General microbiology and science, July 16

Posted on July 17, 2014 by eliesbik

Comparison of 1700 metagenomes, $125,000 to study 100 trillion bacteria, arsenic speciation, and the Seinfeld “double dipping” videoclip.

General microbiome and metagenome

Exploring Neighborhoods in the Metagenome Universe – Kathrin P. Aßhauer – International Journal of Molecular Sciences

“Our evaluation on more than 1700 publicly available metagenomes indicates that for a query metagenome from a particular habitat on average nine out of ten nearest neighbors represent the same habitat category independent of the utilized profiling method or distance measure. “

UMass Cancer Avatar Institute, Center for Microbiome Research backed by UMass president

“Beth McCormick, PhD, professor of microbiology & physiological systems, was also awarded $125,000 to develop the Center for Microbiome Research, envisioned as a center of research and education for the microbiome, the ecosystem of the 100 trillion bacteria in the human body.”

Dengue virus

Endothelial Cells in Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever – Anon Srikiatkhachorn – Antiviral Research

“In this review we summarize dengue viruses and the spectrum of human disease and highlight evidence of endothelial cell dysfunction in DHF based on studies in patients and mouse and tissue culture models. “

Dengue fever and bone marrow myelofibrosis – Xin Qing – Experimental and Molecular Pathology

“We report the first case to our knowledge of myelofibrosis associated with dengue fever. We briefly describe dengue infections and hypothesize the causes of myelofibrosis in this condition.”

African genetic ancestry is associated with a protective effect on Dengue severity in colombian populations – Juan C. Chacón-Duque – Infection, Genetics and Evolution

“We found that African ancestry has a protective effect against severe outcomes under several systems of clinical classification”

Conference abstract: Longitudinal Analysis Of Dengue Fever Infections Reported In The Uk Betwen 2002 – 2013 Using The Health Improvement Network (Thin) Primary Care Database – D Ansell – Value in Health

Polio virus

Comment: Infectious disease: Polio eradication hinges on child health in Pakistan – Zulfiqar Ahmed Bhutta – Nature

“Last year, only 406 cases were reported, with 160 of them in just a few areas of the three countries where polio remains endemic”

Microbes in the news

Gut feeling: How intestinal bacteria may influence our moods – Sharon Oosthoek – CBC News

“Dr. Emeran Mayer, a gastroenterologist at University of California, Los Angeles, is a self-described sceptic, but admits “there is enough there to make me think some of the findings from animal studies can be extrapolated to humans.””

#BacteriaHysteria: Double-dipping spreads bacteria. But does it get people sick? (with the famous Seinfeld clip) – Joseph Stromberg – Vox.com

“Many people believe that dipping a chip into a shared bowl of drip, taking a bite, and dipping again — termed “double-dipping” in a 1993 episode of Seinfeld — is an abhorrently unsanitary practice. Others, like George Costanza, think this aversion is unscientific, and there’s actually no harm in double-dipping at all.”

Sizing up bacteria – Peter Reuell – Harvard Gazette

“A new theoretical framework outlined by a Harvard scientist could help solve the mystery of how bacterial cells coordinate processes that are critical to cellular division, such as DNA replication, and how bacteria know when to divide.”

Chilling new details on cold-storage smallpox – Hoai-Tran Bui and Alison Young, USA TODAY

Arsenic metabolism

Complementary Arsenic Speciation Methods: A Review – Michelle M. Nearing – Spectrochimica Acta Part B: Atomic Spectroscopy

“The toxicity of arsenic greatly depends on its chemical form and oxidation state (speciation) and therefore accurate determination of arsenic speciation is a crucial step in understanding its chemistry and potential risk.”

