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 2, 2022

Have a nice weekend!

Highlights!

Priority effects shape the structure of infant-type Bifidobacterium communities on human milk oligosaccharides – Miriam N. Ojima – The ISME Journalthis paper contributes to the understanding of the configuration of different bifidobacteria in response to human milk oligosaccharides. 

Genomes of six viruses that infect Asgard archaea from deep-sea sediments – Ian M. Rambo – Nature MicrobiologyBy using metagenomics, authors describe six relatively large viral genomes, capable to infect members of the Asgard superphylum. The paper remarks on the strange features found in those viral genomes.

TLR4 regulates RORγt+ regulatory T-cell responses and susceptibility to colon inflammation through interaction with Akkermansia muciniphila – Yaojiang Liu – MicrobiomeThis article demonstrates the existence of “a novel protective role of TLR4 against intestinal inflammation, wherein it can modulate A. muciniphila-associated immune responses”. 

Human and General Microbiome

Review: The microbiome and gut homeostasis – Jee-Yon Lee – Science 

Review: The role of microbiome: a novel insight into urolithiasis – Sen-Yuan Hong – Critical Reviews in Microbiology

Review: Symbiosis: the other cells in development – Tyler J Carrier – Development 

Dysbiosis of the Gut Microbiome Is Associated With Histopathology of Lung Cancer – Xiong Qin – Frontiers in Microbiology

Beneficial Microbes and Compounds

Perspective: Leveraging the Gut Microbiota to Predict Personalized Responses to Dietary, Prebiotic, and Probiotic Interventions – Sean M Gibbons – Advances in Nutrition

Akkermansia muciniphila Alters Gut Microbiota and Immune System to Improve Cardiovascular Diseases in Murine Model – Xin He – Frontiers in Microbiology

Impact of probiotics use on clinical outcomes of immune checkpoint inhibitors therapy in cancer patients – Luying Wan – Cancer Medicine

Review: The gut microbiome as possible mediator of the beneficial effects of very low calorie ketogenic diet on type 2 diabetes and obesity: a narrative review – G Defeudis – Eating and Weight Disorders

Animal Microbiome

The coral pathogen Vibrio coralliilyticus kills non-pathogenic holobiont competitors by triggering prophage induction – Weiquan Wang – Nature Ecology & Evolution

Milk microbiomes of three great ape species vary among host species and over time – Sally L Bornbusch – Scientific Reports

Plant Microbiome

Fungal microbiome shifts on avocado fruit associated with a combination of postharvest chemical and physical interventions – Malick Bill – Journal of Applied Microbiology

Environmental Microbiome

Review: Priorities for ocean microbiome research – the Tara Ocean Foundation – Nature Microbiology

Microbiome Analysis Techniques and Tools

Protocol for correlation analysis of the murine gut microbiome and meta-metabolome using 16S rDNA sequencing and UPLC-MS – Xiaoqing Li – STAR Protocols

microbiomeMarker: an R/Bioconductor package for microbiome marker identification and visualization – Yang Cao – Bioinformatics

June 10, 2022

Several great microbiome papers out today including a review on rethinking healthy eating in Cell Host & Microbe, a large population study on the development of the infant gut microbiome (n=1900) in Science, and two studies showcasing metabolomics predictive value for recurrent CDI and NAFLD.  

Gut Microbiome

[REVIEW] Rethinking healthy eating in light of the gut microbiome – Armet et al. Cell Host & Microbe.

Gut metabolites predict Clostridioides difficile recurrence – Dawkins et al. Microbiome

Robust variation in infant gut microbiome assembly across a spectrum of lifestyles – Olm et al. Science

Risk assessment with gut microbiome and metabolite markers in NAFLD development. Leung et al. Science Translational Medicine.

Profiling Fusobacterium infection at high taxonomic resolution reveals lineage-specific correlations in colorectal cancer – Bi et al. Nature Communications

Impact of a 7-day homogeneous diet on interpersonal variation in human gut microbiomes and metabolomes – Guthrie et al. Cell Host & Microbe

Animal experiments

Nisin probiotic prevents inflammatory bone loss while promoting reparative proliferation and a healthy microbiome – Gao et al. npj Biofilms & Microbiomes

Donor-dependent fecal microbiota transplantation efficacy against necrotizing enterocolitis in preterm pigs – Hui et al. npj Biofilms & Microbiomes

