Tag Archives: virus

April 17, 2024

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Good morning and welcome to another MicrobiomeDigest! Did you know that one group of scientists is using video games to crowdsource puzzle solutions to improve microbiome research? What a neat way to approach citizen science! On deck today we have a study about pesticide exposure and the gut microbiome, a review of the emerging field of skin microbiome-focused cosmetics, insights into the viral diversity of bats and rodents in East Africa, an editorial exploring research into microbial symbiosis through the lens of modern tools, and more.

Human microbiome

Modulation of the gut microbiome and Firmicutes phylum reduction by a nutraceutical blend in the obesity mouse model and overweight humans: A double-blind clinical trial – Victor Nehmi-Filho et al – Food Science & Nutrition

Ambient long-term exposure to organophosphorus pesticides and the human gut microbiome: an observational study – Keren Zhang et al – BMC Environmental Health

[REVIEW] Skin Deep: The Potential of Microbiome Cosmetics – Ju Hee Han & Hei Sung Kim – Journal of Microbiology

Metabolic Interaction Between Host and the Gut Microbiota During High-Fat Diet-Induced Colorectal Cancer – Chaeeun Lee et al – Journal of Microbiology

Longitudinal microbiome changes in children exposed to proton pump inhibitors – Jason Yanjia Zhang et al – Clinical and Translational Gastroenterology

High temperature and humidity in the environment disrupt bile acid metabolism, the gut microbiome, and GLP-1 secretion in mice – Song Chen et al – Nature Communications Biology

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Exploring the interplay between the core microbiota, physicochemical factors, agrobiochemical cycles in the soil of the historic tokaj mád wine region – Judit Remenyik et al – PLOS One

[PREPRINT] Metabolic interactions underpinning high methane fluxes across terrestrial freshwater wetlands – Emily Bechtold et al – bioRxiv

An in-depth evaluation of metagenomic classifiers for soil microbiomes – Niranjana Rose Edwin – BMC Environmental Microbiome

Animal microbiome

Substantial viral diversity in bats and rodents from East Africa: insights into evolution, recombination, and cocirculation – Daxi Wang et al – BMC Microbiome

Association between the gut microbiome and carotenoid plumage phenotype in an avian hybrid zone – Marcella D. Baiz et al – Proceedings of the Royal Soc. of Biological Sciences

Effects of removing in-feed antibiotics and zinc oxide on the taxonomy and functionality of the microbiota in post weaning pigs – Juan M Ortiz Sanjuan et al – BMC Animal Microbiome

Integrated analysis of gut metabolome, microbiome, and exfoliome data in an equine model of intestinal injury – C.M. Whitfield-Gargile et al – BMC Microbiome

Responses of the coral reef cryptobiome to environmental gradients in the Red Sea – Rodrigo Villalobos et al – PLOS One

Microbial ecology

[EDITORIAL] Symbiosis: In search of a deeper understanding – Thomas A Richards & Nancy A Moran – PLOS Biology

Bioinformatics & techniques

Randomized feature selection based semi-supervised latent Dirichlet allocation for microbiome analysis – Namitha Pais et al – Nature Scientific Reports

Improving microbial phylogeny with citizen science within a mass-market video game – Roman Sarrazin-Gendron et al – Nature Biotechnology

March 6, 2024

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Vaginal Microbiome

Modeling Healthy and Dysbiotic Vaginal Microenvironments in a Human Vagina-on-a-Chip – Aakanksha Gulati et al – JoVE Bioengineering

Cancer microbiome

Multi-omics analysis elucidates the relationship between intratumor microbiome and host immune heterogeneity in breast cancer – Jia Li et al – Microbiology Spectrum

Human gut microbiome

Protein combined with certain dietary fibers increases butyrate production in gut microbiota fermentation – Rachel Jackson et al – Food & Function

A human milk oligosaccharide prevents intestinal inflammation in adulthood via modulating gut microbial metabolism – Kasey M. Schalich et al – mBio

Taxonomic and metabolic development of the human gut microbiome across life stages: a worldwide metagenomic investigation – Leonardo Mancabelli et al – mSystems

Cadaver microbiome

Decomposer communities are universal in death – Michael S. Strickland – Nature Microbiology

Animal microbiome

The coral microbiome in sickness, in health and in a changing world – Christian R. Voolstra et al – Nature Reviews Microbiology

The effects of hydrolyzed protein on macronutrient digestibility, fecal metabolites and microbiota, oxidative stress and inflammatory biomarkers, and skin and coat quality in adult dogs – Clare Hsu et al – Journal of Animal Science

Host starvation and in hospite degradation of algal symbionts shape the heat stress response of the Cassiopea-Symbiodiniaceae symbiosis – Gaëlle Toullec et al – BMC Microbiome

An engineered bacterial symbiont allows noninvasive biosensing of the honey bee gut environment – Audam Chhun et al – PLOS Biology

From phyllosphere to insect cuticles: silkworms gather antifungal bacteria from mulberry leaves to battle fungal parasite attacks – Pengfei Zhao et al – BMC Microbiome

Phages and viruses

Discovery and characterization of novel DNA viruses in Apis mellifera: expanding the honey bee virome through metagenomic analysis – Dominika Kadlečková et al – mSystems

Taxonomic difference in marine bloom-forming phytoplanktonic species affects the dynamics of both bloom-responding prokaryotes and prokaryotic viruses – Hiroaki Takebe et al – mSystems

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Microbiome sequencing revealed the abundance of uncultured bacteria in the Phatthalung sago palm-growing soil – Pumin Nutaratat et al – PLOS ONE

The rhizosphere microbiome reduces the uptake of arsenic and tungsten by Blechnum orientale by increasing nutrient cycling in historical tungsten mining area soils – Xiaolong Lan et al – Science of the Total Environment

Non-Microbiology/Science Communication

[PREPRINT] Sci-comm “behind the scenes”: Gendered narratives of scientific outreach activities in the life sciences – Perry G. Beasley-Hall et al – bioRxiv

General microbiology and science digest, October 27, 2014

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A new Shiny R tool for microbial communities, virus-like pictures in human distal gut, interaction between oral bacteria, dancing your PhD, and X-ray movies of human joints in action.

