August 19, 2020

Greetings!

Today’s digest is heavy on environmental microbiology with topics ranging from marine microplastics to carbon budgets to kitchen waste. I want to especially highlight a study that examines the phyllosphere of the mānuka. They found that the mānuka, or tea tree, has a stable core microbiome and variation in the non-core taxa is explained by biogeographical patterns.

Enjoy!

Events and jobs

Virtual Microbiome Bioinformatics Qiime2 Workshop – October 5-9, 2020

General microbiome

Opinion: Oceanic hitchhikers – Assessing pathogen risks from marine microplastic – Bowley et al. – Trends in Microbiology

Multi-site human microbiome

Analysis of the composition and functions of the microbiome in diabetic foot osteomyelitis based on 16S rRNA and metagenome sequencing technology – Mengchen et al. – Diabetes

Animal experiments

Developmental stage-associated microbiota profile of the peach fruit fly, Bactrocera zonata (Diptera: Tephritidae) and their functional prediction using 16S rRNA gene metabarcoding sequencing – Naaz et al. – 3 Biotech

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

A core phyllosphere microbiome exists across distant populations of a tree species indigenous to New Zealand – Noble et al. – PLOS One

Water and extremophile microbiome

Carbon budgets for soil and plants respond to long-term warming in an Alaskan boreal forest – Alster et al. – Biogeochemistry

First insights to the microbial communities in the plant process water of the multi-metal Kevitsa mine – Bomberg et al. – Research in Microbiology

Halomicroarcula amylolytica sp. nov., a novel halophilic archaeon isolated from a salt mine – Chen et al. – International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology

Spatial patterns of microbial communities across surface waters of the Great Barrier Reef – Frade et al. – Communications Biology

Isolation and characterization of a novel acidophilic zero-valent sulfur- and ferric iron-respiring Firmicute – Holanda and Johnson – Research and Microbiology

Combining physicochemical properties and microbiome data to evaluate the water quality of South African drinking water production plants – Maguvu et al. – PLOS One

Transient dynamics of archaea and bacteria in sediments and brine Across a salinity gradient in a solar saltern of Goa, India – Mani et al. – Frontiers in Microbiology

Diversity and distribution of cultivable fungi present in acid sulphate soils in chronosequence under para-periglacial conditions in King George Island, Antarctica – Porto et al. – Extremophiles

Investigation of the ecological roles of putative keystone taxa during tailing revegetation – Sun et al. – Environmental Science & Technology

Geochemistry and microbiology predict environmental niches with conditions favoring potential microbial activity in the Bakken shale – Tinker et al. – Frontiers in Microbiology

Spatial patterns of selenium and profiling of Se-tolerant Bacillus strains in Shiwalik foot-hills – Tiwana et al. – Geomicrobiology Journal

Bacterial laccase of Anoxybacillus ayderensis SK3-4 from hot springs showing potential for industrial dye decolorization – Wang et al. – Annals of Microbiology

Built environment

Comparison of microbial communities during anaerobic digestion of kitchen waste: Effect of substrate sources and temperatures – Jiang et al. – Bioresource Technology

August 16, 2020

Today’s quite diverse digest features: a study on antimicrobial resistance in the drinking water microbiome in disinfected and disinfection-free drinking water systems, how Antarctic soil microorganisms stay energised and hydrated, and several awesome webinars and podcasts. Happy reading/listening!

General microbiome

Development of Microbiome Biobanks – Challenges and Opportunities – M.J. Ryan – Trends in Microbiology

Review: STROBE-metagenomics: a STROBE extension statement to guide the reporting of metagenomics studies – Tehmina Bharucha – The Lancet Infectious Diseases

Theme issue: The role of the microbiome in host evolution – compiled and edited by Oren Kolodny, Benjamin J. Callahan and Angela E. Douglas – Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

Selected papers:
Review: Microbiota–host interactions shape ageing dynamics – Miriam Popkes and Dario Riccardo Valenzano – Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

Opinion: Pathogen resistance may be the principal evolutionary advantage provided by the microbiome – Michael R. McLaren and Benjamin J. Callahan – Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

Gut microbiome

A Randomized Clinical Trial of Fecal Microbiota Transplant for Alcohol Use Disorder – Jasmohan S Bajaj – Hepatology

Urogenital microbiome

Comparative Genomic Study of Lactobacillus jensenii and the Newly Defined Lactobacillus mulieris Species Identifies Species-Specific Functionality – Catherine Putonti – mSphere

Vaginal Estrogen Therapy Is Associated with Increased Lactobacillus in the Urine of Post-Menopausal Women with OAB Symptoms – Dr. Krystal Thomas-White – American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology

Vaginal microbiome

Vaginal microbiota, genital inflammation, and neoplasia impact immune checkpoint protein profiles in the cervicovaginal microenvironment – Paweł Łaniewski –npj Precision Oncology

Lateral Gene Transfer Shapes Diversity of Gardnerella spp. – Lindsey L. Bohr – Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology

Variation of the vaginal microbiome during and after pregnancy in Chinese women – Xiaoai Zhang – medRxiv

Review: Diversity of Vaginal Microbiome in Pregnancy: Deciphering the Obscurity – Parakriti Gupta – Frontiers in Public Health

Pregnancy and early life

Evidence for contamination as the origin for bacteria found in human placenta rather than a microbiota – Rémi Gschwind – PlosOne

Respiratory microbiome

A Novel Description of the Human Sinus Archaeome During Health and Chronic Rhinosinusitis – Brett Wagner Mackenzie – Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology

