March 1st, 2021

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God morgon!

Good morning from Sweden. It is hard to believe that it has been a year since the unprecedented happenings of March 2020 but regardless of how we see it, time flies!

The most interesting read of the day is a study that conclusively proves that the oral microbiota is not influenced by your genetics, but by environmental factors. I was intrigued by the use of a video byte, a small video abstract of the paper, which is something new for me. In my opinion, it could very well be the next big thing in academic publishing as it took me just two minutes to understand the whole study! Do check it out!

A promising study is in a preprint where the researchers show that the pre-colonization with a less virulent strain of Clostridioides difficile protects model organisms from subsequent lethal colonization of C. difficile. This has important therapeutic implications in case of nosocomial, antibiotic-promoted diarrhea. Another exciting study shows the influence of gut microbiome on colorectal cancer. The researchers showed that the transplant of ‘good’ microbiota from healthy donors could even reduce the tumorigenesis in the disease models.

Elsewhere in the digest are studies on microbiome of tropical marine sediments, novel proteins from human intestinal microbiome, virulence factors of Trypanosoma brucei, and new therapeutic epitopes in N1 neuraminidase of Influenza virus.

Happy reading!

Bacteria Hysteria

Preprint: Protection from lethal Clostridioides difficile infection via intraspecies competition for co-germinant – Jhansi L. Leslie, et al.

Preprint: Fiber-associated Lachnospiraceae reduce colon tumorigenesis by modulation of the tumor-immune microenvironment – Ana S Almeida, et al.

Preprint: G9a and Sirtuin6 epigenetically modulate host cholesterol accumulation to facilitate mycobacterial survival – Praveen Prakhar, et al.

Preprint: Identification of a chromosomally-encoded sucrose operon-like gene cluster in Vibrio parahaemolyticus strain PH05 isolated from Negros Island, Philippines – Czarina Anne E. De Mesa, et al.

Preprint: Gene flux and acid-imposed selection are the main drivers of antimicrobial resistance in broiler chicks infected with Salmonella enterica serovar Heidelberg – Adelumola Oladeine, et al.

Preprint: Analyses of the complete genome sequence of 2,6-dichlorobenzamide (BAM) degrader Aminobacter sp. MSH1 suggests a polyploid chromosome, phylogenetic reassignment, and functions of (un)stable plasmids – Tue Kjærgaard Nielsen, et al.

Preprint: Growth response and recovery of Corynebacterium glutamicum colonies on single-cell level upon defined pH stress pulses – Sarah Täuber, et al.

Preprint: Comparative genomics analysis of Chryseobacterium sp. KMC2 reveals metabolic pathways involved in keratinous utilization and natural product biosynthesis – Dingrong Kang, et al.

Preprint: Calprotectin-mediated zinc chelation inhibits Pseudomonas aeruginosa protease activity in cystic fibrosis sputum – Danielle M. Vermilyea, et al.

General Microbiome

Acquisition of oral microbiota is driven by environment, not host genetics – Chiranjit Mukherjee, et al., Microbiome

Dicer-like proteins influence Arabidopsis root microbiota independent of RNA-directed DNA methylation – Richa Kaushal, et al., Microbiome

The bacterial communities of Alaskan mosses and their contributions to N2-fixation – Hannah Holland-Moritz, et al., Microbiome

Preprint: A Tad-like apparatus is required for contact-dependent prey killing in predatory social bacteria – Sofiene Seef, et al.

Preprint: Completion of the gut microbial epi-bile acid pathway – Heidi L. Doden, et al.

Discovery of novel community-relevant small proteins in a simplified human intestinal microbiome – Hannes Petruschke, et al., Microbiome

Metagenomics and Bioinformatics

Preprint: Beyond taxonomic identification: integration of ecological responses to a soil bacterial 16S rRNA gene database – Briony A. Jones, et al.

