July 23, 2022

Greetings from Chile! Today, in this Digest, a variety of papers covering different subjects, such as the relationships between microbiome and C. difficile infection, new skin microbiome sampling techniques, FMT donor-recipient microbiome interplay, microbiome and biodiversity conservation, microbiome and vitamin metabolism, etc.; also, take a look at the papers from the “Bioinformatics and Microbiome Analysis Techniques” section.  

Human and General Microbiome

A 3D-printed transepidermal microprojection array for human skin microbiome sampling – Kun Liang – PNAS

Analysis of Intestinal Mycobiota of Patients with Clostridioides difficile Infection among a Prospective Inpatient Cohort – Yangchun Cao – Microbiology Spectrum

Role of gastrointestinal microbial populations, a terra incognita of the human body in the management of intestinal bowel disease and metabolic disorders – J E Vazquez Bucheli – Beneficial Microbes

The Gut Bacterial Community Potentiates Clostridioides difficile Infection Severity – Nicholas A Lesniak – mBio

The interplay of gut microbiota between donors and recipients determines the efficacy of fecal microbiota transplantation – Ruiqiao He – Gut Microbes

Gut commensals expand vitamin A metabolic capacity of the mammalian host – Maryam Bonakdar – Cell Host & Microbe

A reappraisal of microbiome dysbiosis during experimental periodontitis – Marion Arce – Molecular Oral Microbiology

Activity-based protein profiling identifies alternating activation of enzymes involved in the bifidobacterium shunt pathway or mucin degradation in the gut microbiome response to soluble dietary fiber – Bryan J Killinger – NPJ Biofilms and Microbiomes

Cooperative action of gut-microbiota-accessible carbohydrates improves host metabolic function – Sawako Tomioka – Cell Reports

Model Animal Microbiome

Key features of the genetic architecture and evolution of host-microbe interactions revealed by high-resolution genetic mapping of the mucosa-associated gut microbiome in hybrid mice – Shauni Doms – eLife

Non-Model Animal Microbiome

Metagenomic insights into the microbe-mediated B and K(2) vitamin biosynthesis in the gastrointestinal microbiome of ruminants – Qian Jiang – Microbiome

Exploring the Transient Microbe Population on Citrus Butterfly Wings – P D Kamala Jayanthi – Microbiology Spectrum

Review: Methods and Strategies to Uncover Coral-Associated Microbial Dark Matter – Júnia Schultz – mSystems

Plant Microbiome

Plant genetic effects on microbial hubs impact host fitness in repeated field trials – Benjamin Brachi – PNAS

Review: Beneficial and pathogenic plant-microbe interactions during flooding stress – Clara Martínez-Arias – Plant, Cell & Environment

Environmental Microbiome

Review: Harnessing the microbiome to prevent global biodiversity loss – Raquel S Peixoto – Nature Microbiology

More Microbes

Proteome Exploration of Legionella pneumophila To Identify Novel Therapeutics: a Hierarchical Subtractive Genomics and Reverse Vaccinology Approach – Md Tahsin Khan – Microbiology Spectrum

Bioinformatics and Microbiome Analysis Techniques

LOCOM: A logistic regression model for testing differential abundance in compositional microbiome data with false discovery rate control – Yingtian Hu – PNAS

A metagenomic DNA sequencing assay that is robust against environmental DNA contamination – Omary Mzava – Nature Communications

Bioinformatic Analysis to Investigate Metaproteome Composition Using Trans-Proteomic Pipeline – Steven He – Current Protocols

July 19, 2022

Have a nice Tuesday! Today in this short digest, interesting reviews about “psychobiotics” (useful probiotics for mental health), the use of several tools for analyzing microbiota, and a systematic review analyzing the role of the oral microbiome in autoimmune diseases. 