Animal microbiome

Temporal changes in the gut microbiota in farmed Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) outweigh the response to diet supplementation with macroalgae – Ciara Keating – bioRxiv

Broiler Chickens and Early Life Programming: Microbiome transplant-induced cecal bacteriome dynamics and phenotypic effects – Gustavo A. Ramírez – bioRxiv

Rumen metaproteomics: Closer to linking rumen microbial function to animal productivity traits – Thea Os Andersen – Methods

Fast and Slow-Growing Management Systems: Characterisation of Broiler Caecal Microbiota Development throughout the Growing Period – Laura Montoro-Dasi – animals

Animal experiment

Mucosal or systemic microbiota exposures shape the B cell repertoire – Hai Li – Nature

The immune system fails to mount a protective response to Gram-positive or Gram-negative bacterial prostatitis – Federico Lupo – bioRxiv

Oncogenic Gene Fusions in Non-Neoplastic Precursors as Evidence that Bacterial Infection Initiates Prostate Cancer – Eva Shrestha – bioRxiv

Microbiome-derived inosine modulates response to checkpoint inhibitor immunotherapy – Lukas F. Mager – Science

Lung and gut microbiota are altered by hyperoxia and contribute to oxygen-induced lung injury in mice – Shanna L. Ashley – Science Translational Medicine

Plant/root/soil microbiome

*A genome compendium reveals diverse metabolic adaptations of Antarctic soil microorganisms – Maximiliano Ortiz – bioRxiv

Healthy soils for healthy plants for healthy humans – Heribert Hirt – EMBO reports

The Impact of Mercury Selection and Conjugative Genetic Elements on Community Structure and Resistance Gene Transfer – James P. J. Hall – Frontiers in Microbiology

Review: Plant–microbiome interactions: from community assembly to plant health – Pankaj Trivedi – Nature Reviews Microbiology

Water microbiome

*Differential prevalence and host-association of antimicrobial resistance traits in disinfected and non-disinfected drinking water systems – Maria Sevillano – Science of The Total Environment

MiDAS 3: An ecosystem-specific reference database, taxonomy and knowledge platform for activated sludge and anaerobic digesters reveals species-level microbiome composition of activated sludge – Marta Nierychlo – Water Research

Metagenomic profiling of ammonia- and methane-oxidizing microorganisms in two sequential rapid sand filters – Lianna Poghosyan – Water Research

Shotgun metagenomics of indigenous bacteria collected from the banks of the San Jacinto River for biodegradation of aromatic waste – Rupa Iyer and Ashish Damania – FEMS Microbiology Letters

Viruses and phages

Viruses in wastewater: occurrence, abundance and detection methods – Mary Vermi Aizza Corpuz – Science of The Total Environment

Viromes outperform total metagenomes in revealing the spatiotemporal patterns of agricultural soil viral communities – Christian Santos-Medellin – bioRxiv

Techniques

Correlative Light Electron Ion Microscopy reveal in vivo localisation of bedaquiline in Mycobacterium tuberculosis infected lungs – Antony Fearns – bioRxiv

Label-free smartphone quantitation of bacteria by darkfield imaging of light scattering in fluoropolymer micro capillary film allows portable detection of bacteriophage lysis – Sultan İlayda Dönmez – Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical

Bioinformatics

Raven: a de novo genome assembler for long reads – Robert Vaser and Mile Sikic – bioRxiv

SHAMAN: a user-friendly website for metataxonomic analysis from raw reads to statistical analysis – Stevenn Volant – BMC Bioinformatics

Rapid discovery of novel prophages using biological feature engineering and machine learning – Kimmo Sirén – bioRxiv

Critical Relevance of Stochastic Effects on Low-Bacterial Biomass 16S rRNA Gene Analysis – John R. Erb-Downward – mBio

On the complexity of haplotyping a microbial community – Samuel M Nicholls – bioRxiv

Inclusion of Oxford Nanopore long reads improves all microbial and viral metagenome‐assembled genomes from a complex aquifer system – Will A. Overholt – Environmental Microbiology

Webinar

Microbiome, machine learning and network models – Amy Willis and Ben Bloem-Reddy – Northwest Data Science Seminar Series

The Gut Brain Axis across the Life Span – John Cryan – iScience webinar

Pushing the Envelope: Remodeling the Gram-negative Outer Membrane – M. Stephen Trent – SG BUG (Singapore Bacterial Ultra Group) seminar series

Podcast

Getting to Know Your Friendly Neighbourhood Microbiologist – Lucie Semenec and Amy Cain – The Joint Academic Microbiology Seminars podcast

Does not compute – Sanjay Srivastava, Alexa Tullett, and Simine Vazire – The Black Goat podcast

August 14, 2020

Good morning from Massachusetts! Dr. Elisabeth Bik will be giving a Zoom talk today on research misconduct in biomedical research. You can register at the link under events. Fittingly, today’s digest includes a preprint on the effects of retraction after misconduct on citations. Other highlights today include an entire theme issue on the microbiome and host evolution and a paper on phylogenomic analyses of archaea attempting to elucidate the DPANN lineage. In early life, the placental microbiome debate rages on with a paper demonstrating evidence for contamination rather than an actual placental microbiome. Finally, I have highlighted a paper studying whether soil archives can give us a glimpse into soil microbial communities of the past.

Have a great weekend!

Events

Dr. Bik is discussing “The Dark Side of Science: Misconduct in Biomedical Research” today at 12PM EDT! Register here.

