Human microbiome digest, October 2, 2014

Catching up after some long days of paper writing. Lots of microbiome papers in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, microbiome and Lupus, and biography of skin microbiome.

General (human) microbiome

The Journal of Clinical Investigation has a microbiome issue this month (all behind a subscription wall). Titles include:

The microbiome revolution – Martin J. Blaser
Bacteroides fragilis subverts mucosal biology: from symbiont to colon carcinogenesis – Cynthia L. Sears, Abby L. Geis, Franck Housseau
Host-microbial interactions in the metabolism of therapeutic and diet-derived xenobiotics – Rachel N. Carmody, Peter J. Turnbaugh
Clostridium difficile and the microbiota – Anna M. Seekatz, Vincent B. Young
The microbial basis of inflammatory bowel diseases – Sushila R. Dalal, Eugene B. Chang
Deciphering the tête-à-tête between the microbiota and the immune system – Neeraj K. Surana, Dennis L. Kasper
The contributory role of gut microbiota in cardiovascular disease – W.H. Wilson Tang, Stanley L. Hazen
Antibiotics and the gut microbiota – Sheetal R. Modi, James J. Collins, David A. Relman

When, where and how does microbial community composition matter? – Diana R. Nemergut*, Ashley Shade and Cyrille Violle – Frontiers in Microbiology

“Several papers in this special issue, “The Causes and Consequences of Microbial Community Structure,” use empirical or modeling approaches as well as literature reviews to enrich our mechanistic understanding of the controls over the relationship between community structure and ecosystem processes. “

The bacteriome-mycobiome interaction and antifungal host defense – Jaap ten Oever and Mihai G. Netea – European Journal of Immunology

“In this review, we describe the role of the bacterial microbiome in antifungal host defense.”

Richness and diversity of mammalian fungal communities shape innate and adaptive immunity in health and disease – Lisa Rizzetto – European Journal of Immunology

“In this review, we describe the ecology and the human niches of our fungal “fellow travelers” in both health and disease, discriminating between passengers, colonizers and pathogens based on the interaction of these fungi with the human immune system.”

Pregnancy and Birth

Second trimester amniotic fluid cytokine concentrations, Ureaplasma sp. colonisation status and sexual activity as predictors of preterm birth in Chinese and Australian women
Matthew S Payne – BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth

“Second trimester amniocentesis for measurement of inflammatory markers and Ureaplasma sp. DNA was not indicative of risk of preterm birth, at least in these populations.”

Human oral microbiome

Tongue images and tongue coating microbiome in patients with Colorectal Cancer -Shuwen Han – Microbial Pathogenesis

“To evaluate the differences of tongue images and tongue coating microbiome between patients with colorectal cancer and healthy people.”

Hydrogen Sulfide Production from subgingival plaque samples – A. Basic, G. Dahlén – Anaerobe

“The Karen population studied in Northern Thailand showed poor oral hygiene, general gingivitis and moderate periodontal destruction and little tooth loss.”

Italian-style gluten-free diet changes the salivary microbiota and metabolome of African (Saharawi) celiac children – Ruggiero Francavilla – Digestive and Liver Disease

Human skin microbiome

* Microbiology: An integrated view of the skin microbiome – Patrick D. Schloss – Nature

Biogeography and individuality shape function in the human skin metagenome – Julia Oh – Nature

“Here metagenomic analyses of diverse body sites in healthy humans demonstrate that local biogeography and strong individuality define the skin microbiome. “

Human respiratory microbiome

Sinus culture poorly predicts resident microbiota – Leah J. Hauser – International Forum of Allergy & Rhinology

“Ethmoid samples from 54 CRS patients collected during endoscopic sinus surgery were analyzed by both clinical culture and 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) gene sequencing. The association between 16S relative abundance and detection by culture was determined using logistic regression.”

