@article {pmid30521551, year = {2018}, author = {Vernocchi, P and Del Chierico, F and Russo, A and Majo, F and Rossitto, M and Valerio, M and Casadei, L and La Storia, A and De Filippis, F and Rizzo, C and Manetti, C and Paci, P and Ercolini, D and Marini, F and Fiscarelli, EV and Dallapiccola, B and Lucidi, V and Miccheli, A and Putignani, L}, title = {Gut microbiota signatures in cystic fibrosis: Loss of host CFTR function drives the microbiota enterophenotype.}, journal = {PloS one}, volume = {13}, number = {12}, pages = {e0208171}, doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0208171}, pmid = {30521551}, issn = {1932-6203}, mesh = {Anti-Bacterial Agents/adverse effects ; Bacteria/*isolation &amp; purification ; Child, Preschool ; Cohort Studies ; Cystic Fibrosis/drug therapy/genetics/*physiopathology ; Cystic Fibrosis Transmembrane Conductance Regulator/*genetics ; Dysbiosis/microbiology/physiopathology ; Exocrine Pancreatic Insufficiency/genetics/physiopathology ; Feces/microbiology ; Female ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/drug effects/*physiology ; Host Microbial Interactions/physiology ; Humans ; Intestinal Mucosa/microbiology/*physiopathology ; Male ; Metabolomics ; Metagenomics ; Phenotype ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a disorder affecting the respiratory, digestive, reproductive systems and sweat glands. This lethal hereditary disease has known or suspected links to the dysbiosis gut microbiota. High-throughput meta-omics-based approaches may assist in unveiling this complex network of symbiosis modifications.<br><br>OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to provide a predictive and functional model of the gut microbiota enterophenotype of pediatric patients affected by CF under clinical stability.<br><br>METHODS: Thirty-one fecal samples were collected from CF patients and healthy children (HC) (age range, 1-6 years) and analysed using targeted-metagenomics and metabolomics to characterize the ecology and metabolism of CF-linked gut microbiota. The multidimensional data were low fused and processed by chemometric classification analysis.<br><br>RESULTS: The fused metagenomics and metabolomics based gut microbiota profile was characterized by a high abundance of Propionibacterium, Staphylococcus and Clostridiaceae, including Clostridium difficile, and a low abundance of Eggerthella, Eubacterium, Ruminococcus, Dorea, Faecalibacterium prausnitzii, and Lachnospiraceae, associated with overexpression of 4-aminobutyrate (GABA), choline, ethanol, propylbutyrate, and pyridine and low levels of sarcosine, 4-methylphenol, uracil, glucose, acetate, phenol, benzaldehyde, and methylacetate. The CF gut microbiota pattern revealed an enterophenotype intrinsically linked to disease, regardless of age, and with dysbiosis uninduced by reduced pancreatic function and only partially related to oral antibiotic administration or lung colonization/infection.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: All together, the results obtained suggest that the gut microbiota enterophenotypes of CF, together with endogenous and bacterial CF biomarkers, are direct expression of functional alterations at the intestinal level. Hence, it's possible to infer that CFTR impairment causes the gut ecosystem imbalance.This new understanding of CF host-gut microbiota interactions may be helpful to rationalize novel clinical interventions to improve the affected children's nutritional status and intestinal function.}, }
@article {pmid30193112, year = {2018}, author = {Zmora, N and Zilberman-Schapira, G and Suez, J and Mor, U and Dori-Bachash, M and Bashiardes, S and Kotler, E and Zur, M and Regev-Lehavi, D and Brik, RB and Federici, S and Cohen, Y and Linevsky, R and Rothschild, D and Moor, AE and Ben-Moshe, S and Harmelin, A and Itzkovitz, S and Maharshak, N and Shibolet, O and Shapiro, H and Pevsner-Fischer, M and Sharon, I and Halpern, Z and Segal, E and Elinav, E}, title = {Personalized Gut Mucosal Colonization Resistance to Empiric Probiotics Is Associated with Unique Host and Microbiome Features.