Preprint: Amplicon sequence variants artificially split bacterial genomes into separate clusters – Patrick D. Schloss

Preprint: Microbial diversity in tropical marine sediments assessed using culture-dependent and culture-independent techniques – Alyssa M Demko, Nastassia V Patin, and Paul R. Jensen.

Viruses

Preprint: The Epstein-Barr virus ubiquitin deconjugase BPLF1 regulates the activity of Topoisomerase II during virus replication – JInlin Li, et al.

Preprint: Novel epitopes of human monoclonal antibodies targeting the influenza virus N1 neuraminidase – Ericka Kirkpatrick Roubidoux, et al.

Others

Preprint: Organotypic endothelial adhesion molecules are key for Trypanosoma brucei tropism and virulence – Mariana De Niz, et al.

February 27th, 2021

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Hyvää Päivää from Helsinki, Finland ! Today’s digest contains quite a lot of different topics. If you are interested in gut microbiomes, I recomment taking a look at the preprint by Weiss and collaborator. In this study, they explore bacteria-bacteria interactions, bacterial growth and metabolic interactions in a synthetic bacterial community: the Oligo-Mouse-Microbiota, which is increasingly used as model system in gut microbiome research.

Additionally, anyone interested in microbiome-based forensic tools should read the study from Sang You and collaborators.  They compared the composition of microbial communities in blood spot surfaces placed in different environments sampled across seasons and time points, in order to evaluate the environmental factors leading to variation in these microbial communities.

Today’s non-microbiology pick is a fascinating study looking at the prevalence of COVID-19 related misinformation among the Yemeni population and its association with vaccine acceptance and perceptions. From this study, the authors recommend the deployment of awareness campaigns to decrease misinformation before initiating any mass vaccination in Yemen.

Have a great Weekend!

Human gut microbiome

Review: The Multiomics Analyses of Fecal Matrix and Its Significance to Coeliac Disease Gut Profiling – Gangadoo et al. – International Journal of Molecular Sciences

Preprint: Exploring the interaction network of a synthetic gut bacterial community – Weiss et al. – BioRxiV

Animal experiments

Environmental concentrations of antibiotics alter the zebrafish gut microbiome structure and potential functions – Rehman Kayani et al. – Environmental Pollution

Fish farm effluents as a source of antibiotic resistance gene dissemination on Jeju Island, South Korea – Jo et al. – Environmental Pollution

Influence of environmental factors and bacterial community diversity in pond water on health of Chinese perch through Gut Microbiota change – Li et al. – Aquaculture Reports

Preprint: The diversity, composition, and metabolic pathways of archaea in pigs – Deng et al. – Preprints

Animal microbiome

Preprint: Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease biomarker bacteria identified in corals and overlying waters using a rapid field-based sequencing approach – Becker et al. – bioRxiV

Built environment

Microbial analyses of blood spot surfaces collected from a laboratory and the bathroom of a female single-person household under different environmental conditions – Sang You et al – FEMS Microbiology letters

Phages and viruses

Opinion paper: Rapid emergence of virus–host mutualism under stress – Dolja – PNAS

Patterns of virus growth across the diversity of life – Jin and Yin – Integrative biology

Techniques

Standard Bacteriophage Purification Procedures Cause Loss in Numbers and Activity – Carroll-Portillo et al. – Viruses

My non-microbiology picks

Preprint: Misinformation, Perceptions Towards COVID-19 and Willingness to be Vaccinated: A Population-Based Survey in Yemen – Naoras Bitar et al. – BioRxiV

February 26, 2021

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Pregnancy and early life

Multi-kingdom ecological drivers of microbiota assembly in preterm infants – Rao et al. – Nature

Human gut

[PREPRINT]A randomization-based causal inference framework for uncovering environmental exposure effects on human gut microbiota – Sommer et al. – bioRxiv

[PREPRINT]Fiber-associated Lachnospiraceae reduce colon tumorigenesis by modulation of the tumor-immune microenvironment – Almeida et al. – bioRxiv

