Category Archives: Water microbiome

February 21, 2022

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Today’s digest features two excellent metagenome – metabolome association studies in Nature Medicine and a great article in Genome Biology showing that the sustained software development is what you should look for in a bioinformatic software, not what journal it was published in.

Human gut microbiome

Metabolomic and microbiome profiling reveals personalized risk factors for coronary artery disease – Talmor-Barkan et al. Nature Medicine. 

Microbiome and metabolome features of the cardiometabolic disease spectrum – Fromentin et al. Nature Medicine

Gut metagenome associations with extensive digital health data in a volunteer-based Estonian microbiome cohort – Aasmets et al. Nature Communications

Animal Microbiome

Drivers of gut microbiome variation within and between groups of a wild Malagasy primate – Rudolph et al. Microbiome

Integrated meta-omics reveals new ruminal microbial features associated with feed efficiency in dairy cattle – Xue et al. Microbiome

The gut microbiome and antibiotic resistome of chronic diarrhea rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) and its similarity to the human gut microbiome – Yang et al Microbiome

Virome

Independent host- and bacterium-based determinants protect a model symbiosis from phage predation – Lynch et al. Cell Reports

Virome characterization of game animals in China reveals a spectrum of emerging pathogens – He et al. Cell

Water and extremophile microbiome

Microeukaryotic gut parasites in wastewater treatment plants: diversity, activity, and removal – Freudenthal et al. Microbiome

Bioinformatics

METABOLIC: high-throughput profiling of microbial genomes for functional traits, metabolism, biogeochemistry, and community-scale functional networks – Zhou et al. Microbiome

Sustained software development, not number of citations or journal choice, is indicative of accurate bioinformatic software – Gardner et al. Genome Biology

Non-Microbiome picks

If you’ve listened to The Dropout podcast you might like this editorial.  

The post-Theranos world – Nature Biotechnology. 

February 16, 2022

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Happy Wednesday! Today’s digest includes two gut-brain axis papers from Sarkis Mazmanian’s lab at CalTech. The first article, published in Nature, found that 4-ethylphenol (4EPS) produced by gut microbes from dietary tyrosine was capable of entering the brain and changing gene expression, brain cell interactions, and brain functions. In the second study, published in Nature Medicine, oral administration of the adsorbent AB-2004–which can bind and sequester phenolic compounds–led to reduced levels of gut 4EPS and decreased anxiety in human adolescents with autism spectrum disorder.

I have also included an article published by my thesis lab in The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology looking at the impact of seasons on the respiratory microbiome and asthma exacerbations in children.

Finally, there is an interesting paper by Baranova et al. in which the authors identify a bacterial species ubiquitous across multiple wild animals that appears to have novel functions for pathogen control or microbiome remodeling. Happy reading!

General Microbiome
Scale-dependent tipping points of bacterial colonization resistance. – Karita, Y. et al., PNAS.

Microbial protection favors parasite tolerance and alters host-parasite coevolutionary dynamics. – Rafaluk-Mohr, C. et al., Current Biology.

Human Respiratory Microbiome
Seasonal Airway Microbiome and Transcriptome Interactions Promote Childhood Asthma Exacerbations. – McCauley, K.E. et al., The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

Human Skin Microbiome
Secreted Toxins From Staphylococcus aureus Strains Isolated From Keratinocyte Skin Cancers Mediate Pro-tumorigenic Inflammatory Responses in the Skin. – Krueger, A. et al., Frontiers in Microbiology.

Aged related human skin microbiome and mycobiome in Korean women. – Kim, H-J. et al., Scientific Reports.

Human Vaginal Microbiome
Extracellular Vesicles Generated by Gram-Positive Bacteria Protect Human Tissues Ex Vivo From HIV-1 Infection. – Costantini, P.E. et al., Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology.

Gut-Brain Axis
A gut-derived metabolite alters brain activity and anxiety behavior in mice. – Needham, B.D. et al., Nature.

Safety and target engagement of an oral small-molecule sequestrant in adolescents with autism spectrum disorder: an open-label phase 1b/2a trial. – Campbell, A.S., Needham, B.D., Meyers, C.R. et al., Nature Medicine.

Animal Experiments
Tryptophan-derived microbial metabolites activate the aryl hydrocarbon receptor in tumor-associated macrophages to suppress anti-tumor immunity. – Hezaveh, K. et al., Immunity.