Methicillin-Sensitive and Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus Nasal Carriage in a Random Sample of Non-Hospitalized Adult Population in Northern Germany – Jaishri Mehraj – PLOS ONE

“A total of 2026 potential participants were randomly selected through the resident’s registration office and invited by mail. They were requested to collect a nasal swab at home and return it by mail. S. aureus was identified by culture and PCR. “

Severity-related changes of bronchial microbiome in COPD – Marian Garcia-Nunez – Journal of Clinical Microbiology

“Bronchial microbiome of COPD patients was analyzed by 16S rRNA gene amplification and pyrosequencing in sputum samples obtained during stability. “

Human gut microbiome

* Intestinal Dysbiosis Associated with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus – Arancha Hevia – mBio

“A group of 20 SLE patients in remission, for which there was strict inclusion and exclusion criteria, was recruited, and we used an optimized Ion Torrent 16S rRNA gene-based analysis protocol to decipher the fecal microbial profiles of these patients and compare them with those of 20 age- and sex-matched healthy control subjects.”

Systems Biology Analysis of Omeprazole Therapy in Cirrhosis Demonstrates Significant Shifts in Gut Microbiota Composition and Function – Jasmohan Singh Bajaj- American Journal of Physiology – Gastrointestinal and Liver Physiology

“15 compensated cirrhotics and 15 age-matched controls underwent serum gastrin measurement, stool microbiota profiling with multi-tagged pyrosequencing and urinary metabolic profiling with NMR spectroscopy to assess microbial co-metabolites before/after a 14-day course of 40mg/day omeprazole under constant diet conditions’

The Impact of Proton Pump Inhibitors on the Human Gastrointestinal Microbiome
Daniel E. Freedberg – Clinics in Laboratory Medicine

The intestinal microbiota and allergic asthma – Marie-Claire Arrietaa, Brett Finlay- Journal of Infection

“By describing some of the most relevant human and animal studies in this field, we explore the concept that significant perturbations of the intestinal and perhaps the lung microbiota are a cause of allergic asthma.”

Minireview: Linking genetic variation in human Toll-like receptor 5 genes to the gut microbiome’s potential to cause inflammation – Cynthia A. Leifer – Immunology Letters

“Loss of TLR5 has profound effects on the microbiota that include greater temporal instability of major lineages and upregulation of flagellar motility genes that may be linked to the reduced levels of anti-flagellin antibodies in the TLR5-/- host.”

A Little O2 May Go a Long Way in Structuring the GI Microbiome – Thomas M. Schmidt, John Y. Kao – Gastroenterology

Microbiome, Innate Immunity, and Esophageal Adenocarcinoma – Jonathan Baghdadi – Clinics in Laboratory Medicine

Animal models of microbiome research

Immunology: Starve a fever, feed the microbiota – Seth Rakoff-Nahoum & Laurie E. Comstock – Nature – belongs to:

Rapid fucosylation of intestinal epithelium sustains host–commensal symbiosis in sickness – Joseph M. Pickard – Nature

“We hypothesized that the host might utilize internal resources to support the gut microbiota during the acute phase of the disease.”

Bacteria from Diverse Habitats Colonize and Compete in the Mouse Gut – Henning Seedorf – Cell

“Microbiota from diverse habitats colonize and compete in the guts of gnotobiotic mice”

Dynamics of gut microbiota in autoimmune lupus – Husen Zhang – Applied and Environmental Microbiology

“We investigated the effects of host genetics, sex, age, and dietary intervention on the gut microbiome in a murine lupus model.”

Clostridium ramosum Promotes High-Fat Diet-Induced Obesity in Gnotobiotic Mouse Models – Anni Woting – mBio

“To clarify the possible obesogenic potential of this bacterial species and to unravel the underlying mechanism, we investigated the role of C. ramosum in obesity development in gnotobiotic mice.”

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General microbiology and science, August 26, 2014

Here, we have CRISPRs, phages, marine metagenomics, a universal bacterial/archaeal primer (The One?), single-cell genomics, light and bacteria, and Bik’s Picks.

Phages and CRISPRs

Abundant and Diverse Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeat Spacers in Clostridium difficile Strains and Prophages Target Multiple Phage Types within This Pathogen – Katherine R. Hargreaves – mBio

“We detected multiple matches between spacers and regions in 31 C. difficile phage and prophage genomes”

Evolutionary consequences of intra-patient phage predation on microbial populations
Kimberley D Seed – eLife

“Here, we show that predatory interactions of a phage with an important environmentally transmitted pathogen, Vibrio cholerae, can modulate the evolutionary trajectory of this pathogen during the natural course of infection within individual patients.”