Animal microbiome/experiments

NLRP6-associated host microbiota composition impacts in the intestinal barrier to systemic dissemination of Brucella abortus – Rungue et al. – PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases

Effects of sodium butyrate supplementation on inflammation, gut microbiota, and short‐chain fatty acids in Helicobacter pylori‐infected mice – Huang et al. – Helicobacter

The porcine corneal surface bacterial microbiome: A distinctive niche within the ocular surface – Leis et al. – PLOS One

Dysbiosis of fecal microbiota in cats with naturally occurring and experimentally induced Tritrichomonas foetus infection – Bierlein et al. – PLOS One

Hologenome analysis reveals dual symbiosis in the deep-sea hydrothermal vent snail Gigantopelta aegis – Lan et al. – Nature Communications

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

The bacterial communities of Alaskan mosses and their contributions to N2-fixation – Holland-Moritz et al. – Microbiome

Ecosystem engineers drive differing microbial community composition in intertidal estuarine sediments – Wyness et al. – PLOS One

[PREPRINT]Rare genera differentiate urban green space soil bacterial communities in three cities across the world – Mills et al. – bioRxiv

Nitrogen and water addition regulate fungal community and microbial co-occurrence network complexity in the rhizosphere of Alhagi sparsifolia seedlings – Zhang et al. – Applied Soil Ecology

Metabolic profiling and antioxidant activity during flower development in Agastache rugosa – Yeo et al. – Physiology and Molecular Biology of Plants

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

Long-term dynamic changes in attached and planktonic microbial communities in a contaminated aquifer – Mujica-Alarcon, Thornton & Rolfe – Environmental Pollution

Phages and viruses

Virome composition in marine fish revealed by meta-transcriptomics – Geoghegan et al. – Virus Evolution

Bioinformatics

Comparison of beta diversity measures in clustering the high-dimensional microbial data – Chen et al. – PLOS One

February 25, 2021

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General microbiome
The evolution of coexistence from competition in experimental co-cultures of Escherichia coli and Saccharomyces cerevisiae – Jake N. Barber – ISME Journal

Human microbiome
Quantifying the effects of antibiotic treatment on the extracellular polymer network of antimicrobial resistant and sensitive biofilms using multiple particle tracking – Lydia C. Powell – npj Biofilms and Microbiomes

Biofilms harbour Clostridioides difficile, serving as a reservoir for recurrent infection – Charmaine Normington – npj Biofilms and Microbiomes

Gut microbiome
REVIEW: The contribution of gut bacterial metabolites in the human immune signaling pathway of non-communicable diseases – F. Hosseinkhani – Gut Microbes

The effect of acute moderate-intensity exercise on the serum and fecal metabolomes and the gut microbiota of cross-country endurance athletes – Mariangela Tabone – Scientific Reports

Oral microbiome
Candida albicans promotes tooth decay by inducing oral microbial dysbiosis – Qian Du – ISME Journal

Characterization of oral virome and microbiome revealed distinctive microbiome disruptions in paediatric patients with hand, foot and mouth disease – Si Xian Ho – npj Biofilms and Microbiomes

Skin microbiome
Characterization of the human skin resistome and identification of two microbiota cutotypes – Zhiming Li – Microbiome

Animal experiment
A gene co-association network regulating gut microbial communities in a Duroc pig population – Antonio Reverter – Microbiome

Modulating gut microbiota in a mouse model of Graves’ orbitopathy and its impact on induced disease – Sajad Moshkelgosha – Microbiome

Multi-compartment metabolomics and metagenomics reveal major hepatic and intestinal disturbances in cancer cachectic mice – Sarah A. Pötgens – Journal of Cachexia, Sarcopenia and Muscle

Expanded catalog of microbial genes and metagenome-assembled genomes from the pig gut microbiome – Congying Chen – Nature Communications