Human and General Microbiome

The relationship between the gut microbiome and the risk of respiratory infections among newborns – Yuka Moroishi – Communications Medicine

Review: Psychobiotics: the Influence of Gut Microbiota on the Gut-Brain Axis in Neurological Disorders – Parvin Oroojzadeh – Journal of Molecular Neuroscience

Review: Ecosystem-specific microbiota and microbiome databases in the era of big data – Victor Lobanov – Environmental Microbiome

Systematic Review: The Oral Microbiome and Its Role in Systemic Autoimmune Diseases: A Systematic Review of Big Data Analysis – Lu Gao – Frontiers in Big Data

Animal Model Microbiome

Microplastics-perturbed gut microbiota triggered the testicular disorder in male mice: Via fecal microbiota transplantation – Siyue Wen – Environmental Pollution

Plant Microbiome

Flavonoid-attracted Aeromonas sp. from the Arabidopsis root microbiome enhances plant dehydration resistance – Danxia He – The ISME Journal

Bioinformatics and Microbiome Analysis Techniques

ProBioQuest: a database and semantic analysis engine for literature, clinical trials and patents related to probiotics – Po Lam Chan – Database

A structural metagenomics pipeline for examining the gut microbiome – Morgan E. Walker – Current Opinion in Structural Biology 

The Mini Colon Model: a benchtop multi-bioreactor system to investigate the gut microbiome – Zijie Jin – Gut Microbes

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 16, 2022

Human and General Microbiome

Advances and challenges in cataloging the human gut virome – Junhua Li – Cell Host & Microbe

Genomic diversity of genus Limosilactobacillus – Magdalena Ksiezarek – Microbial Genomics

Comparison of the respiratory tract microbiome in hospitalized COVID-19 patients with different disease severity – Jiali Chen – Journal of Medical Virology

An international report on bacterial communities in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma – Jason Nomburg – International Journal of Cancer

Beneficial Microbes and Compounds

Phenolic-rich beverages reduce bacterial TMA formation in an ex vivo-in vitro colonic fermentation model – Lisard Iglesias-Carres – Food & Function

Lactobacillus paragasseri OLL2809 Improves Depression-Like Behavior and Increases Beneficial Gut Microbes in Mice – Narumi Hashikawa-Hobara – Frontiers in Neuroscience

In silico identification of two peptides with antibacterial activity against multidrug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus – Linda B Oyama – NPJ Biofilms and Microbiomes

Review: How Dietary Fibre, Acting via the Gut Microbiome, Lowers Blood Pressure – Chudan Xu – Current Hypertension Reports

Review: Low FODMAP diet in irritable bowel syndrome: a review of recent clinical trials and meta-analyses – Kevin Whelan – Current Opinion in Clinical Nutrition and Metabolic Care

Review: Prebiotic effects of plant-derived (poly)phenols on host metabolism: Is there a role for short-chain fatty acids? – Perla Lopes de Freitas – Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition

Animal Microbiome

Unveiling biogeographic patterns in the worldwide distributed Ceratitis capitata (medfly) using populations genomics and microbiome composition – María Belén Arias – Molecular Ecology

Differential oral microbiome in nonhuman primates from periodontitis susceptible and resistant matrilines – Jeffrey L Ebersole – Molecular Oral Microbiology

Chicken jejunal microbiota improves growth performance by mitigating intestinal inflammation – Xiaolong Zhang – Microbiome

Bioinformatics and Microbiome Analysis

Comparison Analysis of Different DNA Extraction Methods on Suitability for Long-Read Metagenomic Nanopore Sequencing – Lei Zhang – Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology

KOMB: K-core based de novo characterization of copy number variation in microbiomes – Advait Balaji – Computational and Structural Biotechnology Journal

CASPER: An Integrated Software Platform for Rapid Development of CRISPR Tools – Brian Mendoza – The CRISPR Journal

Integrating Choline and Specific Intestinal Microbiota to Classify Type 2 Diabetes in Adults: A Machine Learning Based Metagenomics Study – Qiang Zeng – Frontiers in Endocrinology

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

July 13, 2022

Today’s digest features studies on the leaf-microbiome of 🍅 and 🍓 plants (+ bumblebees and mites), human gut and wastewater resistome, and more. Happy reading!