Science, ethics and publishing

Should Research Fraud be a Crime? A Reader Poll – Ed Silverman – Wall Street Journal

“A researcher may lose a job or stature, but should there be more serious consequences, such as criminal liability? A debate between two academics in BMJ, the British Medical Journal, explores the yin and yang surrounding this question.“

Dr. Bik’s Picks

Great title! IgGs are made for walking on bacterial and viral surfaces – Johannes Preiner – Nature Communications

“Here we utilize high-speed atomic force microscopy to examine the dynamics of antibody recognition and uncover a principle; antibodies do not remain stationary on surfaces of regularly spaced epitopes; they rather exhibit ‘bipedal’ stochastic walking”

General microbiology and science, July 14

Posted on July 14, 2014 by eliesbik

Rectal swabs instead of stool samples, faster way of finding orthologs, and intelligence in bacteria.

Bioinformatics

Quickly Finding Orthologs as Reciprocal Best Hits with BLAT, LAST, and UBLAST: How Much Do We Miss? – Natalie Ward, Gabriel Moreno-Hagelsieb – PLOS ONE

“Since sequence comparison can be time consuming, we decided to compare the number and quality of RBHs detected using algorithms that run in a fraction of the time as BLAST. We tested BLAT, LAST and UBLAST.”

Sampling techniques

ectal Swabs for Analysis of the Intestinal Microbiota – Andries E. Budding – PLOS ONE

“In this study we investigated the characteristics and applicability of rectal swabs for gut microbiota profiling in a clinical routine setting in patients presenting with various gastro-intestinal disorders. We found that rectal swabs appeared to be a convenient means of sampling the human gut microbiota.”

Some Are More Equal – A Comparative Study on Swab Uptake and Release of Bacterial Suspensions – Philipp Warnke – PLOS ONE

“Highest amount of CFU release was detected for the MWE Dryswab in the unrestricted setting for both S. aureus and S. epidermidis with 1544 CFU and 553 CFU, respectively, lowest release for the Sarstedt neutral swab with 32 CFU and 17 CFU, respectively (p<0.001).”

Antibiotics, resistance, biofilms

Beta-Lactam Antibiotics Stimulate Biofilm Formation in Non-Typeable Haemophilus influenzae by Up-Regulating Carbohydrate Metabolism – Siva Wu – PLOS ONE

“When exposed to sub-inhibitory concentrations of beta-lactam antibiotics NTHi strains produced tightly packed biofilms with decreased numbers of culturable bacteria but increased biomass.”

General microbiology

Macromolecular networks and intelligence in microorganisms – Hans V. Westerhoff – Frontiers in Microbiology

“Here, we explore how macromolecular networks in microbes confer intelligent characteristics, such as memory, anticipation, adaptation and reflection and we review current understanding of how network organization reflects the type of intelligence required for the environments in which they were selected.”

The syndemics of childhood diarrhoea: A biosocial perspective on efforts to combat global inequities in diarrhoea-related morbidity and mortality – Nicola Bulled – Global Public Health

“Drawing from available literature, this paper uses syndemic theory to explore the role of adverse biosocial interactions in increasing the total disease burden of enteric infections in low-resources populations and assesses the limitations of recent global calls to action.”

Bacteria in the news

We Are Our Bacteria – Jane E. Brody – New York Times (illustration by Ken Orvidas)

“We may think of ourselves as just human, but we’re really a mass of microorganisms housed in a human shell.”

#BacteriaHysteria : Gross! Lots of bacteria found on new swimsuits – Jane Weaver – Today Health

“The removable liner in women’s swimsuits that is meant to protect the fabric from our cooties isn’t really protective after all, according to a microbe researcher. “

Milford hospital enlists robots in war against infections – Mary MacDonald – Boston Globe

“The robots, made by Xenex Disinfection Services, use an intense flash of ultraviolet light to fight the bacteria, viruses, fungi, and other micro-organisms that traditional cleaning methods can miss, according to the hospital’s infection control staff.”

CDC Cracks Down on Labs After Anthrax, Bird Flu Scares – Jonel Aleccia – NBC News

“Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, on Friday announced an immediate moratorium on all shipments of biological materials from CDC biosecurity level 3 and level 4 labs until problems are addressed.”