Mining zebrafish microbiota reveals key community-level resistance against fish pathogen infection – Franziska A. Stressmann – ISME Journal

Plant, root, and soil microbiome
REVIEW: From exploration to remediation: A microbial perspective for innovation in mining – Alan Levett – Earth-Science Reviews

Food microbiology
A Combined Metagenomics and Metatranscriptomics Approach to Unravel Costa Rican Cocoa Box Fermentation Processes Reveals Yet Unreported Microbial Species and Functionalities – Marko Verce – Frontiers in Microbiology

Water and extremophile microbiome
Mechanistic strategies of microbial communities regulating lignocellulose deconstruction in a UK salt marsh – Daniel R. Leadbeater – Microbiome

Taxonomic and functional analyses of intact microbial communities thriving in extreme, astrobiology-relevant, anoxic sites – Alexandra Kristin Bashir – Microbiome

Genomic evidence for sulfur intermediates as new biogeochemical hubs in a model aquatic microbial ecosystem – Adrien Vigneron – Microbiome

REVIEW: The Seagrass Holobiont: What We Know and What We Still Need to Disclose for Its Possible Use as an Ecological Indicator – Chiara Conte – Water

Spatiotemporal variations and relationships of phosphorus, phosphomonoesterases, and bacterial communities in sediments from two Chilean rivers – Marco Camposa – Science of The Total Environment

Resource partitioning of phytoplankton metabolites that support bacterial heterotrophy – Frank Xavier Ferrer-González – ISME Journal

Phages and virues
Next-generation diagnostics: virus capture facilitates a sensitive viral diagnosis for epizootic and zoonotic pathogens including SARS-CoV-2 – Claudia Wylezich – Microbiome

Preliminary Assessment of Viral Metagenome from Cancer Tissue and Blood from Patients with Lung Adenocarcinoma – Hua‐Zhong Cai – Journal of Medical Virology

Bioinformatics
PathoFact: a pipeline for the prediction of virulence factors and antimicrobial resistance genes in metagenomic data – Laura de Nies – Microbiome

CANTARE: finding and visualizing network-based multi-omic predictive models – Janet C. Siebert – BMC Bioinformatics

kLDM: Inferring Multiple Metagenomic Association Networks based on the Variation of Environmental Factors – Yuqing Yang – Genomics, Proteomics & Bioinformatics

Methods
REVIEW: Cross-species RNA-seq for deciphering host–microbe interactions – Alexander J. Westermann – Nature Review Genetics

A community resource for paired genomic and metabolomic data mining – Michelle A. Schorn – Nature Chemical Biology

Pre-prints
Cross-sectional analysis of the microbiota of the human gut and their direct environment (exposome) in a household cohort in northern Vietnam – Bich Vu Thi Ngoc – bioRxiv

HumGut: A comprehensive Human Gut prokaryotic genomes collection filtered by metagenome data – Pranvera Hiseni – bioRxiv

Comparative analysis of 16S rRNA gene and metagenome sequencing in pediatric gut microbiomes – Danielle Peterson – bioRxiv

Unifying the known and unknown microbial coding sequence space – Chiara Vanni – bioRxiv

February 24, 2021

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Today’s digest is about functional analyses of microbial community in anoxic sites, microbial life in billions of years old fluid inclusions, development and use of human skin commensal, expanded pig metagenome catalogue and a brilliant review on advances in RNAseq technologies to decipher host-microbiota interactions. Happy reading!