Reproductive tract

Female reproductive tract microbiota and recurrent pregnancy loss: a nested case-control study – Pirkko Peuranpää – Reproductive BioMedicine Online

Gut microbiome

Dynamic metabolic interactions and trophic roles of human gut microbes identified using a minimal microbiome exhibiting ecological properties – Sudarshan A. Shetty – Journal of the International Society for Microbial Ecology

*Within-patient evolution of plasmid-mediated antimicrobial resistance – Javier DelaFuente – bioRxiv

An expanded reference map of the human gut microbiome reveals hundreds of previously unknown species – Sigal Leviatan – Nature Communications

Animal microbiome

Carpenter Bees (Xylocopa) Harbor a Distinctive Gut Microbiome Related to That of Honey Bees and Bumble Bees – Jo-anne C. Holley – Applied and Environmental Microbiology

Animal experiments

Gardnerella Exposures Alter Bladder Gene Expression and Augment Uropathogenic Escherichia coli Urinary Tract Infection in Mice – Nicole M. Gilbert – Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology

Plant microbiome

*The Greenhouse Phyllosphere Microbiome and Associations with Introduced Bumblebees and Predatory Mites – Marie Legein – Microbiology Spectrum

Food microbiome

Longitudinal, multi-platform metagenomics yields a high-quality genomic catalog and guides an in vitro model for cheese communities – Christina C. Saak – bioRxiv

New insights of bacterial communities in fermented vegetables from shotgun metagenomics and identification of antibiotic resistance genes and probiotic bacteria – Muhammad Yasir – Food Research International

Water microbiome

*High-resolution characterisation of short-term temporal variability in the taxonomic and resistome composition of wastewater influent – Kevin Kaibond Chau – bioRxiv

Pilot investigation on biostability of drinking water distribution systems under water source switching – Kejia Zhang – Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology

Bioinformatics

*BinaRena: a dedicated interactive platform for human-guided exploration and binning of metagenomes – Michael J. Pavia – bioRxiv

getSequenceInfo: a suite of tools allowing to get genome sequence information from public repositories – Vincent Moco – BMC Bioinformatics

baseLess: Lightweight detection of sequences in raw MinION data – Ben Noordijk – bioRxiv

July 12, 2022

Human and General Microbiome

Metagenomic prediction of antimicrobial resistance in critically ill patients with lower respiratory tract infections – Paula Hayakawa Serpa – Genome Medicine

Alterations in gut microbiota of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma patients – Man Kit Cheung – Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology

Altered Pattern of Immunoglobulin A-Targeted Microbiota in Inflammatory Bowel Disease After Fecal Transplantation – Wen-Qi Huang – Frontiers in Microbiology

16S rRNA gene sequencing reveals an altered composition of gut microbiota in children with Mycoplasma pneumoniae pneumonia treated with azithromycin – Qiong Deng – The Journal of General and Applied Microbiology

Clinical and metagenomic profiling of hormonal acne-prone skin in different populations – Nina Hrapovic – Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology

Microbiota diversity in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease and in drug-induced liver injury – Cristina Rodriguez-Diaza – Pharmacological Research

Beneficial Microbes and Compounds

Review: The potential role of prebiotics, probiotics, and synbiotics in adjuvant cancer therapy especially colorectal cancer – Zahoor Alam – Journal of Food Biochemistry

Review: Probiotics, prebiotics and postbiotics for better sleep quality: a narrative review – J E Haarhuis – Beneficial Microbes

Review: Gut Microbiota: A Novel Therapeutic Target for Parkinson’s Disease – Manlian Zhu – Frontiers in Immunology

Animal Model Microbiome

Obesity enriches for tumor protective microbial metabolites and treatment refractory cells to confer therapy resistance in PDAC – Kousik Kesh – Gut Microbes

Profiling of d-alanine production by the microbial isolates of rat gut microbiota – Cindy J. Lee – The FASEB Journal

Non-Model Animal Microbiome

Within-community variation of interspecific divergence patterns in passerine gut microbiota – Jan Kubovčiak – Ecology and Evolution

Bacteriophages

Phage defence by deaminase-mediated depletion of deoxynucleotides in bacteria – Brian Y. Hsueh – Nature Microbiology

Bioinformatics and Microbiome Analysis

Preprint: CheckM2: a rapid, scalable and accurate tool for assessing microbial genome quality using machine learning – Alex Chklovski – biorXiv

Cancer type classification using plasma cell-free RNAs derived from human and microbes – Shanwen Chen – eLife

Temporal Alignment of Longitudinal Microbiome Data – Ran Armoni – Frontiers in Microbiology

A Bottom-up Approach to Testing Hypotheses That Have a Branching Tree Dependence Structure, with Error Rate Control – Yunxiao Li – Journal of the American Statistical Association

July 9, 2022

Have a nice weekend! 