Metagenomics

* Marine metagenomics, a valuable tool for enzymes and bioactive compounds discovery
Rosalba Barone – Frontiers in Marine Science

“We report examples of several hydrolytic enzymes and natural products isolated by functional sequenced-based and function- screening strategies assisted by new high-throughput DNA sequencing technology and recent bioinformatics tools.”

Bioinformatics

Profile Hidden Markov Models for the Detection of Viruses within Metagenomic Sequence Data – Peter Skewes-Cox – PLOS ONE

“Here, we constructed HMMER3-compatible profile hidden Markov models (profile HMMs) from all the virally annotated proteins in RefSeq in an automated fashion using a custom-built bioinformatic pipeline. “

 

Techniques

I hope they developed two primers, not just one! Development of a Prokaryotic Universal Primer for Simultaneous Analysis of Bacteria and Archaea Using Next-Generation Sequencing – Shunsuke Takahashi – PLOS ONE

“Here, we designed a universal primer based on the V3-V4 hypervariable region of prokaryotic 16S rDNA for the simultaneous detection of Bacteria and Archaea in fecal samples from crossbred pigs (Landrace×Large white×Duroc) using an Illumina MiSeq next-generation sequencer.”

A Quantitative Comparison of Single-Cell Whole Genome Amplification Methods – Charles F. A. de Bourcy – PLOS ONE

“Here, we compare three state-of-the-art methods on both bulk and single-cell samples of E. coli DNA: Multiple Displacement Amplification (MDA), Multiple Annealing and Looping Based Amplification Cycles (MALBAC), and the PicoPLEX single-cell WGA kit (NEB-WGA). “

This abstract is so vague, I am not sure where to file this under – A Robust and Adaptable High Throughput Screening Method to Study Host-Microbiota Interactions in the Human Intestine – Tomas de Wouters – PLOS ONE

“In this study, we developed a robust and reproducible methodology to combine these two biological systems for high throughput application”

LC Sciences and Norgen Biotek will be conducting a free informational webinar describing 16S rRNA Sequencing and presenting a few application examples.

“If you are interested in attending the webinar, simply reply to news@lcsciences.com and we would be happy to send the webinar details.”

More microbiology

The Immune System in Children with Malnutrition — A Systematic Review
Maren Johanne Heilskov Rytter – PLOS ONE

“A systematic literature search was done in PubMed, and additional articles identified in reference lists and by correspondence with experts in the field. “

Photodynamic Therapy Using Systemic Administration of 5-Aminolevulinic Acid and a 410-nm Wavelength Light-Emitting Diode for Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus-Infected Ulcers in Mice – Kuniyuki Morimoto – PLOS ONE

“5-aminolevulinic acid photodynamic therapy accelerated wound healing and decreased bacterial counts on ulcer surfaces; in contrast, vancomycin treatment did not accelerate wound healing.”

Light Scattering Sensor for Direct Identification of Colonies of Escherichia coli Serogroups O26, O45, O103, O111, O121, O145 and O157 – Yanjie Tang- PLOS ONE

“SMAC was chosen for exhaustive scatter image library development, and 36 additional strains of O157:H7 and 11 non-O157 serovars were examined, with each serogroup producing unique differential scatter patterns.”

Science and publishing

Protecting human research participants in the age of big data – Susan T. Fiskea, and Robert M. Hauser – PNAS USA

“IRB review does not apply to Facebook and other private enterprises, yet they generate data that can benefit humanity”

Bik’s Picks

Magpies don’t like shiny things – Sarah Zielinski – Science News

“Magpies deserve our apology. Apparently humans have been unnecessarily maligning the birds for centuries. “

Richard III ate like a king before biting the dust – Bruce Bower – Science News

“Well-known royal’s brief reign included a sudden shift to fancy food and drink”

What type of researcher are you? Take the Quiz – Roche Life Science

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General microbiology and science, August 14

A metabolic map of Faecalibacterium prausnitzii, bacteria injections to cure cancer, a researcher smuggling live bacteria in a lunchbox,  and a scientist in trouble for posting a PhD thesis.