General microbiome

Taxonomic and functional analyses of intact microbial communities thriving in extreme, astrobiology-relevant, anoxic sites – Alexandra Kristin Bashir – Microbiome

Pseudomonas kielensis sp. nov. and Pseudomonas baltica sp. nov., isolated from raw milk in Germany – Stefanie Gieschler – International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology

Human microbiome

Development of a human skin commensal microbe for bacteriotherapy of atopic dermatitis and use in a phase 1 randomized clinical trial – Teruaki Nakatsuji – Nature Medicine

Gut microbiome diversity is an independent predictor of survival in cervical cancer patients receiving chemoradiation – Travis T. Sims – Communications Biology

Characterization of the human skin resistome and identification of two microbiota cutotypes – Zhiming Li – Microbiome

Microbial analyses of blood spot surfaces collected from a laboratory and the bathroom of a female single-person household under different environmental conditions – Hee Sang You – FEMS Microbiology Letters

Animal microbiome

Antidepressants fluoxetine and amitriptyline induce alterations in intestinal microbiota and gut microbiome function in rats exposed to chronic unpredictable mild stress – Weijie Zhang – Translational Psychiatry

Ginsenoside Rk3 Ameliorates Obesity-Induced Colitis by Regulating of Intestinal Flora and the TLR4/NF-κB Signaling Pathway in C57BL/6 Mice – Hongwei Chen – Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry

Dietary anthocyanin-rich extract of açai protects from diet-induced obesity, liver steatosis, and insulin resistance with modulation of gut microbiota in mice – Haizhao Song – Nutrition

Effects of supplementing sow diets during late gestation with Pennisetum purpureum on antioxidant indices, immune parameters and faecal microbiota – Peng‐Fei Huang – veterinary Medicine and Science

Alterations in the gut microbiome and metabolic profile in rats acclimated to high environmental temperature – Yang Cao – Microbial Biotechnology

The pelvic flexure separates distinct microbial communities in the equine hindgut – Kailee J. Reed – Scientific Reports

Effects of urolithins on obesity-associated gut dysbiosis in rats fed on a high-fat diet – Abdulrasheed O. Abdulrahman – International Journal of Food Sciences and Nutrition

Functional Foods

Prebiotic Lactulose Ameliorates the Cognitive Deficit in Alzheimer’s Disease Mouse Model through Macroautophagy and Chaperone-Mediated Autophagy Pathways – Yan-Suan Lee – Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry

Water microbiome

Ingredients for microbial life preserved in 3.5 billion-year-old fluid inclusions – Helge Mißbach – Nature Communications

Techniques

Expanded catalog of microbial genes and metagenome-assembled genomes from the pig gut microbiome – Congying Chen – Nature Communications

Cross-species RNA-seq for deciphering host–microbe interactions – Alexander J. Westermann – Nature Reviews Genetics

Computational modeling of the gut microbiota reveals putative metabolic mechanisms of recurrent Clostridioides difficile infection – Michael A. Henson – Plos Computational Biology

An ambient-temperature storage and stabilization device performs comparably to flash-frozen collection for stool metabolomics in infants – Sivapriya Ramamoorthy – BMC Microbiology

Ecological rules for the assembly of microbiome communities – Katharine Z. Coyte – Plos Biology

February 23, 2021

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Greetings from Pittsburgh!

Today’s digest is heavy on plant and soil-associated research. It includes a review on the use of metagenomics in soil ecology research, original research focused on the microbiome of plants growing in a Sandhills ecosystem, as well as articles focused on the soil-associated microorganisms Marinobacter caseinilyticus sp. and Dickeya sp. This digest also features several articles focused on extremophiles found in permafrost, the South Pole, and a Mars-like environment! Finally, I also wanted to highlight an Q&A with Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett, an immunologist at the National Institute of Health and one of the designers of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine.

Events and jobs

Black in Microbiology is now also the Black Microbiologists Association. If you’re interested in joining or learning more information, check out their webpage for details!