Virome

A catalog of 48,425 nonredundant viruses from oral metagenomes expands the horizon of the human oral virome – Li et al. iScience

Bioinformatics

Phylogeny-guided microbiome OTU-specific association test (POST) – Huang et al. Microbiome

May 3, 2022

General microbiome

Longitudinal multi-omics analyses link gut microbiome dysbiosis with recurrent urinary tract infections in women – Worby et al. Nature Microbiology. 2022

Human gut microbiome

Unfavourable intrauterine environment contributes to abnormal gut microbiome and metabolome in twins – Yang et al. Gut

Dosing a synbiotic of human milk oligosaccharides and B. infantis leads to reversible engraftment in healthy adult microbiomes without antibiotics – Button et al. Cell Host & Microbe

Gut microbial similarity in twins is driven by shared environment and aging – Vilchez-Vargas et al. eBioMedicine

Gut Microbiome Alterations Associated with Diabetes in Mexican Americans in South Texas. Kwan et al. mSystems

Human respiratory & oral microbiome

Metagenomic sequencing reveals time, host, and body compartment-specific viral dynamics after lung transplantation – Widder et al. Microbiome

Polymicrobial Interactions of Oral Microbiota: a Historical Review and Current Perspective – Zhang et al. mBio

Animal experiments

Effects of ‘Healthy’ Fecal Microbiota Transplantation against the Deterioration of Depression in Fawn-Hooded Rats – Hu et al. mSystems

Water/Extremophile microbiome

Metagenome-assembled genomes of phytoplankton microbiomes from the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans – Duncan et al. Microbiome

Bioinformatics

Compositionally Aware Phylogenetic Beta-Diversity Measures Better Resolve Microbiomes Associated with Phenotype – Martino et al. mSystems

BiomeHorizon: Visualizing Microbiome Time Series Data in R – Fink et al. mSystems

Comparative Analysis and Data Provenance for 1,113 Bacterial Genome Assemblies. Yarmosh et al. mSphere

Non microbiome picks

Ancestry-inclusive dog genomics challenges popular breed stereotypes – Morrill et al. Science. 

Dietary fibre in hypertension and cardiovascular disease management: systematic review and meta-analyses – Reynolds et al. BMC Medicine

April 30, 2022

Human Microbiome

Three-dimensional imaging for the quantification of spatial patterns in microbiota of the intestinal mucosa – Octavio Mondragón-Palomino – PNAS

Global, distinctive, and personal changes in molecular and microbial profiles by specific fibers in humans – Samuel M Lancaster – Cell Host & Microbe

Comprehensive human amniotic fluid metagenomics supports the sterile womb hypothesis – HanChen Wang – Scientific Reports

Disordered development of gut microbiome interferes with the establishment of the gut ecosystem during early childhood with atopic dermatitis – Min-Jung Lee – Gut Microbes

A starch- and sucrose-reduced dietary intervention in irritable bowel syndrome patients produced a shift in gut microbiota composition along with changes in phylum, genus, and amplicon sequence variant abundances, without affecting the micro-RNA levels – Clara Nilholm – United European Gastroenterology Journal

Alterations in intestinal microbiota in ultramarathon runners – Mika Sato – Scientific Reports

Lost microbes of COVID-19: Bifidobacterium, Faecalibacterium depletion and decreased microbiome diversity associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection severity – Sabine Hazan – BMJ Open Gastroenterology

Gut microbiota alterations in critically ill older patients: a multicenter study – Mesa Victoria – BMC Geriatrics

Bone marrow transplantation induces changes in the gut microbiota that chronically increase the cytokine response pattern of splenocytes – Saeed Katiraei – Scientific Reports

Gut microbial β-glucuronidases regulate host luminal proteases and are depleted in irritable bowel syndrome – Adam L Edwinson – Nature Microbiology

Review: Communication between the gut microbiota and peripheral nervous system in health and chronic disease – Tyler M Cook – Gut Microbe

Systematic Review: Adverse events in fecal microbiota transplantation: a systematic review and meta-analysis – Eliot A Rapoport – Annals of Gastroenterology

Review: Eco-evolutionary impact of ultraviolet radiation (UVR) exposure on microorganisms, with a special focus on our skin microbiome – Sandhya Rai – Microbiological Research

Beneficial Microbes and Compounds

Review: The huge clinical potential of microbiota in the treatment of pancreatic cancer: The next frontier – Zhilin Zhang – Biochimica et Biophysica Acta. Reviews on Cancer