Human and General Microbiome

Review: Bladder cancer, inflammageing and microbiomes – Austin Martin – Nature Reviews. Urology

Review: Gut associated metabolites and their roles in Clostridioides difficile pathogenesis – Andrea Martinez Aguirre – Gut Microbes

Oral and gut dysbiosis leads to functional alterations in Parkinson’s disease – Sungyang Jo – NPJ Parkinson’s Disease

Transcriptional programming in a Bacteroides consortium – Brian D Huang – Nature Communications

Gut microbiota composition in colorectal cancer patients is genetically regulated – Francesca Colombo – Scientific Reports

Relative contributions of the host genome, microbiome, and environment to the metabolic profile – Kangjin Kim – Genes & Genomics

Beneficial Microbes and Compounds

Effects of probiotic Lactiplantibacillus plantarum IMC 510 supplementation on metabolic factors in otherwise healthy overweight and obese individuals – Maria Magdalena Coman – Journal of Applied Microbiology

Grape seed and skin extract, a potential prebiotic with anti-obesity effect through gut microbiota modulation – Mohamed Mokrani – Gut Pathogens

Lactobacillus acidophilus LA85 ameliorates cyclophosphamide-induced immunosuppression by modulating Notch and TLR4/NF-κB signal pathways and remodeling the gut microbiota – Liangyu Xue – Food & Function

Animal Model Microbiome

Transplantation of bacteriophages from ulcerative colitis patients shifts the gut bacteriome and exacerbates the severity of DSS colitis – Anshul Sinha – Microbiome

Non-Model Animal Microbiome

Rickettsia helvetica infection is associated with microbiome modulation in Ixodes ricinus collected from humans in Serbia – Apolline Maitre – Scientific Reports

Environmental Microbiome

Microplastic exposure across trophic levels: effects on the host-microbiota of freshwater organisms – Javier Edo Varg – Environmental Microbiome

Estuarine plastisphere as an overlooked source of N(2)O production – Xiaoxuan Su – Nature Communications

Uncovering Hidden Members and Functions of the Soil Microbiome Using De Novo Metaproteomics – Joon-Yong Lee – Journal of Proteome Research

Other

Privacy Risks in Microbiome Research: Public Perspectives before and during a Global Pandemic – Andrea Shin – Ethics & Human Research

Bioinformatics and Experimental Microbiome Analysis

Review: Metagenomics Approaches to Investigate the Neonatal Gut Microbiome – Zakia Boudar – Frontiers in Pediatrics

Editorial: Before you go: a packing list for portable DNA sequencing of microbiomes and metagenomes – Arwyn Edwards – Microbiology

A Bayesian method for identifying associations between response variables and bacterial community composition – Adrian Verster – PLoS Computational Biology

GenBank as a Source to Monitor and Analyze Host-Microbiome Data – Vivek Ramanan – Bioinformatics

Phylogenies of the 16S rRNA gene and its hypervariable regions lack concordance with core genome phylogenies – Hayley B Hassler – Microbiome

July 8, 2022

A selection of some great microbiome research and I’ve highlighted some resources for spatial transcriptomics for my non-microbiome picks.

General microbiome

Host control and the evolution of cooperation in host microbiomes – Sharp & Foster. Nature Communications

Effect of Helicobacter pylori Eradication on Gastric Cancer Prevention: Updated Report From a Randomized Controlled Trial With 26.5 Years of Follow-up – Yan et al. Gastroenterology

Gut microbiome

Antibiotic exposure prevents acquisition of beneficial metabolic functions in the preterm infant gut microbiome – Xu et al. Microbiome

Long-Term Effects of Developmental Exposure to Oxycodone on Gut Microbiota and Relationship to Adult Behaviors and Metabolism – Lyu et al. mSystems

Biogeographic variation and functional pathways of the gut microbiota in celiac disease – Constante et al. Gastroenterology.