General microbiome

Biochemical characterization of a low salt-adapted extracellular protease from the extremely halophilic archaeon Halococcus salifodinae – Hou et al. – International Journal of Biological Macromolecules

Identification and characterization of a metal-resistant Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans as important potential application for bioleaching – Tavakoli et al. – Biologia

Human vaginal microbiome

Review: Lactic acid-containing products for bacterial vaginosis and their impact on the vaginal microbiota: A systematic review — Plummer et al. – PLOS One

Human gut microbiome

Effects of colon-targeted vitamins on the composition and metabolic activity of the human gut microbiome– a pilot study – Pham et al. – Gut Microbes

Animal experiments

Co-infecting pathogen lineages have additive effects on host bacterial communities – Medina et al. – FEMS Microbiology Ecology

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Aggregate-related changes in living microbial biomass and microbial necromass associated with different fertilization patterns of greenhouse vegetable soils – Luan et al. – European Journal of Soil Biology

Alkaline soil pH affects bulk soil, rhizosphere and root endosphere microbiomes of plants growing in a Sandhills ecosystem – Lopes et al. – FEMS Microbiology Ecology

Marinobacter caseinilyticus sp. nov., isolated from saline soil – Nie et al. – Current Microbiology

Genomic diversity and organization of complex polysaccharide biosynthesis clusters in the genus Dickeya – Ranjan et al. – PLOS One

Review: Metabarcoding and Metagenomics in Soil Ecology Research: Achievements, Challenges, and Prospects – Semenov – Biology Bulletin Reviews

A DNA metabarcoding approach for recovering plankton communities from archived samples fixed in formalin – Shiozaki et al. – PLOS One

Water and extremophile microbiome

Are permafrost microorganisms as old as permafrost? – Abramov et al. – FEMS Microbiology Ecology

Cultivation and characterization of snowbound microorganisms from the South Pole – Hayward et al. – Extremophiles

Survival of desert algae Chlorella exposed to Mars-like near space environment – Wang et al. – Life Sciences in Space Research

Microbes in the news

This COVID-vaccine designer is tackling vaccine hesitancy — in churches and on Twitter – Subbaraman – Nature

February 19, 2021

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Good morning from New Jersey! There’s an amazing batch of microbiome papers to share with you today, including studies that use skin microbes to fight cancer, gut microbes to fight rotavirus, and evidence that the bird microbiome may harbor a mechanism that protects them from malaria. There’s also a fun story about dogs training a computer to detect prostate cancer.

General microbiome

Feasibility of integrating canine olfaction with chemical and microbial profiling of urine to detect lethal prostate cancer, Guest, Harris and Sfanos et al., PLOS ONE

Human skin microbiome

Preprint: Eliciting a potent antitumor immune response by expressing tumor antigens in a skin commensal, Yiyin Erin Chen et al., bioRxiv

Human nearly-sterile sites

Preprint: Fetal gut colonization: meconium does not have a detectable microbiota before birth, Katherine M. Kennedy et al., bioRxiv

Human gut microbiome

The gut microbiome modulates the protective association between a Mediterranean diet and cardiometabolic disease risk, Dong D. Wang et al., Nature Medicine

Gut microbiome pattern reflects healthy ageing and predicts survival in humans, Tomasz Wilmanski et al., Nature Metabolism

The composition of the gut microbiome differs among community dwelling older people with good and poor appetite, Cox and Bowyer et al., Journal of Cachexia, Sarcopenia and Muscle

Animal microbiome

The uropygial gland microbiome of house sparrows with malaria infection, Elin Videvall et al., Journal of Avian Biology

The amphibian microbiome exhibits poor resilience following pathogen-induced disturbance, Andrea J. Jani et al., The ISME Journal

Plant, root and soil microbiome

Carbon Fluxes and Microbial Activities from Boreal Peatlands Experiencing Permafrost Thaw, M.P. Waldrop et al., JGR Biogeosciences

Probiotics/prebiotics

Escherichia coli Nissle 1917 administered as a dextranomar microsphere biofilm enhances immune responses against human rotavirus in a neonatal malnourished pig model colonized with human infant fecal microbiota, Husheem Michael et al., PLOS ONE

Impact of Probiotic B. infantis EVC001 Feeding in Premature Infants on the Gut Microbiome, Nosocomially Acquired Antibiotic Resistance, and Enteric Inflammation, Marielle Nguyen et al., Frontiers in Pediatrics