Stochastic microbiome assembly depends on context. – Jones, E.W. et al., PNAS.

IBD-Associated Atg16L1T300A Polymorphism Regulates Commensal Microbiota of the Intestine. – Liu, H. et al., Frontiers in Immunology.

A homeostatic interferon-lambda response to bacterial microbiota stimulates preemptive antiviral defense within discrete pockets of intestinal epithelium. – Van Winkle, J.A. et al. eLife.

Enteric nervous system modulation of luminal pH modifies the microbial environment to promote intestinal health. – Hamilton, M.K. et al., PLoS Pathogens.

Animal Microbiome
Characterization of the Gut Microbiome and Resistomes of Wild and Zoo-Captive Macaques. – Jia, T. et al., Frontiers in Veterinary Science.

Deep Functional Profiling of Wild Animal Microbiomes Reveals Probiotic Bacillus pumilus Strains with a Common Biosynthetic Fingerprint. – Baranova, M.N. et al., International Journal of Molecular Sciences.

Plant, Root, and Soil Microbiome
Plant immunity suppression via PHR1-RALF-FERONIA shapes the root microbiome to alleviate phosphate starvation. – Tang, J. et al., The EMBO Journal.

Extracts from Environmental Strains of Pseudomonas spp. Effectively Control Fungal Plant Diseases. – Librizzi, V. et al., Plants.

Mega-fire in Redwood Tanoak Forest Reduces Bacterial and Fungal Richness and Selects for Pyrophilous Taxa that are Phylogenetically Conserved. – Enright, D.J. et al., Molecular Ecology.

Water and Extremophile Microbiome
Analysis of antibiotic resistance genes reveals its important role in influencing the community structure of ocean microbiome. – Yang, P. et al., The Science of the Total Environment.

Seaweeds influence oyster microbiota and disease susceptibility. – Dugeny, E. et al., The Journal of Animal Ecology.

Air Microbiome
Vertical stratification of the air microbiome in the lower troposphere. – Drautz-Moses, D.I. et al., PNAS.

Bioinformatics
Evaluating supervised and unsupervised background noise correction in human gut microbiome data. – Briscoe, L. et al., PLoS Computational Biology.

February 9, 2022

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Today’s digest includes a Nature Medicine news feature on the role of preprints in the COVID-19 pandemic. Also included are an article about unsupervised clustering methods for microbiome data, the response of anammox consortia to nutrient starvation, and a handful of interesting preprints.

Animal experiments

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

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Preprint: Ecological insights into soil health according to the life-history traits and environment-wide associations of bacteria in agricultural soils – Wilhelm et al. – bioRxiv

Water and extremophile microbiome

Response and resilience of anammox consortia to nutrient starvation – Wang et al. – Microbiome

Bioinformatics

Preprint: Model-free prediction of microbiome compositions – Asher & Bashan – bioRxiv

Preprint: Predicting the re-distribution of antibiotic molecules caused by inter-species interactions in microbial communities – Reding – bioRxiv

Performance determinants of unsupervised clustering methods for microbiome data – Shi et al. – Microbiome

Science, publishing, and career

Rise of the preprint: how rapid data sharing during COVID-19 has changed science forever – Watson – Nature Medicine

January 19, 2022

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Human oral and skin microbiome

Oral HPV associated with differences in oral microbiota beta diversity and microbiota abundance – Zhang et al. – The Journal of Infectious Diseases

The Skin and Nose Microbiome and Its Association with Filaggrin Gene Mutations in Pediatric Atopic Dermatitis – van Mierlo et al. – Dermatology

Human gut microbiome

Associations of Childhood and Perinatal Blood Metals with Children’s Gut Microbiomes in a Canadian Gestation Cohort – Shen et al. – Environmental Health Perspectives

Patient knowledge of gut microbiota and acceptability of fecal microbiota transplantation in various diseases – Benech et al. – Neurogastroenterology & Motility

[PREPRINT]Comprehensive assessment of functional effects of commonly used sweeteners on ex vivo human gut microbiome – Sun et al. – bioRxiv

Fusobacterium nucleatum and Bacteroides fragilis detection in colorectal tumours: Optimal target site and correlation with total bacterial load – Rye et al. – PLOS One

Human gut microbiome aging clocks based on taxonomic and functional signatures through multi-view learning – Chen et al. – Gut Microbes