Animal experiments

Akkermansia muciniphila prevents cold-related atrial fibrillation in rats by modulation of TMAO induced cardiac pyroptosis – Luo et al. eBioMedicine

Diet and feeding pattern modulate diurnal dynamics of the ileal microbiome and transcriptome – Machado et al. Cell Reports.

Virome

Gut virome profiling identifies a widespread bacteriophage family associated with metabolic syndrome – Jonge et al. Nature Communications

Respiratory microbiome

Host lung microbiota promotes malaria-associated acute respiratory distress syndrome – Mukherjee et al. Nature Communications

Bioinformatics

Super-taxon in human microbiome are identified to be associated with colorectal cancer – Dai et al. BMC Bioinformatics

Non-microbiome picks

As spatial transcriptomics grows in popularity you might be interested in some recent reviews & examples of the technology in use

An introduction to spatial transcriptomics for biomedical research – Williams et al. Genome Medicine

Deciphering tissue structure and function using spatial transcriptomics – Walker et al. Communications biology

Method of the Year: spatially resolved transcriptomics – Marx. Nature Methods

Spatiotemporal transcriptomic atlas of mouse organogenesis using DNA nanoball-patterned arrays – Chen et al. Cell (The recent famous Cell cover using Stereo-Seq)

Museum of spatial transcriptomics – Moses & Pachter. Nature Methods

July 5, 2022

Highlights!

A volatile from the skin microbiota of flavivirus-infected hosts promotes mosquito attractiveness – Hong Zhang – Cell → The production of acetophenone, a potent attractant for mosquitoes, is induced by Flavivirus by a microbiota-based mechanism. This finding shows an interesting example of the interplay between certain viral agents and the microbiota to influence host susceptibility to interact with other species. 

Human and General Microbiome

Dynamic Alterations in the Respiratory Tract Microbiota of Patients with COVID-19 and its Association with Microbiota in the Gut – Yifei Shen – Advanced Science

Interaction of n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids with host CD36 genetic variant for gut microbiome and blood lipids in human cohorts – Zelei Miao – Clinical Nutrition 

A weight-loss model based on baseline microbiota and genetic scores for selection of dietary treatments in overweight and obese population – Amanda Cuevas-Sierra – Clinical Nutrition

Beneficial Microbes and Compounds

Restoration of cefixime-induced gut microbiota changes by a prebiotic blend in a mouse model – Jingyi Yuan – Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology

A synbiotics, long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids, and milk fat globule membranes supplemented formula modulates microbiota maturation and neurodevelopment – Tomás Cerdó – Clinical Nutrition

Animal Model Microbiome

Multi-omics data reveals the disturbance of glycerophospholipid metabolism caused by disordered gut microbiota in depressed mice – Tian Tian – Journal of Advanced Research

C-section increases cecal abundance of the archetypal bile acid and glucocorticoid modifying Lachnoclostridium [clostridium] scindens in mice – Sean H Adams – Physiological Reports

A single respiratory tract infection early in life reroutes healthy microbiome development and affects adult metabolism in a preclinical animal model – Soner Yildiz – NPJ Biofilms and Microbiomes

Non-Model Animal Microbiome

Microbiota mediated plasticity promotes thermal adaptation in the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis – Laura Baldassarre – Nature Communications

Dysbiosis and Predicted Functions of the Dental Biofilm of Dairy Goats with Periodontitis – Ana Carolina Borsanelli – Microbial Ecology

Houseflies harbor less diverse microbiota under laboratory conditions but maintain a consistent set of host-associated bacteria – Anna Voulgari-Kokota – Scientific Reports

Plant and Soil Microbiome

Salinity Influences Endophytic Bacterial Communities in Rice Roots from the Indian Sundarban Area – Gargi Das – Current Microbiology

Routes and rates of bacterial dispersal impact surface soil microbiome composition and functioning – Kendra E Walters – The ISME Journal

Leaf bacterial microbiota response to flooding is controlled by plant phenology in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) – Davide Francioli – Scientific Reports

Bioinformatics and Microbiome Analysis

MB-SupCon: Microbiome-based predictive models via Supervised Contrastive Learning – Sen Yang – Journal of Molecular Biology