February 17, 2021

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General microbiome

Microbial diversity in homes and the risk of allergic rhinitis and inhalant atopy in two European birth cohorts – Hyytiäinen et al. – Environmental Research

Pregnancy and early life

Can we modulate the breastfed infant gut microbiota through maternal diet? – Sindi et al. – FEMS Microbiology Reviews

Human respiratory microbiome

The nasal microbiome, nasal transcriptome, and pet sensitization – Chun et al. – Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology

Human gut microbiome

The Effects of Genetic Relatedness on the Preterm Infant Gut Microbiota – Lim et al. – Microorganisms

[REVIEW]Inflammatory bowel disease: tri-directional relationship between microbiota, immune system and intestinal epithelium – Ahlawat et al. – Critical Reviews in Microbiology

Fecal Microbiota Transplantation Is a Promising Method to Restore Gut Microbiota Dysbiosis and Relieve Neurological Deficits after Traumatic Brain Injury – Du et al. – Oxidative Medicine and Cellular Longevity

The baseline gut microbiota directs dieting-induced weight loss trajectories – Jie et al. – Gastroenterology

Animal microbiome (for animals in the wild)

Bacterial microbiota similarity between predators and prey in a blue tit trophic network – Dion-Phenix et al. The ISME Journal

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

Landscape Setting Drives the Microbial Eukaryotic Community Structure in Four Swedish Mountain Lakes over the Holocene – Capo et al. – Microorganisms

Profiling of Microbial Communities in the Sediments of Jinsha River Watershed Exposed to Different Levels of Impacts by the Vanadium Industry, Panzhihua, China – He et al. – Environmental Microbiology

Bioinformatics

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

ASaiM-MT: a validated and optimized ASaiM workflow for metatranscriptomics analysis within Galaxy framework – Mehta et al. – f1000

February 16th, 2021

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Good afternoon from sunny Adelaide, Australia. Today’s digest highlights a range of interesting microbiome research, an article in Science modelling the future of SARS-CoV2, and a commentary in Cell on data sharing.

COVID-19

Immunological characteristics govern the transition of COVID-19 to endemicity – Lavine et al. Science.

Human gut microbiome

Can we modulate the breastfed infant gut microbiota through maternal diet? – Sindi et al. FEMS Microbiology Reviews. 

Impact of synbiotics on gut microbiota during early life: a randomized, double-blind study – Phavichitr et al. Scientific Reports

Adaptation of the small intestine to microbial enteropathogens in Zambian children with stunting – Amadi et al. Nature Microbiology

Genomic aberrations after short-term exposure to colibactin-producing E. coli transform primary colon epithelial cells – Iftekhar et al. Nature Communications

Animal experiments 

Human Milk-Fed Piglets Have a Distinct Small Intestine and Circulatory Metabolome Profile Relative to That of Milk Formula-Fed Piglets –  Rosa et al. – mSystems

Human oral microbiome

Impact of the repurposed drug thonzonium bromide on host oral-gut microbiomes – Simon-Soro et al. npj biofilms and microbiomes

Marine  microbiome 

Deciphering a Marine Bone-Degrading Microbiome Reveals a Complex Community Effort – Borchest et al. – mSystems

Phages and viruses

Balance between promiscuity and specificity in phage λ host range – Andrews and Fields – ISME

Bioinformatics

Resolving cryptic species complexes in marine protists: phylogenetic haplotype networks meet global DNA metabarcoding datasets – Luca et al – ISME

A “data sharing trust” model for rapid, collaborative science – Chan et al. –  Cell

A 16S rRNA Gene and Draft Genome Database for the Murine Oral Bacterial Community – Joseph et al. – mSystems 

February 15th, 2021

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God morgon!

Good morning from ice-cold Sweden.

