September 7, 2022

General microbiome

Impact of environmental conditions and gut microbiota on the in vitro germination and growth of Clostridioides difficile – Martinez et al. – FEMS Microbiology Letters

[FORUM]Polymorphic microbes: a new emerging hallmark of cancer – Lythgoe et al. – Trends in Microbiology

A taxonomic note on the genus Prevotella: Description of four novel genera and emended description of the genera Hallella and Xylanibacter – Hitch et al. – Systematic and Applied Microbiology

A curated data resource of 214K metagenomes for characterization of the global antimicrobial resistome – Martiny et al. – PLOS Biology

Pregnancy and early life

Alterations in Vaginal Microbiota among Pregnant Women with COVID-19 – Velik et al. – Journal of Medical Virology

The Global Incidence of Adverse Events Associated with Fecal Microbiota Transplantation in Children over the Past 20 Years: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis – Wang et al. – Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology

Multi-site human microbiome

Dissecting the role of the human microbiome in COVID-19 via metagenome-assembled genomes – Ke, Weiss & Liu – Nature Communications

Human salivary microbiome

Salivary microbiome in chronic kidney disease: what is its connection to diabetes, hypertension, and immunity? – Liu et al. – Journal of Translational Medicine volume

Human vaginal microbiome

Does exposure to different types of menstrual protections affect the vaginal environment? – Tessandier et al. – Molecular Ecology

Human gut microbiome

High-altitude exposure decreases bone mineral density and its relationship with gut microbiota: Results from the China multi-ethnic cohort (CMEC) study – Zuo et al. – Environmental Research

Animal microbiome

Characterization of the oral and fecal microbiota associated with atopic dermatitis in dogs selected from a purebred Shiba Inu colony – Uchiyama et al. – Letters of Applied Microbiology

Probiotics or synbiotics addition to sows’ diets alters colonic microbiome composition and metabolome profiles of offspring pigs – Zhu et al. – Front. Microbiol.

Longitudinal analysis of the rectal microbiome in dogs with diabetes mellitus after initiation of insulin therapy – Laia et al. – PLOS One

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Core Microbiota in the Rhizosphere of Heavy Metal Accumulators and Its Contribution to Plant Performance – Luo et al. – Environ. Sci. Technol.

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

Global contribution of pelagic fungi to protein degradation in the ocean -Breyer et al. – Microbiome

August 31, 2022

Human skin microbiome

[REVIEW]Staphylococcus epidermidis and its dual lifestyle in skin health and infection – Severn & Horswill – Nature Reviews Microbiology

Human oral microbiome

Effect of chewing gum containing Xylitol and blackberry powder on oral bacteria: A randomized controlled crossover trial – Miller et al. – Archives of Oral Biology

Human gut microbiome

Antimicrobial peptide production in response to gut microbiota imbalance – Cardoso et al. – Peptides

ROLE OF GUT MICROBIOTA IN DEPRESSION: UNDERSTANDING MOLECULAR PATHWAYS, RECENT RESEARCH, AND FUTURE DIRECTION – Rathour et al. – Behavioural Brain Research

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

Gut-derived metabolites influence neurodevelopmental gene expression and Wnt signaling events in a germ-free zebrafish model – Rea et al. – Microbiome

Animal microbiome (for animals in the wild)

Age as a primary driver of the gut microbial composition and function in wild harbor seals – Pacheco-Sandoval et al. – Scientific Reports

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Biogeographical survey of soil microbiomes across sub-Saharan Africa: structure, drivers, and predicted climate-driven changes – Cowan et al. – Microbiome

Soil fungal communities show more specificity than bacteria for plant species composition in a temperate forest in China – Chen et al. – BMC Microbiology

Microbes in space

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

Food microbiology

Extensive diversity and rapid turnover of phage defense repertoires in cheese-associated bacterial communities – Somerville et al. – Microbiome

Bioinformatics

Crowdsourced benchmarking of taxonomic metagenome profilers: lessons learned from the sbv IMPROVER Microbiomics challenge – Poussin et al. – BMC Genomics

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

Newly Renamed Prokaryote Phyla Cause Uproar – Dan Robitzski – The Scientist

August 24, 2022

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

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 10, 2022

General microbiome

Microbiome-associated human genetic variants impact phenome-wide disease risk – Markowitz et al. – PNAS

Microbial risk score for capturing microbial characteristics, integrating multi-omics data, and predicting disease risk – Wang et al. – Microbiome

[REVIEW]A framework for testing the impact of co-infections on host gut microbiomes – Schmid et al. – Animal Microbiome