General microbiome

Theme Issue: The role of the microbiome in host evolution – Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B

Pregnancy and early life

Evidence for contamination as the origin for bacteria found in human placenta rather than a microbiota – Rémi Gschwind – PloS One

Human milk microbiome

SARS-CoV-2 in human milk is inactivated by Holder pasteurization but not cold storage – Gregory J. Walker – Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health

Human oral microbiome

Review: Oral microbiome geography: Micron-scale habitat and niche – Jessica L. Mark Welch – Cell Host & Microbe

Human gut microbiome

Epidemiology and associated microbiota changes in deployed military personnel at high risk of traveler’s diarrhea – William A. Walters – PloS One

Animal experiments

Differential alteration in gut microbiome profiles during acquisition, extinction, and reinstatement of morphine-induced CPP – Jianbo Zhang – Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry

Modulation of the intestinal microbiota of broilers supplemented with monensin or functional oils in response to challenge by Eimeria spp. – Alexandre Maciel Vieira – PloS One

Herpes simplex virus infection, Acyclovir and IVIG treatment all independently cause gut dysbiosis – Chandran Ramakrishna – PloS One

Animal microbiome

Raw milk and fecal microbiota of commercial Alpine dairy cows varies with herd, fat content and diet – Francesca Albonico – PloS One

Hydrolytic bacteria associated with natural helminth infection in the midgut of Red Sea marbled spinefoot rabbit fish Siganus rivulatus – Ghada Abd-Elmonsef Mahmoud – Microbial Pathogenesis

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Book: Agriculturally Important Fungi for Sustainable Agriculture Vol 2: Functional Annotation for Crop Protection – Eds. Ajar Nath Yadav et al. – Springer

Patient propagules: Do soil archives preserve the legacy of fungal and prokaryotic communities? – Gian Maria Niccolò Benucci – PloS One

Labile carbon limits late winter microbial activity near Arctic treeline – Patrick F. Sullivan – Nature Communications

Enhanced biodegradation of crude oil by constructed bacterial consortium comprising salt-tolerant petroleum degraders and biosurfactant producers – Weiwei Chen – International Biodeterioration & Biodegradation

Plant–archaea relationships: a potential means to improve crop production in arid and semi-arid regions – Elizabeth Temitope Alori – World Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology

First report of Fusarium equiseti causing crown rot and damping-off on durum wheat in Algeria – Amor Bencheikh – Archives of Phytopathology and Plant Protection

Soil microbial diversity and composition: Links to soil texture and associated properties – Qing Xia – Soil Biology and Biochemistry

Water, air, and extremophile microbiome

Effects of different habitats on the bacterial community composition in the water and sediments of Lake Taihu, China – Wenjie Chang – Environmental Science and Pollution Research

Genomic and enzymatic evidence of acetogenesis by anaerobic methanotrophic archaea – Shanshan Yang – Nature Communications

Undinarchaeota illuminate DPANN phylogeny and the impact of gene transfer on archaeal evolution – Nina Dombrowski – Nature Communications

Preprint: Occurrence, identification and antibiogram signatures of selected Enterobacteriaceae from Tsomo and Tyhume rivers in the Eastern Cape Province, Republic of South Africa – Fadare Temitope Folake — BioRxiv

Built environment

The microbiome of drinking water biofilters is influenced by environmental factors and engineering decisions but has little influence on the microbiome of the filtrate – Ben Ma – Environmental Science & Technology

In-situ remediation of acid mine drainage from abandoned coal mine by filed pilot-scale passive treatment system: Performance and response of microbial communities to low pH and elevated Fe – Haiyan Chen – Bioresource Technology

Bioinformatics and other techniques

De novo sequence assembly requires bioinformatic checking of chimeric sequences – Laila Sara Arroyo – PloS One

Review on matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry for the rapid screening of microbial species: A promising bioanalytical tool – Suresh Kumar Kailasa – Microchemical Journal

Microbes in the News

Using the infant stool microbiome to predict NEC: New machine learning tool predicts devastating intestinal disease in premature infants – Science Daily

Science Publishing and Career

Preprint: Does retraction after misconduct have an impact on citations? A pre-post study – Cristina Candal-Pedreira – bioRxiv

July 19, 2020

Hello from the Sonoran Desert! In today’s digest, you’ll find find a lot of very interesting papers! For those interested in host-phages interactions, there is an amazing work from Ping and collaborators looking at phage infections dynamics in migrating bacterial populations. Interestingly, the authors suggests that phages may be able to “hitchhike” with moving bacteria.

To continue with our viral readings, you’ll also find an interesting perspective paper from Kuprovic and collaborators. In this piece, the authors attempt to reconstruct the virome associated to LUCA (Last Universal Cellular Ancestor). Amazingly, their reconstruction shows that a remarkably complex virome would have been associated to LUCA, suggesting an extensive viral evolution antedating LUCA!

Finally, today’s non-microbiology pick is a book, looking at the fascinating Cuatro Ciénegas Basin, located in México, a site that is often described as a real outdoor laboratory for astrobiology. Indeed, the Basin site contains gypsum-rich soil analogous to the Gale Crater in Mars, and the ponds contains extremely oligotrophic waters, which can be used to model ancient oceans chemistry. You’ll explore along the chapters the history, ecology, microbiology and evolution of this amazing site, to unravel the mysteries of this site absolutely unique on the planet.

Have a great Sunday!