[REVIEW]The gut microbiome can be a potential regulator and treatment target of bone metastasis – Contino, Yadav & Shiozawa – Biochemical Pharmacology

Animal microbiome

Comparative analysis of gut microbial composition and potential functions in captive forest and alpine musk deer – Jiang et al. – Environmental Biotechnology

Effects of dietary antimicrobial peptides on intestinal morphology, antioxidant status, immune responses, microbiota and pathogen disease resistance in grass carp Ctenopharyngodon idellus – Liu et al. – Microbial Pathogenesis

[PREPRINT]Microbiomes of hadal fishes contain similar taxa, obligate symbionts, and known piezophiles across trench habitats – Blanton et al. – bioRxiv

Association of human disturbance and gastrointestinal parasite infection of yellow baboons in western Tanzania – Mason et al. – PLOS One

Bacterial recognition by PGRP-SA and downstream signalling by Toll/DIF sustain commensal gut bacteria in Drosophila – Bahuguna et al. – PLOS Genetics

[PREPRINT]Meta-analysis of the black soldier fly (Hermetia illucens) microbiota based on 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing – Idema et al. – bioRxiv

Groundwater microbiome

Vertical stratification of microbial communities and isotope geochemistry tie groundwater denitrification to sampling location within a nitrate-contaminated aquifer – Chakraborty et al. – Science of The Total Environment

Techniques / Bioinformatics

Microbiome differential abundance methods produce different results across 38 datasets – Nearing et al. – Nature Communications

[PREPRINT]Using strain-resolved analysis to identify contamination in metagenomics data – Lou et al. – bioRxiv

Revealing General Patterns of Microbiomes That Transcend Systems: Potential and Challenges of Deep Transfer Learning – David et al. – mSystems

January 10, 2022

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Today’s digest features studies on glycosaminoglycans degradation by urinary microbiome, social network of honeybees, improved DNA extraction for low biomass samples, the LotuS2 tool for amplicon sequencing analysis, and more. Happy Monday!

Gut microbiome

Review: The role of the microbiota in the management of intensive care patients – Piotr Szychowiak – Annals of Intensive Care

Review: The Gut Microbiome in Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME)/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) – Rahel S. König – Frontiers in Immunology

Review: Opioid Use, Gut Dysbiosis, Inflammation, and the Nervous System – Richa Jalodia – Journal of Neuroimmune Pharmacology

Urinary microbiome

*A Semi-Quantitative Assay to Measure Glycosaminoglycan Degradation by the Urinary Microbiota – Vivian H. Nguyen – Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology

Vaginal microbiome

Composition and Stability of the Vaginal Microbiota of Pregnant Women With Inflammatory Bowel Disease – Janet E Hill – Inflammatory Bowel Diseases

Skin microbiome

*Anatomy promotes neutral coexistence of strains in the human skin microbiome – Arolyn Conwill – Cell Host & Microbe

Water microbiome

Tenets of a Holistic Approach to Drinking Water-Associated Pathogen Research, Management, and Communication – Caitlin Proctor – Water Research

Animal microbiome

Review: Possibilities and limits for using the gut microbiome to improve captive animal health – Jessica Diaz & Aspen T. Reese – Animal Microbiome

The mosquito microbiome includes habitat-specific but rare symbionts – Hans Schrieke – Computational and Structural Biotechnology Journal

*The gut microbiota affects the social network of honeybees – Joanito Liberti – bioRxiv

Techniques and methods

Combined assembly of long and short sequencing reads improve the efficiency of exploring the soil metagenome – Guoshun Xu – BMC Genomics

Enrichment of gut microbiome strains for cultivation-free genome sequencing using droplet microfluidics – Anna Pryszlak – Cell Report Methods

When to suspect contamination rather than colonization – lessons from a putative fetal sheep microbiome – Simone Bihl – Gut Microbes

*Microvolume DNA extraction methods for microscale amplicon and metagenomic studies – Anna R. Bramucci – ISME Communications

Bioinformatics

*LotuS2: An ultrafast and highly accurate tool for amplicon sequencing analysis – Ezgi Özkurt – bioRxiv

Generating lineage-resolved, complete metagenome-assembled genomes from complex microbial communities – Derek M. Bickhart – Nature Biotechnology