Today’s digest carries interesting preprints on microbiology. I really liked reading the report on a bacteriophage cocktail that kills Listeria without affecting the commensal microbiota and a novel rifampin derivative that is active against doxycycline resistant Francisella. Some preprints highlight the basic biology of bacteria. There is a study on genomic evolution in one of the most important bacterial species – Streptomyces, report on endopeptidases in E. coli, and more reports on methods for studying and annotating antibiotic resistance genes.

Elsewhere in the digest are prediction models for drug interaction iin Tuberculosis, interkingdom biofilms by Candida and Lactobacillus, and microbiome studies on human milk, metazoan-microbe interactions, and some marine microbes.

Finally, there is an interview with Pae-Ji soo, the CEO of Genome and Company who talks about the importance of microbiome in modulating the immunotherapy.

Happy reading!

Bacteria hysteria

Preprint: A bacteriophage cocktail significantly reduces Listeria monocytogenes without deleterious impact on the commensal gut microbiota under simulated gastro-intestinal conditions – Rasmus Riemer Jakobsen, et al.

Preprint: TPR1, a novel rifampin derivative demonstrates efficacy alone and in combination with doxycycline against the NIAID Category A Priority Pathogen F. tularensis – Jason E. Cummings, et al.

Preprint: A nadA mutation confers nicotinic acid auxotrophy in pro-carcinogenic intestinal Escherichia coli NC101 – Lacey R Lopez, et al.

Preprint: A non-adaptive demographic mechanism for genome expansion in Streptomyces – Mallory J Choudoir, et al.

Preprint: Role of endopeptidases in peptidoglycan synthesis mediated by alternative cross-linking enzymes in Escherichia coli – Henri Voedts, et al.

Viruses

Preprint: In vivo generation of BK and JC polyomavirus defective viral genomes in human urine samples associated with higher viral loads – Amin Addetia, et al.

Preprint: Methane-derived carbon flow through host-virus trophic networks in soil – Sungeun Lee, et al.

Preprint: Genome sequencing of the bacteriophage CL31 and interaction with the host strain Corynebacterium glutamicum ATCC 13032 – Max Hünnefeld, et al.

General microbiome

Preprint: Chlorine inactivation of Escherichia coli O157:H7 in fresh produce wash process: effectiveness and modeling – Mohammadreza Dehghan Abnavi, et al.

Subcellular view of host–microbiome nutrient exchange in sponges: insights into the ecological success of an early metazoan–microbe symbiosis – Meggie Hudspith, et al., Microbiome

Functional metagenomics reveals differential chitin degradation and utilization features across free-living and host-associated marine microbiomes – I. Raimundo, et al., Microbiome

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

Preprint: Do size and shape matter? Exploring the interactions and the metabolome of the soil isolate Hylemonella gracilis – Olaf Tyc, et al.

Eukaryotes

Preprint: Modelling the impact of the macroalgae Asparagopsis taxiformis on rumen microbial fermentation and methane production – Rafael Muñoz-Tamayo, et al.

Preprint: Transcriptome signature of cell viability predicts drug response and drug interaction for Tuberculosis – Vivek Srinivas, et al.

Preprint: Chemical ecology of a tripartite symbiosis – Nicholas C Mucci, et al.

Preprint: Mapping global shifts in Saccharomyces cerevisiae gene expression across asynchronous time trajectories with diffusion maps – Taylor Reiter, et al.

Preprint: Recurrent Vulvovaginal Candidiasis; a dynamic interkingdom biofilm disease of Candida and Lactobacillus –
Emily McKloud, et al.

Methods

Preprint: Genie: An interactive real-time simulation for teaching genetic drift – Andreina I Castillo, et al.

Preprint: Direct-from-specimen microbial growth inhibition spectrums under antibiotic exposure and comparison to conventional antimicrobial susceptibility testing – Jade Chen, et al.

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

Others

‘Microbiome to be game changer in immunotherapy‘ : The Korean Times