Human respiratory microbiome

Review: Insights gained into respiratory infection pathogenesis using lung tissue metabolomics –  Bernatchez and McCall –  PLOS Pathogens

Human gut microbiome

Description and determinants of the faecal resistome and microbiome of farmers and slaughterhouse workers: A metagenome-wide cross-sectional study –  Van Gompel et al. –  Environment International

Review: The influence of the gut microbiome on obesity –  Blanco – Journal of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners


Animal microbiome (for animals in the wild)

Comparative analysis of the gut microbiota of Apis cerana in Yunnan using high-throughput sequencing. –  Luo et al. –  Archives of Microbiology

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Higher tree diversity increases soil microbial resistance to drought. –  Gillespie et al. –  Communications Biology

Effect of land uses on soil microbial community structures among different soil depths in northeastern China. –  Ji et al. –  European Journal of soil Biology

Structural variability and niche differentiation of the rhizosphere and endosphere fungal microbiome of Casuarina equisetifolia at different ages. –  Huang et al. –  Environmental Microbiology

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

Substrate regulation leads to differential responses of microbial ammonia-oxidizing communities to ocean warming. –  Zheng et al. –  Nature communications

Diversity and dynamics of relevant nanoplanktonic diatoms in the Western English Channel. –  Arsenieff et al.  –  The ISME Journal

Lake characteristics influence how methanogens in littoral sediments respond to terrestrial litter inputs. –  Yakimovich et al. –  The ISME Journal

Built environment (subways, indoor surfaces)

Heavy metal concentrations in Brazilian port areas and their relationships with microorganisms: can pollution in these areas change the microbial community? –  Del Busso Zampieri et al. –  Environmental Monitoring and Assessment

Food microbiology

Material conversion, microbial community composition and metabolic functional succession during green soybean hull composting. –  Zhang et al. –  Bioresource Technology


Phages and viruses

Hitchhiking, collapse, and contingency in phage infections of migrating bacterial populations. –  Ping et al. – The ISME Journal

Review: The LUCA and its complex virome. –  Krupovic et al. –  Nature Review Microbiology

Insights into the dynamics between viruses and their hosts in a hot spring microbial mat. –  Jarett et al. –  ISME Journal

Bioinformatics

IDMIL: an alignment-free Interpretable Deep Multiple Instance Learning (MIL) for predicting disease from whole-metagenomic data. –  Rahman and Rangwala –  Bioinformatics


My non-microbiology pick

Book: Astrobiology and Cuatro Ciénegas Basin as an Analog of Early Earth. –  Medina-Chávez et al. –  Cuatro Ciénegas Basin: An Endangered Hyperdiverse Oasis. Springer

July 15, 2020

There are several notable entries in today’s digest. Registration is open for the European Learning Laboratory for the Life Sciences’ “Introducing Your Microbiome” virtual training course. The course is for European secondary school science teachers and is 5 weeks long. The 3rd Microbiome Movement will also be held this year, both virtually and in-person. Links are in the Events section.  

Today I’ve highlighted a bioinformatics paper on variant calling for cpn60 barcode sequencing and an early life paper on pre-term infant stem cell proliferation upregulated by microbial metabolites. While putting this digest together, I learned algae turns snow different colors! This is so cool to me that I’ve highlighted that paper as well. Finally, the News section includes an article for Smithsonian Magazine by Rob Dunn on quarantine’s effects on our microbial passengers.  

Happy reading!

Events

3rd Microbiome Movement – Animal Health & Nutrition Summit, taking place in North Carolina as well as digitally October 19-21, 2020.

European Learning Laboratory for the Life Sciences’ “Introducing Your Microbiome” November 2-December 7, 2020. Applications are due October 15 and the course is free.

Pregnancy and early life

Gut microbiota maturation during early human life induces enterocyte proliferation via microbial metabolites – Michael W. Dougherty – BMC Microbiology

Human gut microbiome

Perspective: Gut microbiome, big data and machine learning to promote precision medicine for cancer – Giovanni Cammarota – Nature Reviews Gastroenterology & Hepatology

Microbiome of death

Characterizing the postmortem human bone microbiome from surface-decomposed remains – Alexandra L. Emmons – PloS One

Animal experiments

Saccharomyces cerevisiae fermentation products (SCFP) stabilize the ruminal microbiota of lactating dairy cows during periods of a depressed rumen pH – Hein M. Tun – BMC Veterinary Research

Animal microbiome

A Shift Pattern of Bacterial Communities Across the Life Stages of the Citrus Red Mite, Panonychus citri – Zhen-yu Zhang – Frontiers in Microbiology

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Nitrogen enrichment stimulates wetland plant responses whereas salt amendments alter sediment microbial communities and biogeochemical responses – Mary Donato – PloS One

Bioavailable metal (loid) s and physicochemical features co-mediating microbial communities at combined metal (loid) pollution sites – Jiawen Wang – Chemosphere

Assessing the effects of tylosin fermentation dregs as soil amendment on macrolide antibiotic resistance genes and microbial communities: Incubation study – Bo Zhang – Journal of Environmental Science and Health, Part B

Book: Phytobiomes: Current Insights and Future Vistas – Manoj Kumar Solanki – Springer

Early changes in bacterial communities in wound tissues of Pinus massoniana after inoculation with Bursaphelenchus xylophilus – Jinyan Liu – Nematology

Preprint: Unexpected diversity of CPR bacteria and nanoarchaea in the rare biosphere of rhizosphere-associated grassland soil – Alexa M. Nicolas – bioRxiv

Preprint: A Meta-analysis of the known Global Distribution and Host Range of the Ralstonia Species Complex – Tiffany Lowe-Power – bioRxiv

Water, air, and extremophile microbiome

Lipid Biomarker Record of the Serpentinite-Hosted Ecosystem of the Samail Ophiolite, Oman and Implications for the Search for Biosignatures on Mars – Sharon A Newman – Astrobiology