Metabolomics

Functional Metabolic Map of Faecalibacterium prausnitzii, a Beneficial Human Gut Microbe – Almut Heinken – Journal of Bacteriology

“In this study, we present an integrated, iterative approach of computational modeling, in vitro experiments, metabolomics, and genomic analysis to accelerate the identification of metabolic capabilities for poorly characterized (anaerobic) microorganisms.”

Transcriptomics

Pervasive transcription: illuminating the dark matter of bacterial transcriptomes – Joseph T. Wade & David C. Grainger – Nature Reviews Microbiology

“In this Opinion article, we discuss our current understanding of pervasive transcription, its genetic origin and its regulation. “

More microbiology

Intratumoral injection of Clostridium novyi-NT spores induces antitumor responses
Nicholas J. Roberts – Science Translational Medicine

“On the basis of these encouraging results, we treated a human patient who had an advanced leiomyosarcoma with an intratumoral injection of C. novyi-NT spores. This treatment reduced the tumor within and surrounding the bone. “

Canadian ex-researcher pleads guilty in attempted bacteria-smuggling case – Lee-Anne Goodman

“With his wife in the passenger seat, they discovered in his suitcase 17 vials of live Brucella — contained in a block of ice and swathed in bubble wrap in a children’s lunch bag — and a substantial quantity of goat’s blood.”

Techniques

Preprint: Swabs to Genomes: A Comprehensive Workflow – David A Coil – PeerJ

“The objective of the present study was to design, test, troubleshoot, and publish a simple, comprehensive workflow from the collection of an environmental sample (a swab) to a published microbial genome”

Accuracy of Next Generation Sequencing Platforms – Edward J Fox – Next Generation: Sequencing & Applications

“The ability of these technologies to disentangle sequence heterogeneity, however, is limited by their relatively high error rates”

Uniting the classification of cultured and uncultured bacteria and archaea using 16S rRNA gene sequences — Pablo Yarza – Nature Reviews Microbiology

“Our analyses show that only nearly complete 16S rRNA sequences give accurate measures of taxonomic diversity. In addition, our analyses suggest that most of the 16S rRNA sequences of the high taxa will be discovered in environmental surveys by the end of the current decade.”

Science, Publishing, Career

Financial costs and personal consequences of research misconduct resulting in retracted publications – Andrew M Stern, Arturo Casadevall, R Grant Steen, Ferric C Fang – eLife

“We found that papers retracted due to misconduct accounted for approximately $58 million in direct funding by the NIH between 1992 and 2012, less than 1% of the NIH budget over this period. ”

Student may be jailed for posting scientist’s thesis on web – David Reay – Nature News Blog

“Colombian biology student is facing up to 8 years in jail and a fine for sharing a thesis by another scientist on a social network. Diego Gómez Hoyos posted the 2006 work, about amphibian taxonomy, on Scribd in 2011.

Study: Uncivil work environment pushing women out of the engineering field – Brigid Schulte – Washington Post

“a new National Science Foundation report released on Saturday about why so few women go into engineering, or stay in the field, highlights a key reason: a workplace culture of incivility toward women.”

Science of inclusion – Holly McDede – SFBG.com

“As Big Tech struggles with diversity, women find support and fellowship in the biotech industry.”

Bik’s Picks

Pour on the Salt? New Research Suggests More Is OK – Judy Silverman and Lisa Tolin – NBC News

“New research suggests that healthy people can eat about twice the amount of salt that’s currently recommended — or about as much as most people consume anyway. “

At Harvard, tiny robots ‘swarm’ into shape – Carolyn Y. Johnson – Boston Globe

When Harvard scientist Michael Rubenstein walks into the laboratory in the morning, he is greeted with a scene somewhere between a disco and the opening of a science fiction movie about a robot apocalypse. A constellation of LED lights blinks in the darkness — the electronic heartbeat of his 1,024-robot horde. They are ready to do his bidding.”

Newborns’ genetic code sends infection distress signal – Science Daily

“Babies suffering from life-threatening bacterial infections such as sepsis could benefit from improved treatment, thanks to a ground-breaking study. “

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