Human vaginal microbiome

Vaginal microbiota and personal risk factors associated with HPV status conversion—A new approach to reduce the risk of cervical cancer? – Yang et al. – PLOS One

Human gut microbiome

[REVIEW]The role of the gut microbiota in multiple sclerosis – Correale, Hohlfeld & Baranzini

Specific gut microbiota alterations in essential tremor and its difference from Parkinson’s disease – Zhang et al. – NPJ Parkinson’s Disease

Identification of clinical and ecological determinants of strain engraftment after fecal microbiota transplantation using metagenomics – Podlesny et al. – Cell Reports Medicine

Alterations in gut microbiota of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma patients – Cheung et al. – Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology

Targeted suppression of human IBD-associated gut microbiota commensals by phage consortia for treatment of intestinal inflammation – Federici et al. – Cell

Animal microbiome

Camel milk microbiota: A culture-independent assessment – Rahmeh et al. – Food Research International

Effect of processing on the anti-inflammatory efficacy of cocoa in a high fat diet-induced mouse model of obesity – Weikart et al. – The Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry

The impacts of viral infection and subsequent antimicrobials on the microbiome-resistome of growing pigs – Gaire et al. – Microbiome

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Soil microbial community structures are shaped by agricultural systems revealing little temporal variation – Fox, Widmer & Lüscher – Environmental Research

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

The streamwater microbiome encodes hydrologic data across scales – URycki et al. – Science of The Total Environment

Bioinformatics / Data

[PREPRINT]Lake iTag measurements over nineteen years, introducing the limony dataset – Rohwer & McMahon – bioRxiv

August 1st, 2022

God morgon!

Good morning from Sweden.

Today’s digest has studies from diverse topics but the one that caught my attention is a preprint that addresses the controversial question of presence of a ‘normal blood microbiota’ in humans. The authors of this preprint analysed about 10,000 humans samples and provide evidence that there is no core blood microbiota.

A new preprint describes a unique Taleocin (a bacteriocin) from Pseudomonas syringae which defies the convention that bacteriocins have a narrow spectrum. The bacteriocin has a broad range killing activity against agriculturally important pathogens like Erwinia amylovora and Xanthomonas perforans as well as against the clinical human pathogen Salmonella choleraesuis.

Another preprint reports metabolic interactions responsible for unusually high Iron and lipid content in Geobacter sulfurreducens, a bacterium known iron reducing bacterium in the soil. Another environmental study found that human pathogens are the major carriers of antibiotic resistance genes in the Yangtze river – one of the longest in the world. This is in contrast to prevalent belief that conventional supercarriers are Enterococcus spp. and other fecal indicator bacteria.

Elsewhere in the digest is a preprint from my previous lab where my old colleagues have reported a small RNA and metal dependent mechanism that regulates the survival of Acinetobacter baumannii under oxidative stress.

As a bonus, there is a super intriguing preprint where the authors have actually provided evidence that coming up with creative and funny titles for your papers can help them gain more visibility and citations! So, all of you writing an article or planning to write one soon, this is a great tip!

I hope you will enjoy reading today’s digest and have a great week ahead!

Human gut

Microbiota responses to different prebiotics are conserved within individuals and associated with habitual fiber intake – Zachary C. Holmes, et al., Microbiome

Near-sterile sites

Preprint: No evidence for a common blood microbiome based on a population study of 9,770 healthy humans – Cedric C.S. Tan, et al.

Water microbiome

Supercarriers of antibiotic resistome in a world’s large river – Jiawen Wang, et al., Microbiome

Oceanospirillales containing the DMSP lyase DddD are key utilisers of carbon from DMSP in coastal seawater – Jingli Liu, et al., Microbiome

Community structure of coral microbiomes is dependent on host morphology – Kathleen M. Morrow, et al., Microbiome

Preprint: The impact of primary colonizers on the community composition of river biofilm – Roshan Angoshtari, et al.

Soil microbiome

Long-term nitrogen deposition enhances microbial capacities in soil carbon stabilization but reduces network complexity – Xingyu Ma, et al., Microbiome

Animal microbiome

Host-microbiota interaction-mediated resistance to inflammatory bowel disease in pigs – Xuan Zhao, et al., Microbiome

Preprint: The differing roles of flavins and quinones in extracellular electron transfer in Lactiplantibacillus plantarum – Joe Gregory Tolar, et al.

Bacteria Hysteria

Preprint: Interspecies Killing Activity of Pseudomonas syringae Tailocins – Savannah L Weaver, et al.

Preprint: Enhanced production of natural shiga toxin by overexpressing A subunit of Stx2e in Stx2e-producing Escherichia coli isolated in South Korea – Jin Hur, et al.