Marine Mammals

How Dolphins’ Genetics Could Help Find Answers Into Mysterious Animal Die-Off – Sascha Cordner – WFSU

“A discovery into dolphin genetics may have brought research scientists one step closer to finding out the source of a mysterious animal die-off last year in the troubled Indian River Lagoon.”

Science and publishing

Retractions are coming thick and fast: it’s time for publishers to act – Adam Marcus and Ivan Oransky – The Guardian

“Another encouraging development is the rise of post-publication peer review, which has been made possible in recent years by the availability of papers online. Contributors to PubPeer, for example, have found signs of flawed or falsified results, leading to papers being retracted.”

Dr. Bik’s Picks

Whole genome and exome sequencing of monozygotic twins discordant for Crohn’s disease – Britt-Sabina Petersen – BMC Genomics

“We present a thorough genetic characterization of the sequenced individuals but detected no consistent differences within the twin pairs. “

How much science is there in new Planet of the Apes film? – Paul Rincon – BBC Science

“The latest instalment in the Planet of the Apes film franchise opens in the US on Friday. The rubber masks of the 60s and 70s films have been discarded in favour of motion capture suits and CGI. But how much did science inform the new movie’s portrayal of our close relatives?”

Domestication syndrome: White patches, baby faces and tameness explained by mild neural crest deficits – Science Daily

“Compared to their wild ancestors, domestic species are more tame, and they also tend to display a suite of other characteristic features, including floppier ears, patches of white fur, and more juvenile faces with smaller jaws.”

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General microbiology and science, July 9

Posted on July 9, 2014 by eliesbik

Transcriptomic and proteomic analysis of Dengue infection, bacteria that can tolerate arsenate, and -shocking!- bacteria on elevator buttons.

Dengue

Monocyte-Plasmablast Crosstalk during Dengue – Angela M. Green, Eva Harris – Cell Host & Microbe

“In this issue, Kwissa et al. (2014) begin with transcriptomic analysis and then integrate studies in human clinical samples, nonhuman primates, and coculture of primary human cells to identify a role for CD14+CD16+ monocytes in generating plasmablast responses during dengue virus infection.”

Belongs to: Dengue Virus Infection Induces Expansion of a CD14+CD16+ Monocyte Population that Stimulates Plasmablast Differentiation – Marcin Kwissa – Cell Host & Microbe

“Transcriptomic analysis of whole blood revealed that genes encoding proinflammatory mediators and type I interferon-related proteins were associated with high DENV levels during initial symptomatic disease.”

Quantitative proteomic analysis of Huh-7 cells infected with Dengue virus by label-free LC–MS – Victoria Pando-Robles – Journal of Proteomics

“In order to gain a better reading of the cross talk between virus and host cell proteins, we used a proteomics approach to analyze the host response to DENV infection in a hepatic cell line Huh-7.”

Dengue hemorrhagic fever: Comparison of patients with primary and secondary infections – Muhammad Khurram – Journal of Infection and Public Health

“The two Groups were compared for statistically significant association in terms of age, gender, laboratory parameter (at admission hematocrit [HCT], platelet, white blood cell [WBC] counts, alanine aminotransferase [ALT] value), severity (DHF or dengue shock syndrome), and outcome (recovered or expired).”

Comments on the clinical and laboratory characteristics of patients with dengue hemorrhagic fever manifestations and their transfusion profile – Romélia Pinheiro Gonçalves Lemes – Revista Brasileira de Hematologia e Hemoterapia

Belongs to: Clinical and laboratory characteristics of patients with dengue hemorrhagic fever manifestations and their transfusion profile – Denys Eiti Fujimoto – Revista Brasileira de Hematologia e Hemoterapia

“A retrospective descriptive study was performed to analyze the distribution of relative frequencies of clinical and laboratory variables. The study was carried out in Rio Branco with confirmed dengue fever cases.”

Viruses and phages

Viruses as new agents of organomineralization in the geological record – Muriel Pacton – Nature Communications

“Here we use contextual metagenomic data and microscopic analyses to show that viruses occur in high diversity within a modern lacustrine microbial mat, and vastly outnumber prokaryotes and other components of the microbial mat.”