}, journal = {Cell}, volume = {174}, number = {6}, pages = {1388-1405.e21}, doi = {10.1016/j.cell.2018.08.041}, pmid = {30193112}, issn = {1097-4172}, support = {/HHMI/Howard Hughes Medical Institute/United States ; }, mesh = {Adolescent ; Adult ; Aged ; Animals ; Bacteria/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Feces/microbiology ; Female ; Gastric Mucosa/microbiology ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; Humans ; Intestinal Mucosa/microbiology ; Male ; Metagenomics ; Mice ; Mice, Inbred C57BL ; Middle Aged ; Placebo Effect ; Principal Component Analysis ; Probiotics/*administration &amp; dosage ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics/metabolism ; Transcriptome ; Young Adult ; }, abstract = {Empiric probiotics are commonly consumed by healthy individuals as means of life quality improvement and disease prevention. However, evidence of probiotic gut mucosal colonization efficacy remains sparse and controversial. We metagenomically characterized the murine and human mucosal-associated gastrointestinal microbiome and found it to only partially correlate with stool microbiome. A sequential invasive multi-omics measurement at baseline and during consumption of an 11-strain probiotic combination or placebo demonstrated that probiotics remain viable upon gastrointestinal passage. In colonized, but not germ-free mice, probiotics encountered a marked mucosal colonization resistance. In contrast, humans featured person-, region- and strain-specific mucosal colonization patterns, hallmarked by predictive baseline host and microbiome features, but indistinguishable by probiotics presence in stool. Consequently, probiotics induced a transient, individualized impact on mucosal community structure and gut transcriptome. Collectively, empiric probiotics supplementation may be limited in universally and persistently impacting the gut mucosa, meriting development of new personalized probiotic approaches.}, }
@article {pmid29925880, year = {2018}, author = {Galand, PE and Pereira, O and Hochart, C and Auguet, JC and Debroas, D}, title = {A strong link between marine microbial community composition and function challenges the idea of functional redundancy.}, journal = {The ISME journal}, volume = {12}, number = {10}, pages = {2470-2478}, pmid = {29925880}, issn = {1751-7370}, mesh = {Bacteria/*classification/*genetics ; Metagenome ; Metagenomics ; Microbiota/*genetics/*physiology ; Time Factors ; }, abstract = {Marine microbes have tremendous diversity, but a fundamental question remains unanswered: why are there so many microbial species in the sea? The idea of functional redundancy for microbial communities has long been assumed, so that the high level of richness is often explained by the presence of different taxa that are able to conduct the exact same set of metabolic processes and that can readily replace each other. Here, we refute the hypothesis of functional redundancy for marine microbial communities by showing that a shift in the community composition altered the overall functional attributes of communities across different temporal and spatial scales. Our metagenomic monitoring of a coastal northwestern Mediterranean site also revealed that diverse microbial communities harbor a high diversity of potential proteins. Working with all information given by the metagenomes (all reads) rather than relying only on known genes (annotated orthologous genes) was essential for revealing the similarity between taxonomic and functional community compositions. Our finding does not exclude the possibility for a partial redundancy where organisms that share some specific function can coexist when they differ in other ecological requirements. It demonstrates, however, that marine microbial diversity reflects a tremendous diversity of microbial metabolism and highlights the genetic potential yet to be discovered in an ocean of microbes.}, }
@article {pmid30958827, year = {2019}, author = {Martí, JM}, title = {Recentrifuge: Robust comparative analysis and contamination removal for metagenomics.}, journal = {PLoS computational biology}, volume = {15}, number = {4}, pages = {e1006967}, doi = {10.1371/journal.pcbi.1006967}, pmid = {30958827}, issn = {1553-7358}, mesh = {Algorithms ; Big Data ; Computational Biology/methods ; DNA Contamination ; High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing ; Humans ; Internet ; Metagenome ; Metagenomics/*methods ; Microbiota/*genetics ; Sequence Analysis, DNA/*methods ; Software ; Whole Genome Sequencing/methods ; }, abstract = {Metagenomic sequencing is becoming widespread in biomedical and environmental research, and the pace is increasing even more thanks to nanopore sequencing. With a rising number of samples and data per sample, the challenge of efficiently comparing results within a specimen and between specimens arises. Reagents, laboratory, and host related contaminants complicate such analysis. Contamination is particularly critical in low microbial