Oral Administration of Lactobacillus paracasei N1115 on Neonatal Mice Prevents the Intestinal Inflammation in Adulthood – Yiping Xun – Letters in Applied Microbiology

Animal Model Microbiome

ABO genotype alters the gut microbiota by regulating GalNAc levels in pigs – Hui Yang – Nature

External light-dark cycle shapes gut microbiota through intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells – Chi-Chan Lee – EMBO Reports

Non-Model Animal Microbiome

Host-Associated Bacterial Communities Vary Between Daphnia galeata Genotypes but Not by Host Genetic Distance – Amruta Rajarajan – Microbial Ecology

Faecal Microbiota Divergence in Allopatric Populations of Podarcis lilfordi and P. pityusensis, Two Lizard Species Endemic to the Balearic Islands – Iris Alemany – Microbial Ecology

Gut microbiota of ring-tailed lemurs (Lemur catta) vary across natural and captive populations and correlate with environmental microbiota – Sally L Bornbusch – Animal Microbiome

Mechanisms of fungal community assembly in wild stoneflies moderated by host characteristics and local environment – Yu-Xi Zhu – NPJ Biofilms and Microbiomes

Changes to the gut microbiota of a wild juvenile passerine in a multidimensional urban mosaic – Öncü Maraci – Scientific Reports

Comparative study on gut microbiota in three Anura frogs from a mountain stream – Zhuo Chen – Ecology and Evolution

Plant Microbiome

Insights into the microbiome assembly during different growth stages and storage of strawberry plants – Expedito Olimi – Environmental Microbiome

More Microbes, Genes, and Proteins

Hypothesis: Does Lactobacillus reuteri influence ergothioneine levels in the human body? – Irwin K Cheah – FEBS Letters

Type VI secretion systems of pathogenic and commensal bacteria mediate niche occupancy in the gut – Antonio Serapio-Palacios – Cell Reports

Review: Utilization of glycosaminoglycans by the human gut microbiota: participating bacteria and their enzymatic machineries – Parkash Singh Rawat – Gut Microbes

Bioinformatics

DEPP: Deep Learning Enables Extending Species Trees using Single Genes – Yueyu Jiang – Systematic Biology

A deep siamese neural network improves metagenome-assembled genomes in microbiome datasets across different environments – Shaojun Pan – Nature Communications

Compositionally Aware Phylogenetic Beta-Diversity Measures Better Resolve Microbiomes Associated with Phenotype – Cameron Martino – mSystems

Review: Could Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning and Inclusion of Diet-Gut Microbiome Interactions Improve Disease Risk Prediction? Case Study: Coronary Artery Disease – Baiba Vilne – Frontiers in Microbiology

Review: Microbial dark matter: from discovery to applications – Yuguo Zha – Genomics, Proteomics & Bioinformatics

March 25, 2022

Human gut microbiome

In Vitro and In Silico Based Approaches to Identify Potential Novel Bacteriocins from the Athlete Gut Microbiome of an Elite Athlete Cohort – Wosinska et al. Microorganisms

Cancer pharmacomicrobiomics: targeting microbiota to optimise cancer therapy outcomes – Ting et al. Gut

Human respiratory microbiome

Inhibition of lung microbiota-derived proapoptotic peptides ameliorates acute exacerbation of pulmonary fibrosis – D’Alessandro-Gabazza et al. Nature Communications

Probiotics

Gut microbiota and fermentation-derived branched chain hydroxy acids mediate health benefits of yogurt consumption in obese mice – Daniel et al. Nature Communications

Animal experiments

Gut microbiota determines the social behavior of mice and induces metabolic and inflammatory changes in their adipose tissue – Agranyoni et al. npj biofilms and microbiomes

The microbiota restrains neurodegenerative microglia in a model of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis – Cox et al. Microbiome

Water & Extremophile microbiome

Spatial organization of the kelp microbiome at micron scales – Ramirez-Puebla et al. Microbiome

Metagenomics reveals global-scale contrasts in nitrogen cycling and cyanobacterial light-harvesting mechanisms in glacier cryoconite – Murakami et al. Microbiome.