January 4, 2022

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Happy new year! Today’s digest is jam packed with articles published over the Christmas period. This includes the Skin Microbial Genome Collection (SMGC), a fascinating study linking the gut virome to rotavirus vaccine response, multiple cancer-microbiome papers and a catalogue of the human gut archaeome

General microbiome

The Metaproteomics Initiative: a coordinated approach for propelling the functional characterization of microbiomes – Bossche et al. Microbiome

Directional Gaussian Mixture Models of the Gut Microbiome Elucidate Microbial Spatial Structure – Pasarkar et al. mSystems

Human gut microbiome

Human gut-microbiome-derived propionate coordinates proteasomal degradation via HECTD2 upregulation to target EHMT2 in colorectal cancer – Ryu et al. ISME

Gut microbiomes from Gambian infants reveal the development of a non-industrialized Prevotella-based trophic network – Goffau et al. Nature Microbiology.

Reuterin in the healthy gut microbiome suppresses colorectal cancer growth through altering redox balance – Bell et al. Cancer Cell. 

Population study of the gut microbiome: associations with diet, lifestyle, and cardiometabolic disease – Walker et al. Genome Medicine

Enteric virome negatively affects seroconversion following oral rotavirus vaccination in a longitudinally sampled cohort of Ghanaian infants – Kim et al. Cell Host & Microbe

Maternal gut bacteria drive intestinal inflammation in offspring with neurodevelopmental disorders by altering the chromatin landscape of CD4+ T cells – Kim et al. Immunity

Lactobacillus gallinarum modulates the gut microbiota and produces anti-cancer metabolites to protect against colorectal tumourigenesis – Sugimura et al. Gut

A catalogue of 1,167 genomes from the human gut archaeome – Chibani et al. Nature Microbiology

Variation and transmission of the human gut microbiota across multiple familial generations – Valles-Colomer et al. Nature Microbiology. 

The Mouse Gastrointestinal Bacteria Catalogue enables translation between the mouse and human gut microbiotas via functional mapping – Beresford-Jones et al. Cell Host & Microbe

Human skin & oral microbiome

Integrating cultivation and metagenomics for a multi-kingdom view of skin microbiome diversity and functions – Kashaf et al. Nature Microbiology.

Alterations of human skin microbiome and expansion of antimicrobial resistance after systemic antibiotics – Jo et al. Science Translational Medicine

Microbiome-mediated incapacitation of interferon lambda production in the oral mucosa – Rodriguez-Hernandez et al. PNAS

Plant microbiome

Glutamic acid reshapes the plant microbiota to protect plants against pathogens – Kim et al. Microbiome. 

Water microbiome

Metagenomics of Antarctic Marine Sediment Reveals Potential for Diverse Chemolithoautotrophy – Garber et al. mSphere

Dissecting the dominant hot spring microbial populations based on community-wide sampling at single-cell genomic resolution – Bowers et all. ISME

Bioinformatics

Fast and accurate metagenotyping of the human gut microbiome with GT-Pro – Shi et al. Nature Biotechnology

Rapid screening and identification of viral pathogens in metagenomic data – Song et al. BMC Medical Genomics. 

December 16, 2021

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Today’s digest features the Global Microbial Gene Catalog, studies on group B Streptococcus vaginal colonization in a murine model and Patescibacteria in oxic and anoxic groundwater, and more. Happy holidays!

Important NEWS from the Microbiome Virtual International Forum:
The recordings of the MVIF #4 with Jonathan Eisen and other speakers are available here.
The registration for the MVIF #5 with Eran Elinav is open.
The abstract submission for the MVIF #6 with Susan Holmes is open.

Global microbiome

*Towards the biogeography of prokaryotic genes – Luis Pedro Coelho – Nature

Review: Human microbiota research in Africa: a systematic review reveals gaps and priorities for future research – Imane Allali – Microbiome

Human milk microbiome

Factors influencing the microbial composition of human milk – Anastasia Mantziaria and Samuli Rautavab – Seminars in Perinatology

Animal experiments

*Group B Streptococcus CAMP Factor Does Not Contribute to Interactions with the Vaginal Epithelium and Is Dispensable for Vaginal Colonization in Mice – Mallory B. Ballard – Microbiology Spectrum

Ageing and rejuvenation models reveal changes in key microbial communities associated with healthy ageing – Jongoh Shin – Microbiome