biomass body sites and environments, where it can comprise most of a sample if not all. Recentrifuge implements a robust method for the removal of negative-control and crossover taxa from the rest of samples. With Recentrifuge, researchers can analyze results from taxonomic classifiers using interactive charts with emphasis on the confidence level of the classifications. In addition to contamination-subtracted samples, Recentrifuge provides shared and exclusive taxa per sample, thus enabling robust contamination removal and comparative analysis in environmental and clinical metagenomics. Regarding the first area, Recentrifuge's novel approach has already demonstrated its benefits showing that microbiomes of Arctic and Antarctic solar panels display similar taxonomic profiles. In the clinical field, to confirm Recentrifuge's ability to analyze complex metagenomes, we challenged it with data coming from a metagenomic investigation of RNA in plasma that suffered from critical contamination to the point of preventing any positive conclusion. Recentrifuge provided results that yielded new biological insight into the problem, supporting the growing evidence of a blood microbiota even in healthy individuals, mostly translocated from the gut, the oral cavity, and the genitourinary tract. We also developed a synthetic dataset carefully designed to rate the robust contamination removal algorithm, which demonstrated a significant improvement in specificity while retaining a high sensitivity even in the presence of cross-contaminants. Recentrifuge's official website is www.recentrifuge.org. The data and source code are anonymously and freely available on GitHub and PyPI. The computing code is licensed under the AGPLv3. The Recentrifuge Wiki is the most extensive and continually-updated source of documentation for Recentrifuge, covering installation, use cases, testing, and other useful topics.}, }
@article {pmid30955749, year = {2019}, author = {Fernandes, C and Kankonkar, H and Meena, RM and Menezes, G and Shenoy, BD and Khandeparker, R}, title = {Metagenomic analysis of tarball-associated bacteria from Goa, India.}, journal = {Marine pollution bulletin}, volume = {141}, number = {}, pages = {398-403}, doi = {10.1016/j.marpolbul.2019.02.040}, pmid = {30955749}, issn = {1879-3363}, mesh = {Biodegradation, Environmental ; Environmental Monitoring/*methods ; Humans ; India ; Marinobacter/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Metagenome/*genetics ; Metagenomics ; Microbiota/*genetics ; Petroleum/*analysis ; Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons/*analysis ; Proteobacteria/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Water Pollutants, Chemical/*analysis ; }, abstract = {The beaches of Goa state in India are frequently polluted with tarballs, specifically during pre-monsoon and monsoon seasons. Tarballs contain hydrocarbons, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which pose significant environmental risks. Microbes associated with tarballs reportedly possess capabilities to degrade toxic hydrocarbons present in tarballs. In this study, bacterial diversity associated with tarballs from Vagator and Morjim beaches of north Goa was analysed based on V3-V4 regions of 16S rRNA gene sequenced using Illumina Miseq Platform. The Proteobacterial members were dominant in both Vagator (≥85.5%) and Morjim (≥94.0%) samples. Many of the identified taxa have been previously reported as hydrocarbon degraders (e.g. Halomonas, Marinobacter) or possible human pathogens (e.g. Acinetobacter, Klebsiella, Rhodococcus, Staphylococcus, Vibrio). This is the first study reported on a metagenomic analysis of bacteria associated with tarballs from Goa.}, }
@article {pmid29335567, year = {2018}, author = {Metch, JW and Burrows, ND and Murphy, CJ and Pruden, A and Vikesland, PJ}, title = {Metagenomic analysis of microbial communities yields insight into impacts of nanoparticle design.