Preprint: Geobacter sulfurreducens′ unique metabolism results in cells with a high iron and lipid content – Ethan T Howley, et al.

Preprint: Cloning, heterologous expression and characterization of o-phthalyl-CoA decarboxylase from phthalate degrading denitrifying bacterium – Madan Junghare

Preprint: Acinetobacter baumannii defends against oxidative stress through a Mn2+-dependent small RNA-mediated suppression of type VI secretion system – Somok Bhowmik, et al.

Techniques

Preprint: Programmable acetylation modification of bacterial proteins by a Cas12a-guided acetyltransferase – Liu yanqiang, et al.

Fun

Preprint: If this title is funny, will you cite me? Citation impacts of humour and other features of article titles in ecology and evolution – Stephen B Heard, et al.

July 28, 2022

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 26, 2022

Highlights!

Microbial determinants of effective donors in faecal microbiota transplantation for UC – Craig Haifer – Gut → Metagenomic and metabolomic data analysis showed that donor microbiota stability and increased species evenness were identified novel markers associated with donor sample therapeutic efficacy in Ulcerative Colitis.

A gut microbial peptide and molecular mimicry in the pathogenesis of type 1 diabetes – Khyati Girdhar – PNAS → A peptide sequence from Parabacteroides distasonis mimics an important insulin epitope, making it susceptible to generating type I diabetes in a mouse model. 

Human and General Microbiome

Gut microbiome changes in anti-N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor encephalitis patients – Jingya Wei – BMC Neurology

Effect of a bacteriocin-producing Streptococcus salivarius on the pathogen Fusobacterium nucleatum in a model of the human distal colon – Garreth W Lawrence – Gut Microbes

Identification of Gut Microbiome Metabolites via Network Pharmacology Analysis in Treating Alcoholic Liver Disease – Ki-Kwang Oh – Current Issues in Molecular Biology

Review: The Gut Microbiota: A Double Edge Sword in Endometriosis – Chandni Talwar – Biology of Reproduction

Non-Model Animal Microbiome

Hair Microbiome Diversity within and across Primate Species – Catherine Kitrinos – mSystems

Seasonal variations in the composition and diversity of gut microbiota in white-lipped deer (Cervus albirostris) – Zhangqiang You – PeerJ

Plant Microbiome

Effects of Domestication on Plant-Microbiome Interactions – Andres Gutierrez – Plant & Cell Physiology

Evaluation of protein extraction methods for metaproteomic analyses of root-associated microbes – Fernanda Salvato – Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions

Environmental Microbiome

Absence of stress-promoted facilitation coupled with a competition decrease in the microbiome of ephemeral saline lakes – Mateu Menéndez-Serra – Ecology

Insights into the Antimicrobial Activities and Metabolomes of Aquimarina (Flavobacteriaceae, Bacteroidetes) Species from the Rare Marine Biosphere – Sandra Godinho Silva – Marine Drugs

More microbes

Correspondence: International travel, the gut microbiome, and ESBL-E coli carriage – Ye Peng – The Lancet. Microbe

An Engineered λ Phage Enables Enhanced and Strain-Specific Killing of Enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli – Menglu Jin – Microbiology Spectrum

Bioinformatics and Microbiome Analysis Techniques

MOCHI, a comprehensive cross-platform tool for amplicon-based microbiota analysis – Jun-Jie Zheng – Bioinformatics

July 18th, 2020

God morgon! Good morning from Sweden. Today’s digest features only three articles but I am sure everyone will enjoy reading it, especially a super interesting article highlighting the importance of older siblings on development of an individual’s airway and gut microbiota. The study asserts that having a closely aged older sibling has more impact on one’s microbiota as compared to having more than one older sibling. Another featured article demonstrates how gut microbiota can improve the quality of chicken by preventing intestinal inflammation. From animal farming we go over to plant farming. Another article in today’s digest shows how monocropping (growing the same crop over and over) negatively impacts the diversity of soil bacteria which eventually shows up as poor yield. This makes it imperative to consider the soil microbiota while taking decisions on crop cycle. I hope you will enjoy reading today’s digest and have a great week!

Human microbiome

The developing airway and gut microbiota in early life is influenced by age of older siblings – Emil Dalgaard Christensen, et al., Microbiome

Animal microbiome

Chicken jejunal microbiota improves growth performance by mitigating intestinal inflammation – Xiaolong Zhang, et al., Microbiome

Plant root and soil microbiome

Reduced chemodiversity suppresses rhizosphere microbiome functioning in the mono-cropped agroecosystems – Pengfa Li, et al., Microbiome

July 14, 2022

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