Water microbiome

*The economical lifestyle of CPR bacteria in groundwater allows little preference for environmental drivers – Narendrakumar M. Chaudhari – Environmental Microbiome

Bioinformatics

EXPERT: Transfer Learning-enabled context-aware microbial source tracking – Hui Chong – bioRxiv
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.29.428751v2

NEWS from NCBI taxonomy

December 15, 2021

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Nasal microbiome

Deep nasal sinus cavity microbiota dysbiosis in Parkinson’s disease – Pal et al – NPJ Parkinson’s disease

Pregnancy and early life

Influence of Family Integrated Care on the Intestinal Microbiome of Preterm Infants With Necrotizing Enterocolitis and Enterostomy: A Preliminary Study – Yang et al. – Front. Pediatr.

Multi-site human microbiome

[PREPRINT]Alternations of fecal microbes and lung tissue microbes in Lung Cancer patients is more consistent than that of sputum – Yanze et al. – bioRxiv

Human oral microbiome

[PREPRINT]A core salivary microbiome shows the high prevalence of bacterial members yet variability across human populations – Ruan et al. – bioRxiv

Human eye microbiome

Metagenomic Analysis Reveals the Heterogeneity of Conjunctival Microbiota Dysbiosis in Dry Eye Disease – Liang et al. – Front. Cell Dev. Biol.

Human vaginal microbiome

[REVIEW]Beyond bacterial vaginosis: vaginal lactobacilli and HIV risk – Armstrong & Kaul – Microbiome

Human gut mycobiome/microbiome

The fecal mycobiome in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease – Demir et al. – Journal of Hepatology

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

Intermittent Fasting Reshapes the Gut Microbiota and Metabolome and Reduces Weight Gain More Effectively Than Melatonin in Mice – Liu et al. – Front. Nutr.

Analyzing gut microbiota composition in individual Anopheles mosquitoes after experimental treatment – Fofana et al. – iScience

Microbial interaction-driven community differences as revealed by network analysis – Pan et al. – Computational and Structural Biotechnology Journal

[PREPRINT]Metabolic reconstitution by a gnotobiotic microbiota varies over the circadian cycle – Hoces et al. – bioRxiv

[PREPRINT]Single cell genome sequencing of laboratory mouse microbiota improves taxonomic and functional resolution of this model microbial community – Lyalina et al – bioRxiv

Gut microbiota modulates weight gain in mice after discontinued smoke exposure – Fluhr et al. – Nature

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

[PREPRINT]Stratified microbial communities are highly sensitive towards multiple combined global change factors, revealing antagonistic and synergistic effects – Suleiman et al. – bioRxiv

Bioinformatics / Databases

Cow Rumen v1.0 – Database

[REVIEW]A review of computational tools for generating metagenome-assembled genomes from metagenomic sequencing data – Yang et al. – Computational and Structural Biotechnology Journal

Microbiome podcast

The Microbiome Facts, Not the Hype – Kristina Campbell

December 08, 2021

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General microbiome

Clinical medicine journals lag behind science journals with regards to “microbiota sequence” data availability – Pryor et al. – Clinical and Translational Medicine

Role of the Microbiome in Regulating Bone Metabolism and Susceptibility to Osteoporosis – Cronin et al. – Calcified Tissue International

Defining and quantifying the core microbiome: Challenges and prospects – Neu, Allen & Roy – PNAS

Clean room microbiome complexity impacts planetary protection bioburden – Hendrickson et al. – Microbiome

[PREPRINT]Community Composition of Bacteria Isolated from Swiss Banknotes Varies Depending on Collection Environment – Bischofberger & Hall – bioRxiv

Microbiota and stress: a loop that impacts memory – Kraimi et al. – Psychoneuroendocrinology

Species- and site-specific genome editing in complex bacterial communities – Rubin et al. – Nature Microbiology

Human respiratory microbiome

Integrated metabolic and microbial analysis reveals host–microbial interactions in IgE-mediated childhood asthma – Chiu et al. – Scientific Reports

Human oral microbiome

Metagenome-genome-wide association studies reveal human genetic impact on the oral microbiome – Liu et al. – Cell Discovery

Human gut microbiome

Interaction Between Intestinal Microbiota, Immunology Molecular Mimicry, and AID – Pan et al. – Journal of Immunology Research

[REVIEW]The Gut Microbiome and Hepatocellular Carcinoma – Akkiz – Journal of Gastrointestinal Cancel