}, journal = {Nature nanotechnology}, volume = {13}, number = {3}, pages = {253-259}, doi = {10.1038/s41565-017-0029-3}, pmid = {29335567}, issn = {1748-3395}, mesh = {Acrylic Resins/chemistry/metabolism ; Bacteria/*genetics/metabolism ; Cetrimonium/chemistry/metabolism ; Gold/chemistry/*metabolism ; Metagenomics ; *Microbiota ; Nanoparticles/chemistry/*metabolism/ultrastructure ; Nanotubes/chemistry/ultrastructure ; Phylogeny ; Sewage/*microbiology ; Surface Properties ; }, abstract = {Next-generation DNA sequencing and metagenomic analysis provide powerful tools for the environmentally friendly design of nanoparticles. Herein we demonstrate this approach using a model community of environmental microbes (that is, wastewater-activated sludge) dosed with gold nanoparticles of varying surface coatings and morphologies. Metagenomic analysis was highly sensitive in detecting the microbial community response to gold nanospheres and nanorods with either cetyltrimethylammonium bromide or polyacrylic acid surface coatings. We observed that the gold-nanoparticle morphology imposes a stronger force in shaping the microbial community structure than does the surface coating. Trends were consistent in terms of the compositions of both taxonomic and functional genes, which include antibiotic resistance genes, metal resistance genes and gene-transfer elements associated with cell stress that are relevant to public health. Given that nanoparticle morphology remained constant, the potential influence of gold dissolution was minimal. Surface coating governed the nanoparticle partitioning between the bioparticulate and aqueous phases.}, }
@article {pmid30955771, year = {2019}, author = {Cotta, SR and Cadete, LL and van Elsas, JD and Andreote, FD and Dias, ACF}, title = {Exploring bacterial functionality in mangrove sediments and its capability to overcome anthropogenic activity.}, journal = {Marine pollution bulletin}, volume = {141}, number = {}, pages = {586-594}, doi = {10.1016/j.marpolbul.2019.03.001}, pmid = {30955771}, issn = {1879-3363}, mesh = {Bacteria/genetics/metabolism ; Biodiversity ; Brazil ; Carbon/metabolism ; Ecosystem ; Gene Transfer, Horizontal ; Geologic Sediments/*microbiology ; Metagenomics ; *Microbiota/genetics ; Sulfur/metabolism ; *Wetlands ; }, abstract = {Mangrove forests are highly productive yet vulnerable ecosystems that act as important carbon sinks (&quot;blue carbon&quot;). The objective of this work was to analyze the impact of anthropogenic activities on microbiome structure and functioning. The metagenomic analysis revealed that the taxonomic compositions were grossly similar across all mangrove microbiomes. Remarkably, these microbiomes, along the gradient of anthropogenic impact, showed fluctuations in the relative abundances of bacterial taxa predicted to be involved in sulfur cycling processes. Functions involved in sulfur metabolism, such as APS pathways (associated with sulfate reduction and sulfur oxidation processes) were prevalent across the microbiomes, being sox and dsrAB genes highly expressed on anthropogenically-impacted areas. Apparently, the oil-impacted microbiomes were more affected in taxonomic than in functional terms, as high functional redundancies were noted across them. The microbial gene diversity found was typical for a functional system, even following the previous disturbance.}, }
@article {pmid30918057, year = {2019}, author = {Thomas, M and Wongkuna, S and Ghimire, S and Kumar, R and Antony, L and Doerner, KC and Singery, A and Nelson, E and Woyengo, T and Chankhamhaengdecha, S and Janvilisri, T and Scaria, J}, title = {Gut Microbial Dynamics during Conventionalization of Germfree Chicken.}, journal = {mSphere}, volume = {4}, number = {2}, pages = {}, doi = {10.1128/mSphere.00035-19}, pmid = {30918057}, issn = {2379-5042}, mesh = {Animals ; Bacteria/*classification/isolation &amp; purification ; Bacteroidetes/classification/isolation &amp; purification ; Chickens/growth &amp; development ; DNA, Bacterial/genetics ; Firmicutes/classification/isolation &amp; purification ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; Gastrointestinal Tract/microbiology ; *Germ-Free Life ; *Host Microbial Interactions ; Metagenomics ; Phylogeny ; Principal Component Analysis ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; }, abstract = {A gnotobiotic Gallus gallus (chicken) model was developed to study the dynamics of intestinal microflora from hatching to 18 days of age employing metagenomics. Intestinal samples were collected from a local population of feral chickens and administered orally to germfree 3-day-old chicks. Animals were euthanized on days 9 and 18 postinoculation, and intestinal samples were collected and subjected to metagenomic analysis. On day 18, the five most prevalent phyla were Bacteroidetes (43.03 ± 3.19%), Firmicutes (38.51 ± 2.67%), Actinobacteria (6.77 ± 0.7%), Proteobacteria (6.38 ± 0.7%), and Spirochaetes (2.71 ± 0.55%). Principal-coordinate analysis showed that the day 18 variables clustered more closely than the day 9 variables, suggesting that the microbial communities had changed temporally. The Morista-Horn