Metabolic acclimation of anammox consortia to decreased temperature – Tangran Huo – Environment International

Complete Genome Sequences of Two Marine Biofilm Isolates, Leisingera sp. nov. Strains 201A and 204H, Novel Representatives of the Roseobacter Group – Giselle S. Cavalcanti – Microbiology Resource Announcements

Microbial interspecific interaction and nitrogen metabolism pathway for the treatment of municipal wastewater by iron carbon based constructed wetland – Xiao Huang – Bioresource Technology

Biogeographical distribution of dissimilatory nitrate reduction to ammonium (DNRA) bacteria in wetland ecosystems around the world – Huawei Pan – Journal of Soils and Sediments

Molecular diversity of the microbial community in coloured snow from the Fildes Peninsula (King George Island, Maritime Antarctica) – Wei Luo – Polar Biology

Novel arsenic hyper-resistant bacteria from an extreme environment, Crven Dol mine, Allchar, North Macedonia – Vladimir Bermanec – Journal of Hazardous Materials

Built environment

Ozone treatment in a wind tunnel for the reduction of airborne viruses in swine buildings – Jonathan M. Vyskocil – Aerosol Science and Technology

Food microbiology

Correlation between microbial communities and key flavors during post-fermentation of Pixian broad bean paste – Ping Liu – Food Research International

Additives affect the distribution of metabolic profile, microbial communities and antibiotic resistance genes in high-moisture sweet corn kernel silage – Zhe Wu – Bioresource Technology

Shifts in autochthonous microbial diversity and volatile metabolites during the fermentation of chili pepper (Capsicum frutescens L.) – Xinxing Xu – Food Chemistry

Proteomic characterization of extracellular vesicles produced by several wine yeast species – Ana Mencher – Microbioal Biotechnology

Book Chapter: Role of Microbes for Attaining Enhanced Food Crop Production – Pankaj Sharma – Microbial Biotechnology: Basic Research and Applications

Bioinformatics

Evaluation of variant calling for cpn60 barcode sequence-based microbiome profiling – Sarah J. Vancuren – PloS One

Techniques

Preprint: Visualization of giant virus particles using BONCAT labeling and STED microscopy – Monica Berjon-Otero – bioRxiv

Microbes in the News

Human Microbiome: 39 trillion microbes and bacteria that call us home – Mun-Keat Looi – Science Focus

What Quarantine is Doing to Your Body’s Wondrous World of Bacteria – Rob Dunn – Smithsonian Magazine

June 08, 2020

Today, we present a broad spectrum of new studies covering among others the mycobiome of human milk, gut microbes and their association with brain development and cognitive function, and a catalogue of previously unseen microbial genomes. Of particular interest is a study that integrates different sources of data to model a personalized gut microbiome. Last but not least we selected a pre-print on the design and characterization of multiepitopes vaccine for SARS-CoV.

General microbiome

Cultivation-independent and cultivation-dependent metagenomes reveal genetic and enzymatic potential of microbial community involved in the degradation of a complex microbial polymer – Costa et al. – Microbiome

REVIEW: Conceptualizing the vertebrate sterolbiome – Ridlon – Applied and Environmental Microbiology

Human milk mycobiome

Human milk fungi: environmental determinants and inter-kingdom associations with milk bacteria in the CHILD Cohort Study – Moossavi et al. – BMC Microbiology

Human skin microbiome

Skin microbiota analysis-inspired development of novel anti-infectives – Liu et al. – Microbiome

Human vaginal microbiome

PREPRINT: Vaginal microbiota of adolescents and their mothers: A preliminary study of vertical transmission and persistence – Bassis – bioRxiv

Human gut microbiome

Personalized whole‐body models integrate metabolism, physiology, and the gut microbiome – Thiele et al. – Mol Syst Biol

REVIEW: The gut microbiota profile of adults with kidney disease and kidney stones: a systematic review of the literature – Stanford et al. – BMC Nephrology

PREPRINT: Gut microbes and their genes are associated with brain development and cognitive function in healthy children – Bonham et al. – bioRxiv

Animal microbiome (for animals in the wild)

Microbial environment shapes immune function and cloacal microbiota dynamics in zebra finches Taeniopygia guttata – van Veelen et al. – Animal Microbiome

PREPRINT: Large scale metagenome assembly reveals novel animal-associated microbial genomes, biosynthetic gene clusters, and other genetic diversity – Youngblut – bioRxiv

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

Novel insights into the Thaumarchaeota in the deepest oceans: their metabolism and potential adaptation mechanisms – Zhong et al. – Microbiome

The role of metal contamination in shaping microbial communities in heavily polluted marine sediments – Di Cesare et al. – Environmental Pollution

Techniques

Engineering CRISPR/Cas9 to mitigate abundant host contamination for 16S rRNA gene-based amplicon sequencing – Song & Xie – Microbiome

SARS-CoV-2

PREPRINT: In silico design and characterization of multiepitopes vaccine for SARS-CoV from its Spike proteins – Kathwate – bioRxiv

May 22, 2020

We’ve got a decently sized digest today with a lot of environmental microbe papers, including descriptions of novel species. There is also the Cell paper (highlighted) from Peter Turnbaugh’s group on ketogenic diets and the gut microbiome, which has been getting a lot of press. For new bioinformatic and other techniques, we have a new R package to predict functional profiles in Tax4Fun2, an assessment of phylogenetic rooting methods for bacteria, and a description of fiber intervention used in undergraduate classes for active learning.

 Have a great weekend!

Events

Today is the last day of the Virtual Microbiome Summit.