Bioinformatics

* Seed: a user-friendly tool for exploring and visualizing microbial community data –
Daniel Beck – Bioinformatics

“Seed is written in R using the Shiny library. This provides access to powerful R based functions and libraries through a simple user interface. “

Viruses and phages

With cool pictures: Characterization of virus-like particles associated with the human faecal and caecal microbiota – Lesley Hoyles – Research in Microbiology

“Various methodologies for the recovery of VLPs from faeces were tested and optimized, including successful down-stream processing of such samples for the purpose of an in-depth electron microscopic analysis, pulsed-field gel electrophoresis and efficient DNA recovery.”

Transcriptomics / Proteomics / Metabolomics

Thermophilic microbial cellulose decomposition and methanogenesis pathways recharacterized by metatranscriptomic and metagenomic analysis – Yu Xia – Scientific Reports

“The metatranscriptomic recharacterization in the present study captured microbial enzymes at the unprecedented scale of 40,000 active genes belonged to 2,269 KEGG functions were identified.”

Proteomic and transcriptional analysis of interaction between oral microbiota Porphyromonas gingivalis and Streptococcus oralis – Kazuhiko Maeda – Journal of Proteome Research

“Here, using shotgun proteomics we examined the molecular basis of mixed-biofilm formation by P. gingivalis with Streptococcus oralis.”

Review: Toward the comprehensive understanding of the gut ecosystem via metabolomics-based integrated omics approach – Wanping Aw, Shinji Fukuda – Seminars in Immunopathology

“In this review, we discuss in detail the relationship between gut microbiota and its metabolites … in the host health and etiopathogenesis of various pathological states such as multiple sclerosis, autism, obesity, diabetes, and chronic kidney disease. “

More Microbiology

Biofilms: Five-Star Accommodations for the Aerobically Challenged – Robert A. Cramer – Current Biology

“A recent study finds that fungal biofilms are capable of supporting growth of anaerobic bacteria, suggesting that these fungi can promote bacterial growth in otherwise toxic environments.”

Microbes in the news

* Sorry, Your Gut Bacteria Are Not the Answer to All Your Health Problems – Gabrielle Canon – Mother Jones

“We’re told that tweaks to the microbiome can cure everything from allergies to Ebola. Not exactly, say experts. …despite the optimism, some researchers caution that much of what we hear about microbiome science isn’t always, well, science. “

* Orthopedic surgeon studies bear bacteria to aid bear attack victims – Healio

“Working with the Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks, Iwersen has been collecting cultures of bacteria from the mouths of grizzly bears and correlating them with the types of bacteria found in the bear bites on patients. “

Mexican scientist investigates intestinal bacteria – BetaWired

“Recent findings of the investigator Xicotencatl Gracida Canales…at Harvard University in Cambridge, USA, suggest that in the absence of an intestinal shield, variations in bacterial metabolism can affect reproductive cells and cause infertility in an animal model called C. Elegans.”

Algae-Based Material Takes On Body Odor – Dana Dovey – NewsWeek

“A team of Swedish researchers from the KTH Royal Institute of Technology has found a way to eliminate the growth of this smell-inducing bacteria using one of nature’s best antimicrobials, algae.”

MoBE Postdoctoral Fellowship: From Source to Tap: Linking the Drinking Water Microbiome to Human Health – Sarah Haig – MicroBEnet

“We hypothesize that the microbial communities in municipally treated drinking water are a source of opportunistic pathogens, posing a risk to people with cystic fibrosis”

Science, publishing, career

Is NIH policy the best way to sex equality in studies? – Bethany Brookshire – Science News

“The end goal will be to make sure that NIH-funded scientists “balance male and female cells and animals in preclinical studies in all future [grant] applications” to the NIH.”

Some suggestions for having diverse speakers at meetings – Jonathan Eisen – The Tree of Life

“Some people were asking what one can do to improve gender diversity at meetings so I thought I would post this which I was meaning to do anyway “

‘Dance Your Ph.D.’ finalists announced – John Bohannon – Science

“Rather than reading a paper about it, why not watch a dance? A ballet and a modern dance on those very topics have made it into the finals of this year’s “Dance Your Ph.D.” contest.”

Bik’s Picks

Interactive world map of vaccine-preventable outbreaks – Council for Foreign Relations

“This interactive map visually plots global outbreaks of measles, mumps, whooping cough, polio, rubella, and other diseases that are easily preventable by inexpensive and effective vaccines.”

Dietary cocoa flavanols reverse age-related memory decline in mice – Science Daily

“Dietary cocoa flavanols —- naturally occurring bioactives found in cocoa —- reversed age-related memory decline in healthy older adults, according to a new study. Flavanols are also found naturally in tea leaves and in certain fruits and vegetables”

Amazing X-ray GIFs Show Joints In Motion – Lisa Winter – IFL Science

“Cameron Drake of San Francisco has created a collection of magnificent images showing joints in motion. He was aided by orthopedic physician Dr. Noah Weiss and the finished product is completely amazing. “

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