index values ranged from 0.7 to 1, indicating that the communities in the inoculum and in the day 9 and day 18 samples were more similar than dissimilar. The predicted functional profiles of the microbiomes of the inoculum and the day 9 and day 18 samples were also similar (values of 0.98 to 1). These results indicate that the gnotobiotic chicks stably maintained the phylogenetic diversity and predicted metabolic functionality of the inoculum community.IMPORTANCE The domestic chicken is the cornerstone of animal agriculture worldwide, with a flock population exceeding 40 billion birds/year. It serves as an economically valuable source of protein globally. The microbiome of poultry has important effects on chicken growth, feed conversion, immune status, and pathogen resistance. The aim of our research was to develop a gnotobiotic chicken model appropriate for the study chicken gut microbiota function. Our experimental model shows that young germfree chicks are able to colonize diverse sets of gut bacteria. Therefore, besides the use of this model to study mechanisms of gut microbiota interactions in the chicken gut, it could be also used for applied aspects such as determining the safety and efficacy of new probiotic strains derived from chicken gut microbiota.}, }
@article {pmid30894435, year = {2019}, author = {Majta, J and Odrzywolek, K and Milanovic, B and Hubar, V and Wrobel, S and Strycharz-Angrecka, E and Wojciechowski, S and Milanowska, K}, title = {Identification of Differentiating Metabolic Pathways between Infant Gut Microbiome Populations Reveals Depletion of Function-Level Adaptation to Human Milk in the Finnish Population.}, journal = {mSphere}, volume = {4}, number = {2}, pages = {}, doi = {10.1128/mSphereDirect.00152-19}, pmid = {30894435}, issn = {2379-5042}, mesh = {*Adaptation, Physiological ; Bacteroides/genetics/*metabolism ; Bifidobacterium/genetics/*metabolism ; Feces/microbiology ; Finland ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; Gastrointestinal Tract/microbiology ; Genome, Bacterial ; Humans ; Infant ; *Metabolic Networks and Pathways ; Metagenomics ; Milk, Human/*chemistry ; Oligosaccharides/metabolism ; }, abstract = {A variety of autoimmune and allergy events are becoming increasingly common, especially in Western countries. Some pieces of research link such conditions with the composition of microbiota during infancy. In this period, the predominant form of nutrition for gut microbiota is oligosaccharides from human milk (HMO). A number of gut-colonizing strains, such as Bifidobacterium and Bacteroides, are able to utilize HMO, but only some Bifidobacterium strains have evolved to digest the specific composition of human oligosaccharides. Differences in the proportions of the two genera that are able to utilize HMO have already been associated with the frequency of allergies and autoimmune diseases in the Finnish and the Russian populations. Our results show that differences in terms of the taxonomic annotation do not explain the reason for the differences in the Bifidobacterium/Bacteroides ratio between the Finnish and the Russian populations. In this paper, we present the results of function-level analysis. Unlike the typical workflow for gene abundance analysis, BiomeScout technology explains the differences in the Bifidobacterium/Bacteroides ratio. Our research shows the differences in the abundances of the two enzymes that are crucial for the utilization of short type 1 oligosaccharides.IMPORTANCE Knowing the limitations of taxonomy-based research, there is an emerging need for the development of higher-resolution techniques. The significance of this research is demonstrated by the novel method used for the analysis of function-level metagenomes. BiomeScout-the presented technology-utilizes proprietary algorithms for the detection of differences between functionalities present in metagenomic samples.}, }