Virome

Phages and their satellites encode hotspots of antiviral systems – Rousset et al. Cell Host & Microbe

Fungi

Fungal sensing enhances neutrophil metabolic fitness by regulating antifungal Glut1 activity – Li et al. Cell Host & Microbe

The primate gut mycobiome-bacteriome interface is impacted by environmental and subsistence factors – Sharma et al. npj Biofilms and microbiomes

Bioinformatics

Swapping Metagenomics Preprocessing Pipeline Components Offers Speed and Sensitivity Increases – Armstrong et al. mSystems

February 21, 2022

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 2, 2022

General microbiome

Genomic structure predicts metabolite dynamics in microbial communities – Gowda et al. – Cell 

Inhalable antibiotic resistomes emitted from hospitals: metagenomic insights into bacterial hosts, clinical relevance, and environmental risks – Wu et al. – Microbiome

Long-read metagenomic sequencing reveals shifts in associations of antibiotic resistance genes with mobile genetic elements from sewage to activated sludge – Dai et al. – Microbiome

Understanding microbiome alterations in autism – Nature Medicine

Human gut microbiome

3β-Hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase expressed by gut microbes degrades testosterone and is linked to depression in males – Li et al. – Cell Host & Microbe

Pregnancy and early life

Early-life viral infections are associated with disadvantageous immune and microbiota profiles and recurrent respiratory infections – Piters et al. – Nature Microbiology

Meconium Microbiome of Very Preterm Infants across Germany – Klopp et al. – mSphere

Water and extremophile microbiome

Comparative metabolomic analysis reveals shared and unique chemical interactions in sponge holobionts – Zhang et al. – Microbiome

A multi-omics approach unravels metagenomic and metabolic alterations of a probiotic and synbiotic additive in rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) – Rasmussen et al. – Microbiome

Bioinformatics

MUON: multimodal omics analysis framework – Bredikhin et al. – Genome Biology

Non Microbiome Picks

A Toast to All the Rejects – The Atlantic. An insightful article on celebrating your rejections in academia. 

January 18, 2022

Today’s digest contains interesting gut-brain axis articles, developments in bioinformatic multi-omic analyses, and some recent developments in long COVID research highlighted under non microbiome picks below. 

General microbiome

Substantial overlap between symptomatic and asymptomatic genitourinary microbiota states – Adu oppong et al. – Microbiome 

Human gut microbiome

Gut Ruminococcaceae levels at baseline correlate with risk of antibiotic-associated diarrhea – Gu et al. – iScience

Home or hospital birth: the neonatal microbiota perspective – Stojanov et al. – The Lancet Microbe

A pilot exploration of multi-omics research of gut microbiome in major depressive disorders – Zhao et al – Translational Psychiatry

Post-ischemic protein restriction induces sustained neuroprotection, neurological recovery, brain remodeling, and gut microbiota rebalancing – de Carvalho et al. – Brain Behavior and Immunity

Bifidobacterium breve CCFM1025 attenuates major depression disorder via regulating gut microbiome and tryptophan metabolism: A randomized clinical trial – Tian et al.  – Brain Behavior and Immunity

Gestational insulin resistance is mediated by the gut microbiome-indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase axis – Priyadarshini et al. – Gastroenterology

A natural polyphenol exerts antitumor activity and circumvents anti-PD-1 resistance through effects on the gut microbiota – Messaoudene et al. – Cancer Discovery

Virome

[Research Highlight] Virome holds back a vaccine – York – Nature Reviews Microbiology

Plant & Soil microbiome

Genome-Resolved Metagenomics Reveals Distinct Phosphorus Acquisition Strategies between Soil Microbiomes – Wu et al. – mSystems

Bioinformatics

M&Ms: a versatile software for building microbial mock communities – García-García et al. – Bioinformatics

GraphOmics: an interactive platform to explore and integrate multi-omics data – Wandy & Daly – BMC Bioinformatics

Aristotle: stratified causal discovery for omics data – Mansouri et al.  – BMC Bioinformatics

Non Microbiome Picks

The last few weeks has seen several big studies of ‘long COVID’ published, as well as a letter in The Guardian, which I wanted to highlight

Immunological dysfunction persists for 8 months following initial mild-to-moderate SARS-CoV-2 infection – Phetsouphanh et al. – Nature Immunology

Long-term perturbation of the peripheral immune system months after SARS-CoV-2 infection – Ryan et al. BMC Medicine

Post-acute neurological consequences of COVID-19: an unequal burden – Nolen et al. – Nature Medicine 

Long COVID in children – Gurdasani et al. – The Lancet Child Adolescent Health
I’m leading a long Covid trial – it’s clear Britain has underestimated its impact – Amitava Banerjee – The Guardian