Anaerostipes hominis sp. nov., a novel butyrate-producing bacteria isolated from faeces of a patient with Crohn’s disease – Lee et al. – International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology

Gut microbiome is associated with the clinical response to anti-PD-1 based immunotherapy in hepatobiliary cancers – Mao et al. – Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer

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

Time-restricted feeding induces Lactobacillus- and Akkermansia-specific functional changes in the rat fecal microbiota – Palomba et al. – NPJ Biofilms and Microbiomes

Animal microbiome (for animals in the wild)

Diet-driven mercury contamination is associated with polar bear gut microbiota – Watson et al. – Scientific Reports

Maternal inheritance of the koala gut microbiome and its compositional and functional maturation during juvenile development – Blyton et al. – Environmental Microbiology

[PREPRINT]Relationships between pond water and tilapia skin microbiomes in aquaculture ponds in Malawi – McMurtie et al. – bioRxiv

Age-Based Variations in the Gut Microbiome of the Shennongjia (Hubei) Golden Snub-Nosed Monkey (Rhinopithecus roxellana hubeiensis) – Yao et al. – BioMed Research International

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

Looking through the FOG: microbiome characterization and lipolytic bacteria isolation from a fatberg site – Court et al. – Microbiology

The Baltic Sea methane pockmark microbiome: The new insights into the patterns of relative abundance and ANME niche separation – Iasakov et al. – Marine Environmental Research

Bioinformatics

3MCor: an integrative web server for metabolome-microbiome-metadata correlation analysis – Sun et al. – Bioinformatics

Techniques

Microbiome Methods in Experimental Autoimmune Encephalomyelitis – Daberkow et al. – Current Protocols

[PREPRINT]A wipe-based stool collection and preservation kit for microbiome community profiling – Hua et al. – bioRxiv

December 2, 2021

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Happy December from Pittsburgh!

Today’s digest includes original research on the impacts of fungal entomopathogens on Wolbacia infections and the influence of nutrient status on the response of a diatom to oil and dispersant. I have also included a study protocol for oral microbiome transplant for the treatment of dental caries and periodontal disease as well as preprints on a variety of topics. Finally, I want to highlight two articles I included that are little different from my usual content: the first is on predictors of willingness to receive the COVID-19 vaccination and the second is focused on transparency in peer review.

Enjoy!

COVID-19

***To vaccinate or not to vaccinate!? Predictors of willingness to receive Covid-19 vaccination in Europe, the U.S., and China – Brailovskaia et al. – PLOS One

General microbiome

Preprint: Copper nanoparticles as modulator of active bacterial population and their physiology in ecosphere – Alboloushi et al. – bioRxiv

Preprint: Metabolite Damage and Damage-Control in a Minimal Genome – Haas et al. – bioRxiv

Development and characterization of an oral microbiome transplant among Australians for the treatment of dental caries and periodontal disease: A study protocol – Nath et al. – PLOS One

Preprint: Heat activation and inactivation of bacterial spores. Is there an overlap? – Wen et al. – bioRxiv

Animal experiments

Inferring Mycobacterium bovis transmission between cattle and badgers using isolates from the Randomised Badger Culling Trial – van Tonder et al. – PLOS Pathogens

Animal microbiome

Impacts of fungal entomopathogens on survival and immune responses of Aedes albopictus and Culex pipiens mosquitoes in the context of native Wolbachia infections – Ramirez et al. – PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases

Water and extremophile microbiome

Influence of nutrient status on the response of the diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum to oil and dispersant – Kamalanathan et al. – PLOS One

Preprint: Community-wide epigenetics provides novel perspectives on the ecology and evolution of marine microbiome – Seong et al. – bioRxiv

Preprint: Microbial cysteine degradation is a source of hydrogen sulfide in oxic freshwater lakes – Tran et al. – bioRxiv

Bioinformatics

When and why direct transmission models can be used for environmentally persistent pathogens – Benson – PLOS Computational Biology

Techniques

Preprint: The processing of staphylococcal biofilm images from Fluorescence and Confocal Microscopy to assess in vitro efficacy of antiseptic molecules – Krasowski et al. – bioRxiv

Science, publishing, and career

***Transparency in peer review: Exploring the content and tone of reviewers’ confidential comments to editors – O’Brien et al. – PLOS One