Pregnancy and early life

Women’s multisite microbial modulation during pregnancy – Luiz G. Sparvoli – Microbial Pathogenesis

Multi-site human microbiome

Review: Bi-Directional Interactions Between Microbiota and Ionizing Radiation in Head and Neck and Pelvic Radiotherapy-Clinical Relevance – Nidhya Teresa Joseph – International Journal of Radiation Biology

Human oral microbiome

Defining the oral microbiome by whole-genome sequencing and resistome analysis: the complexity of the healthy picture – Elisabetta Caselli – BMC Microbiology

Human gut microbiome

Ketogenic diets alter the gut microbiome resulting in decreased intestinal Th17 cells – Qi Yan Ang – Cell

Preprint: Host genetic and environmental factors shape the human gut resistome – Caroline I. Le Roy – bioRxiv

MinION Sequencing of colorectal cancer tumour microbiomes—A comparison with amplicon-based and RNA-Sequencing – William S. Taylor – PLOS One (Originally posted to the Digest as a pre-print, now published)

Animal experiments

Broilers divergently selected for digestibility differ for their digestive microbial ecosystems – Marion Borey – PLOS One

Dietary Isomalto/Malto‐Polysaccharides Increase Fecal Bulk and Microbial Fermentation in Mice – Rima H. Mistry – Molecular Nutrition and Food Research

Longitudinal Effects of Dietary Oxidized Lipids on the Gut Microbiome and Mycobiome in Pigs – Folagbayi Arowolo – FASEB Journal

Animal microbiome

Single-cell amplicon sequencing reveals community structures and transmission trends of protist-associated bacteria in a termite host – Michael E. Stephens – PLOS One

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Xylella fastidiosa subsp. pauca and olive produced lipids moderate the switch adhesive versus non-adhesive state and viceversa – Valeria Scala – PLOS One

Mitochondrial genome sequence of Phytophthora sansomeana and comparative analysis of Phytophthora mitochondrial genomes – Guohong Cai – PLOS One

nirS-type denitrifying bacterial communities in relation to soil physicochemical conditions and soil depths of two montane riparian meadows in North China. – Xiaoli Han – Environmental Science and Pollution Research

Tissue-Specific Dynamics in the Endophytic Bacterial Communities in Arctic Pioneer Plant Oxyria digyna – Cindy Given – Frontiers in Plant Science

Effects of Cultured Root and Soil Microbial Communities on the Disease of Nicotiana tabacum Caused by Phytophthora nicotianae – Tianbo Liu – Frontiers in Microbiology

Novel putative rhizobial species with different symbiovars nodulate Lotus creticus and their differential preference to distinctive soil properties – M Rejili – FEMS Microbiology Letters

Water, air, and extremophile microbiome

The microbiome of alpine snow algae shows a specific inter-kingdom connectivity and algae-bacteria interactions with supportive capacities – Lisa Krug – ISME Journal

Variation of near surface atmosphere microbial communities at an urban and a suburban site in Philadelphia, PA, USA – JD Stewart – Science of the Total Environment

Pilot-scale petroleum refinery wastewaters treatment systems: performance and microbial communities’ analysis – Fatma Karray – Process Safety and Environmental Protection

Adverse effects of levofloxacin and oxytetracycline on aquatic microbial communities – Zhigao Zhou – Science of the Total Environment

Application of microbial network analysis to discriminate environmental heterogeneity in Fildes Peninsula, Antarctica – Qian Liu – Marine Pollution Bulletin

Tools for successful proliferation: diverse strategies of nutrient acquisition by a benthic cyanobacterium – HS Tee – ISME Journal

Metabolic diversity and co-occurrence of multiple Ferrovum species at an acid mine drainage site – Christen L. Grettenberger – BMC Microbiology

Halocatena pleomorpha gen. nov. sp. nov., an extremely halophilic archaeon of family Halobacteriaceae isolated from saltpan soil – Ashish Verma – IJSEM

Unveiling Cultivable and Uncultivable Halophilic Bacteria Inhabiting Marakkanam Saltpan, India and Their Potential for Biotechnological Applications – Jojy John – Geomicrobiology Journal

Flavobacterium profundi sp. nov., isolated from a deep-sea seamount – Qian Wang – IJSEM

Food microbiology

Molecular epidemiology, genetic diversity and antimicrobial resistance of Staphylococcus aureus isolated from chicken and pig carcasses, and carcass handlers – Onyinye J. Okorie-Kanu – PLOS One

Traditional milk transformation schemes in Côte d’Ivoire and their impact on the prevalence of Streptococcus bovis complex bacteria in dairy products – Aimé R Sanhoun – PLOS One

Comparison of Microbial Communities and Amino Acid Metabolites in Different Traditional Fermentation Starters Used during the Fermentation of Hong Qu Glutinous Rice Wine – Zhang-Cheng Liang – Food Research International

Preprint: Monitoring the microbiome for food safety and quality using deep shotgun sequencing – Kristen L. Beck – bioRxiv

Viruses

Are pangolins the intermediate host of the 2019 novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2)? – Ping Liu – PLOS Pathogens

Vector competence of Aedes aegypti from New Caledonia for the four recent circulating dengue virus serotypes – Olivia O’Connor – PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases

Bioinformatics

Tax4Fun2: prediction of habitat-specific functional profiles and functional redundancy based on 16S rRNA gene sequences – Franziska Wemheuer – Environmental Microbiome

Techniques

Assessing the accuracy of phylogenetic rooting methods on prokaryotic gene families – Taylor Wade – PLOS One

Science education techniques: Fiber Force: A Fiber Diet Intervention in an Advanced Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE) Course – Julia Massimelli Sewall – Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education

Science and art

This photographer creates prints with algae.