@article {pmid30628657, year = {2019}, author = {Chen, L and Li, H and Li, J and Chen, Y and Yang, Y}, title = {Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG treatment improves intestinal permeability and modulates microbiota dysbiosis in an experimental model of sepsis.}, journal = {International journal of molecular medicine}, volume = {43}, number = {3}, pages = {1139-1148}, doi = {10.3892/ijmm.2019.4050}, pmid = {30628657}, issn = {1791-244X}, mesh = {Animals ; Apoptosis ; Biomarkers ; Cell Proliferation ; Colon/metabolism/microbiology/pathology ; Disease Models, Animal ; *Dysbiosis ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; Lactobacillus rhamnosus/*physiology ; Male ; Metagenome ; Metagenomics/methods ; Mice ; Mortality ; Permeability ; Phylogeny ; Probiotics/*administration &amp; dosage ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Sepsis/diagnosis/*metabolism/*microbiology/therapy ; }, abstract = {Decrease of 'health‑benefiting' microbes and increase of pathogenic bacteria (a condition termed dysbiosis) in intensive care unit patients is considered to induce or aggravate sepsis (gut‑origin sepsis). Orally administered probiotics have been effective in the prevention of nosocomial infections. However, the mechanisms of probiotic‑induced anti‑infection and anti‑sepsis remain to be explored. In the present study, 4‑week‑old C57BL6 mice were orally administrated with Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG (LGG) or normal saline (control) 4 weeks prior to cecal ligation and puncture (CLP). A subset of the mice were sacrificed at 24 h post‑CLP, and the others were used for survival studies. Ileum tissues, blood and fecal samples were collected. The survival rate of septic mice pretreated with LGG was significantly improved compared with untreated mice. The levels of inflammatory cytokines were reduced in LGG‑pretreated septic mice. A decrease of colonic proliferation and epithelial tight junctions and an increase of colonic apoptosis were observed in control septic CLP+saline mice. LGG pretreatment reversed the colonic proliferation, apoptosis and expression of tight junction proteins to the levels of the sham group. LGG pretreatment improved the richness and diversity of intestinal microbiota in septic mice. The principal coordinates analysis clustering plots revealed a significant separate clustering in microbiota structure between three groups. Bacteria associated with energy consumption, including Bacteroidetes, with opportunistic infection, including Proteobacteria, Staphylococcaceae and Enterococcaceae, lipopolysaccharide producers, including Enterobacteriaceae, and facultative anaerobes, such as Bacteroidaceae and Erysipelotrichaceae, increased in septic mice. By contrast, bacteria associated with energy harvest, including Firmicutes, intestinal barrier function regulators, including Akkermansia, hepatic function regulators, including Coprococcus and Oscillospira, and obligate anaerobes, including Prevotellaceae, decreased in septic mice. With LGG pretreatment, the sepsis‑induced microbiota dysbiosis was reversed. The present results elucidated the potential mechanism of LGG treatment in sepsis, by improving intestinal permeability and modulating microbiota dysbiosis.}, }
@article {pmid30596703, year = {2018}, author = {Quinn, O and Gruber, MAM and Brown, RL and Baty, JW and Bulgarella, M and Lester, PJ}, title = {A metatranscriptomic analysis of diseased social wasps (Vespula vulgaris) for pathogens, with an experimental infection of larvae and nests.}, journal = {PloS one}, volume = {13}, number = {12}, pages = {e0209589}, doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0209589}, pmid = {30596703}, issn = {1932-6203}, mesh = {Animals ; Gene Expression Profiling/methods ; *Host-Pathogen Interactions ; Larva/microbiology ; *Metagenome ; *Metagenomics ; *Microbiota ; Phylogeny ; Wasps/*microbiology/ultrastructure ; }, abstract = {Social wasps are a major pest in many countries around the world. Pathogens may influence wasp populations and could provide an option for population management via biological control. We investigated the pathology of nests of apparently healthy common wasps, Vespula vulgaris, with nests apparently suffering disease. First, next-generation sequencing and metatranscriptomic analysis were used to examine pathogen presence. The transcriptome of healthy and diseased V. vulgaris showed 27 known microbial phylotypes. Four of these were observed in diseased larvae alone (Aspergillus fumigatus, Moellerella wisconsensis, Moku virus, and the microsporidian Vavraia culicis). Kashmir Bee Virus (KBV) was found to be present in both healthy and diseased larvae. Moellerella wisconsensis is a human pathogen that was potentially misidentified in our wasps by the MEGAN analysis: it is more likely to be the related bacteria Hafnia alvei that is known to infect social insects. The closest identification to the putative pathogen identified as Vavraia culicis was likely to be another microsporidian Nosema vulgaris. PCR and subsequent Sanger sequencing using published or our own designed primers, confirmed the identity of Moellerella sp. (which may be Hafnia alvei), