome for Mars: surveying microbiome connections to healthcare with implications for long-duration human spaceflight, virtual workshop, July 13, 2020 – LaPelusa et al. – Microbiome

Identifying background microbiomes in an evidence recovery laboratory: A preliminary study – Neckovic et al. – Science & Justice

Human vaginal microbiome/virome

Comparison of viromes in vaginal secretion from pregnant women with and without vaginitis – Zhang et al. – Virology Journal

Human gut microbiome

Microbiome connections with host metabolism and habitual diet from 1,098 deeply phenotyped individuals – Asnicar et al. – Nature Medicine

Gut Microbiota Dysbiosis Is Associated with Elevated Bile Acids in Parkinson’s Disease – Li et al. – Metabolites

Animal microbiome

The Combined Effects of Magnesium Oxide and Inulin on Intestinal Microbiota and Cecal Short-Chain Fatty Acids – Omori et al. – Nutrients

Effect of host breeds on gut microbiome and serum metabolome in meat rabbits – Ye et al. – BMC Veterinary Research

Differential response of digesta- and mucosa-associated intestinal microbiota to dietary insect meal during the seawater phase of Atlantic salmon – Li et al. – Animal Microbiome

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Diversity and composition of the Panax ginseng rhizosphere microbiome in various cultivation modesand ages – Tong et al. – BMC Microbiology

Water microbiome

Eukaryotic community diversity and pathogenic eukaryotes in a full-scale drinking water treatment plant determined by 18S rRNA and metagenomic sequencing – Li et al. – Environmental Science and Pollution Research

Microbial community structure in aquifers associated with arsenic: analysis of 16S rRNA and arsenite oxidase genes – Sonthiphand et al. – PeerJ

Fungi Present in Antarctic Deep-Sea Sediments Assessed Using DNA Metabarcoding – Ogaki et al. – Environmental Microbiology

Built environment

Comparative analysis of impact of human occupancy on indoor microbiomes – Cao et al. – Frontiers of Environmental Science & Engineering

Bioinformatics

Re-purposing software for functional characterization of the microbiome – Gardiner et al. – Microbiome

[PREPRINT]Mining underutilized whole-genome sequencing projects to improve 16S rRNA databases – Nolan et al. – bioRxiv

Meta-Apo improves accuracy of 16S-amplicon-based prediction of microbiome function – Jing et al. – BMC Genomics

Techniques

Exploring protocol bias in airway microbiome studies: one versus two PCR steps and 16S rRNA gene region V3 V4 versus V4 – Drengenes et al. – BMC Genomics

Quantitative image analysis of microbial communities with BiofilmQ – Hartmann et al. – Nature Microbiology

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

Do the bugs in our guts make us sick, sad and obese? – Sismondo – Toronto Star

New microbiome research finds associations between microbes, diet, and metabolic health – Krawiec – Nutritional outlook

December 9, 2020

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In today’s digest read about the selection and microdiversity in glacier-fed streams, Gardnerella vaginalis contribution to the increased rate of group B Streptococcus vaginal colonization, making F1 hybrids in Escherichia coli using MAE (Mass Allelic Exchange), smORFinder (annotation tool to identify small proteins in microbial genomes and metagenomes), and more.
Check out the new Science Friday podcast episode on microbial interactions in cheese rinds and Svetlana’s pick for happy holidays.
Cheers!

Human microbiome

Effects of Extended Postmortem Interval on Microbial Communities in Organs of the Human Cadaver – Holly Lutz – Frontiers in Microbiology

Gut microbiome

Landscapes of bacterial and metabolic signatures and their interaction in major depressive disorders – Jian Yang – Science Advances

Improved high-molecular-weight DNA extraction, nanopore sequencing and metagenomic assembly from the human gut microbiome – Dylan G. Maghini – Nature Protocols

Elucidation of Gut Microbiota-Associated Lipids Using LC-MS/MS and 16S rRNA Sequence Analyses – Shu Yasuda – iScience

The Healthy Microbiome (What is the definition of a healthy gut microbiome?) – Fergus Shanahan – Gastroenterology

The gut microbiota is associated with immune cell dynamics in humans – Jonas Schluter
– Nature

Utilizing the gut microbiome in decompensated cirrhosis and acute-on-chronic liver failure – Jonel Trebicka – Nature Reviews Gastroenterology & Hepatology

Animal microbiome

Remodeling of the maternal gut microbiome during pregnancy is shaped by parity – Alexander SF Berry – bioRxiv

Animal experiments

*Gardnerella vaginalis promotes group B Streptococcus vaginal colonization, enabling ascending uteroplacental infection in pregnant mice – Nicole M. Gilbert – American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology

Akkermansia muciniphila: A potential novel mechanism of nuciferine to improve hyperlipidemia – Yue Yu – Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy

Gut microbiota modulation by both Lactobacillus fermentum MSK 408 and ketogenic diet in a murine model of pentylenetetrazole-induced acute seizure – Ju Young Eor – Epilepsy Research

Host-age prediction from fecal microbiome composition in laboratory mice – Adrian Low – bioRxiv

Commensal Microbiota Regulates Skin Barrier Function And Repair Via Signaling Through The Aryl Hydrocarbon Receptor – Aayushi Uberoi – bioRxiv

Water microbiome

*Homogeneous selection promotes microdiversity in the glacier-fed stream microbiome – Stilianos Fodelianakis – bioRxiv

Phages and viruses

Long-term persistence of crAss-like phage crAss001 is associated with phase variation in Bacteroides intestinalis – Andrey N. Shkoporov – bioRxiv

Diversity and Distribution of a Novel Genus of Hyperthermophilic Aquificae Viruses Encoding a Proof-Reading Family-A DNA Polymerase – Marike Palmer – Frontiers in Microbiology

Broad Virus Detection and Variant Discovery in Fecal Samples of Hematopoietic Transplant Recipients Using Targeted Sequence Capture Metagenomics – Suze A. Jansen – Frontiers in Microbiology

Antimicrobial Resistance

Review: Multidrug-resistant high-risk Enterococcus faecium clones: can we really define them? – Ana R. Freitas – International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents

Review: Current Trends in Experimental and Computational Approaches to Combat Antimicrobial Resistance – Madangchanok Imchen – Frontiers in Genetics

Predicting clinical resistance prevalence using sewage metagenomic data – Antti Karkman – Communications Biology

Fermented-Food Metagenomics Reveals Substrate-Associated Differences in Taxonomy and Health-Associated and Antibiotic Resistance Determinants – John Leech – mSystems

Uncovering hidden antimicrobial resistance patterns within the hospital microbiome – Bastiaan W. Haak and W. Joost Wiersinga – Nature Medicine

Isolation and characterization of human pathogenic multidrug resistant bacteria associated with plastic litter collected in Zanzibar – Farah N. Rasool – Journal of Hazardous Materials

Integrated metagenomic and metatranscriptomic analyses of ultraviolet disinfection effects on antibiotic resistance genes and bacterial communities during wastewater treatment – Shuyu Jia – Ecotoxicology

A metagenomic glimpse into the gut of wild and domestic animals: Quantification of antimicrobial resistance and more – Magdalena Skarżyńska – Plos One

Techniques

*Mass allelic exchange: enabling sexual genetics in Escherichia coli – Varnica Khetrapal – bioRxiv

Review: Microbial model communities: To understand complexity, harness the power of simplicity – Johan Bengtsson-Palme – Computational and Structural Biotechnology Journal

MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry for sub-typing of Streptococcus pneumoniae – Sivkheng Kann – BMC Microbiology

Bioinformatics

*Automated Prediction and Annotation of Small Open Reading Frames in Microbial Genomes – Matthew G. Durrant and Ami S. Bhatt – Cell Host Microbe

Accurate Microbiome Sequencing with Synthetic Long Read Sequencing – Nico Chung – bioRxiv

Species level resolution of female bladder microbiota from marker gene surveys – Carter Hoffman – bioRxiv

Synthetic Sequencing Standards: A Guide to Database Choice for Rumen Microbiota Amplicon Sequencing Analysis – Paul E. Smith – Frontiers in Microbiology

Events

H3ABioNet Seminars and Webinars – H3ABioNet Pan African Bioinformatics Network

Inspiring the next generation of scientists… online – The Young Microbiologists Symposium (YMS) 2020

MLCB 2020 Day 1 and 2 talks – Machine Learning in Computational Biology meeting

Podcast

Why We’re Giving Thanks To Microbes For Stinky Cheese with Benjamin Wolfe and Casey Cosetta – Katie Feather and Ira Flatow – Science Friday

Svetlana’s pick

Planning Our “Home-mas” this December – MissPond – Emma Pond

Holiday Gift Guide For Microbe Lovers – Justine Dees – Joyful Microbe

The 2020 cookbook giftlist – Fiona Beckett – Matching Food & Wine

December 02, 2020

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General microbiome

The Interplay of Sex Steroids, the Immune Response, and the Intestinal Microbiota – Pace & Watnick – Trends in Microbiology

[REVIEW]Circulating 16S RNA in Biofluids: Extracellular Vesicles as Mirrors of Human Microbiome? – Ricci et al. – Int. J. Mol. Sci.

[REVIEW]Microbiota and Obesity: Where Are We Now? – Ballini et al. – Biology

Human vaginal microbiome

Vaginal Microbiome-Based Bacterial Signatures for Predicting the Severity of Cervical Intraepithelial Neoplasia – Lee et al. – Diagnostics

Human gut microbiome

A functional ecological network based on metaproteomics responses of individual gut microbiomes to resistant starches – Li et al. – Computational and Structural Biotechnology Journal

[REVIEW]Personalized Nutrition Through The Gut Microbiota: Current Insights And Future Perspectives – Vandeputte – Nutrion Reviews

[REVIEW]Harnessing the gut microbiota to promote metabolic health – Zmora – Nutrion Reviews

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

Cage bedding modifies metabolic and gut microbiota profiles in mouse studies applying dietary restriction – Gregor et al. – Scientific Reports

Animal microbiome (for animals in the wild)

Influence of Environmental Stressors on the Microbiota of Zebra Mussels (Dreissena polymorpha) – Mathai et al. – Invertebrate Microbiology

Gut microbiota protects honey bees (Apis mellifera L.) against polystyrene microplastics exposure risks – Wang et al. – Journal of Hazardous Materials

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Variable characteristics of microbial communities on the surface of sweet cherries under different storage conditions – Zhang et al. – Postharvest Biology and Technology

Biodiversity of pesticides degrading microbial communities and their environmental impact – Kumar et al. – Biocatalysis and Agricultural Biotechnology

Bioinformatics

[REVIEW]Evaluating and minimizing batch effects in metabolomics – Han & Li – Mass Spectrometry Reviews