Non-microbiology picks:

Herd of fuzzy green “glacier mice” baffles scientists.

April 26, 2020

Greetings from Pittsburgh, PA!

Today’s digest includes several reviews, numerous host-microbiome studies, a wide variety of environmental microbiome studies, and a new book focused on Emerging Technologies in Environmental Bioremediation.

I also wanted to highlight the virtual Fermentation Mini-Seminars offered by the Applied Ecology Department at my alma mater, NC State University. During the first seminar of the series I learned about the Wild Sourdough Project, which is a community-science/citizen-science project where participants can submit observational data about their sourdough culture. If you’re missing the lab, this might be the perfect project for you!

Virtual Events

NCSU Fermentation Mini-Seminars offered every Thursday at 4pm EST from April through August

General microbiome

Special Issue: Stochasticity in microbiology: managing unpredictability to reach the Sustainable Development Goals – De Vrieze et al. – Microbial Biotechnology

Review: Biofilm matrixome: Extracellular components in structured microbial communities – Karygianni et al. – Trends in Microbiology

Review: Microbial symbiosis: A network towards biomethanation – Saha et al. – Trends in Microbiology

Multi-site human microbiome

Microbiota in cerebrovascular disease: A key player and future therapeutic target – Tonomura et al. – Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow & Metabolism

Review: Role of microbiome and antibiotics in autoimmune diseases – Vangoitsenhoven and Cresci – Nutrition in Clinical Practice

Human skin microbiome

Isolation and characterization of diverse microbial representatives from the human skin microbiome – Timm et al. – BMC Microbiology

Human gut microbiome

Altered gut microbial profile is associated with abnormal metabolism activity of Autism Spectrum Disorder – Dan et al. – Gut Microbes

Seasonal variation in gut microbiota composition: cross-sectional evidence from Ukrainian population – Koliada et al. – BMC Microbiology

Gut microbiome reveals specific dysbiosis in primary osteoporosis – Xu et al. – Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology

Animal experiments

The clinical drug Ebselen attenuates inflammation and promotes microbiome recovery in mice after antibiotic treatment for CDI – Garland et al. – Cell Reports Medicine

Effect of oxytetracycline treatment on the gastrointestinal microbiome of critically endangered white abalone (Haliotis sorenseni) treated for withering syndrome – Parker-Graham et al. – Aquaculture

Effects of hydrolyzed fish protein and autolyzed yeast as substitutes of fishmeal in the gilthead sea bream (Sparus aurata) diet, on fish intestinal microbiome – Rimoldi et al. – BMC Veterinary Research

Animal microbiome

(My microbiome) would walk 10,000 miles: Maintenance and turnover of microbial communities in introduced dung beetles – Parker et al. – Invertebrate Microbiology

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Nocardiopsis deserti sp. nov., isolated from a high altitude Atacama Desert soil – Asem et al. – International Journal of Systemic and Evolutionary Microbiology

Steel slag amendment impacts on soil microbial communities and activities of rice (Oryza sativa L.) – Das et al. – Scientific Reports

Peat properties, dominant vegetation type and microbial community structure in a tropical peatland – Girkin et al. – Wetlands

Integrating transcriptomics and metabolomics to studies key metabolism, pathways and candidate genes associated with drought-tolerance in Carthamus tinctorius L. under drought stress – Wei et al. – Industrial Crops and Products

Dynamics of ammonia oxidizers and denitrifiers in response to compost addition in black soil, Northeast China – Yang et al. – PeerJ

Water and extremophile microbiome

Impacts of an eruption on cold-seep microbial and faunal dynamics at a mud volcano – Girard et al. – Frontiers in Marine Science

Unraveling heterogeneity of coral microbiome assemblages in tropical and subtropical corals in the South China Sea – Gong et al. – Microorganisms

Anode potential-dependent protection of electroactive biofilms against metal ion shock via regulating extracellular polymeric substances – Hou et al. – Water Research

Microbial ecology and biogeochemistry of hypersaline sediments in Orca Basin – Nigro et al. – PLOS One

Near streambed flow shapes microbial guilds within and across trophic levels in fluvial biofilms – Risse-Buhl et al. – Limnology and Oceanography

Heterotrophic sulfide-oxidizing nitrate-reducing bacteria enables the high performance of integrated autotrophic-heterotrophic denitrification (IAHD) process under high sulfide loading – Zhang et al. – Water Research

Built environment (subways, indoor surfaces)

Ecological processes affecting long-term eukaryote and prokaryote biofilm persistence in nitrogen removal from sewage – Angell et al. – Genes

Long-term microbial community dynamics in a pilot-scale gas sparged anaerobic membrane bioreactor treating municipal wastewater under seasonal variations – Kannan et al. – Bioresource Technology

Book: Emerging Technologies in Environmental Bioremediation – Edited by Shah et al.

Food microbiology

How processing methods affect the microbial community composition in a cereal-based fermented beverage – Phiri et al. – LWT – Food Science and Technology

High-throughput sequencing and metabolomics reveal differences in bacterial diversity and metabolites between red and white sufu – Tang et al. – Frontiers in Microbiology

April 9, 2020

Good morning! There’s a diverse set of microbiome papers to share today, ranging from the human microbiome in Lynch Syndrome to the microbes that flavor wine and degrade paintings in art galleries. You may also want to check out the recent news that popular video game Borderlands 3 is introducing a new mini-game that prompts players to help “map” the human gut microbiome—technical details are hard to come by, but it appears to be alignment related. There is also a study that found more than 20 percent of recently published metagenomes are not accessible.