Review: Exploiting gut bacteriophages for human health – Marion Dalmasso – Trends in Microbiology

“Individual phageomes vary depending on age and health, thus providing a useful biomarker of human health as well as suggesting potential interventions targeted at the gut microbiota.”

Through the looking glass: witnessing host–virus interplay in zebrafish – Jean-Pierre Levraud – Trends in Microbiology

“Besides traditional host models such as mice, the zebrafish offers an attractive cocktail of optical accessibility and genetic tractability, blended with a vertebrate-type immunity, where innate responses can easily be separated from adaptive ones.”

Antibiotics and resistance

Variable recombination dynamics during the emergence, transmission and ‘disarming’ of a multidrug-resistant pneumococcal clone – Nicholas J Croucher – BMC Biology

“Whole genome sequencing of an international collection of 189 isolates estimated that PMEN2 emerged around the late 1960s, developing resistance through multiple homologous recombinations and the acquisition of a Tn5253-type integrative and conjugative element (ICE). “

Arsenate metabolism

Influence of an arsenate-reducing and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons-degrading Pseudomonas isolate on growth and arsenic accumulation in Pteris vittata L. and removal of phenanthrene – Tiancai Feng – International Biodeterioration & Biodegradation

“In this study, the effect of bacterial inoculation on plant growth and arsenic uptake by Pteris vittata and phenanthrene dissipation was investigated hydroponically using an arsenate-reducing and PAH-degrading Pseudomonas isolate. “

Brevibacillus sp. KUMAs2, a bacterial isolate for possible bioremediation of arsenic in rhizosphere – Ivy Mallick – Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety

“As resistant property in KUMAs2 was found to be plasmid-borne, which carried both As oxidizing and reducing genes. The strain could promote chilli plant growth under As contaminated soil environment by decreasing As accumulation in plant upon successful colonization in the rhizosphere, which suggests the possibility of using this isolate for successful bioremediation of As in the crop field.”

Infection and host response

Influenza Promotes Pneumococcal Growth during Coinfection by Providing Host Sialylated Substrates as a Nutrient Source – Steven J. Siegel – Cell Host & Microbe

“We find that prior influenza infection enhances pneumococcal colonization of the murine nasopharynx, which in turn promotes bacterial spread to the lungs. “

Microbes in the news

Bacteria Could Provide A Powerful New Way To Fight Fat And Depression – Lauren F. Friedman – Business Insider

“With increased understanding of these tiny organisms, we might just be able to coax them to do our bidding, giving us unprecedented control over human health.”

Hospital elevator buttons coated with more bacteria than bathroom surfaces – Helen Branswell – Canadian Press

“You might want to use an elbow to push the elevator button the next time you are in a hospital.”

Belongs to: Elevator buttons as unrecognized sources of bacterial colonization in hospitals – Christopher E Kandel – Open Medicine

“Elevator buttons had a higher prevalence of colonization than toilet surfaces (61% v. 43%, p = 0.008).”

Science and Art

Intricate bacteria sculptures painstakingly hand-cut from paper – Chris Higgins – Wired

“Among the microbes Brown studied in preparation for the undertaking, which took four months overall (one to draw, two to hand cut and one to piece them together) are proteus bacteria, Escherichia coli, salmonella, hyphae, Spirillum volutans and Vibrio cholerae.”

Science, publishing and ethics

Not all plagiarism requires a retraction – Praveen Chaddah – Nature

“The ease with which large chunks of text can be digitally scanned and compared with what has previously been published has produced a new breed of academic watchdog”

Dr. Bik’s Picks

Ancient arachnid brought ‘back to life’: Video recreates 410-million-year-old animal walking – Science Daily

“Scientists have recreated the walking gait of a 410-million-year-old arachnid, one of the first predators on land, based on fossil evidence. The scientists used the fossils — thin slices of rock showing the animal’s cross-section — to work out the range of motion in the limbs of this ancient, extinct early relative of the spiders.”