In addition, Microbiome Data Congress 2020 will be held online on May 6 and is offering free registration through tomorrow (Friday, April 10). Speakers include human microbiome researcher Dr. Nikos Kyrpides of the (U.S.) DOE Joint Genome Institute and soil microbiologist Dr. Kari Dunfield of the University of Guelph.

Human gut microbiome

Structure of the Mucosal and Stool Microbiome in Lynch Syndrome, Yan Yan et al., Cell Host & Microbe

Effects of sex and chronic cigarette smoke exposure on the mouse cecal microbiome, Tam and Filho et al., PLOS ONE

The gut microbiome but not the resistome is associated with urogenital schistosomiasis in preschool-aged children, Derick N. M. Osakunor et al., Communications Biology

Perspective: Developing a new class of engineered live bacterial therapeutics to treat human diseases, Mark R. Charbonneau et al., Nature Communications

Review: The gut mycobiome: The overlooked constituent of clinical outcomes and treatment complications in patients with cancer and other immunosuppressive conditions, Galloway-Peña and Kontoyiannis, PLOS Pathogens

Intestinal enteroids recapitulate the effects of short-chain fatty acids on the intestinal epithelium, Sarah C. Pearce et al., PLOS ONE


Animal experiments

A combination of monosodium glutamate and high-fat and high-fructose diets increases the risk of kidney injury, gut dysbiosis and host-microbial co-metabolism, Thatsanapong Pongking et al., PLOS ONE

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Preprint: Vineyard ecosystems are structured and distinguished by fungal communities impacting the flavour and quality of wine, Di Liu et al., bioRxiv

Bacterial community composition of vermicompost-treated tomato rhizospheres, Juana Munoz-Ucros et al., PLOS ONE

Field Performance of Mixtures of Pseudomonas and Bacillus spp. in Managing Papaya Ringspot Virus Disease and their Effect on Plant Defense Enzyme Activity, Ranasinghe and De Costa, Tropical Agricultural Research

Built environment

Detection of potential biodeterioration risks for tempera painting in 16th century exhibits from State Tretyakov Gallery, Alexander Zhgun et al., PLOS ONE

Microbiome and antibiotic resistome in household dust from Beijing, China, Long-Jun Ding et al., Environment International

Preprint: Microbial dark matter driven degradation of carbon fiber polymer composites, Adam M. Breister et al., bioRxiv

Phages and viruses

Preprint: Primate phageomes are structured by superhost phylogeny and environment, Jan-Frederik Gogarten et al., bioRxiv

Bioinformatics

PIA: More Accurate Taxonomic Assignment of Metagenomic Data Demonstrated on sedaDNA From the North Sea, Becky Cribdon et al., Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution

Techniques

A restriction enzyme reduced representation sequencing approach for low-cost, high-throughput metagenome profiling, Melanie K. Hess et al., PLOS ONE

Science, publishing, and career

Every fifth published metagenome is not available to science, Eckert, Di Cesare and Fontaneto et al., PLOS Biology

April 5, 2020.

All the break-neck speed with which the progress that is happening today in tracking, detecting and treating the disease, like everything else, is owed in part to the giants whose shoulders we’re standing on. One such thing is the usage of serum (from recovered patients or derived elsewhere) for treatment. So, as a little tribute, I would like to share with you today, on the birthday of Dr. Hattie Elizabeth Alexander (born April 5, 1901), the information that she pioneered the work in using anti-influenzal rabbit serums to treat the then always-fatal influenzal meningitis (effectively bringing down the fatality rate to 20%!), and was also sone of the very first to study bacterial mutations that come along with antibiotic resistance !

So we’ve come a long way and are forging our way forward. Here are a few interesting articles that are slowly pushing this boundary, a piece at a time.

COVID-19

From PREDICT to prevention, one pandemic later – Colin J Carlson – The Lancet.

Human Microbiome

Review: Risk factors associated with gastric malignancy during chronic Helicobacter pylori infection – Ami Y Seegar – Medical Research Archives.

Review: From Association to Causality: the Role of the Gut Microbiota and Its Functional Products on Host Metabolism – Ara Koh – Molecular Cell.

Pregnancy and Early Life

Breast Milk and Microbiota in the Premature Gut: A Method of Preventing Necrotizing Enterocolitis – Orga PL et al – Karger.

Human Brain and Microbiome

Book: Integrative and Functional Medical Nutrition Therapy. Chapter: The Microbiome and Brain Health – Sharon L. Norling -Springer

Animal Experiments


Integrated omics profiling of dextran sodium sulfate-induced colitic mice supplemented with Wolfberry (Lycium barbarum). Wanping Aw et al – NPJ Science of Food.

Botany

Rhizobacteriome: Promising Candidate for Conferring Drought Tolerance in Crops – Vinod Yadav et al – Journal of Pure Applied Microbiology

Legionella species: A potential problem associated with rain water harvesting systems? – Judith A Taylor et al – SAGE Journals

Bioinformatics

Applications of Machine Learning Predictive Models in the Chronic Disease Diagnosis – Gopi Battineni et al – Journal of Personalized Medicine

PS: I know, I am with you on this — the lockdown isn’t ideal. But we are also the generation, who for the first time can end articles signing off as “Stay Safe and Wash Your Hands” and manage to prevent a large proportion of its species from suffering / dying. Isn’t that crazy! Have a great day!

More information on Dr. Hattie Elizabeth Alexander — here and here.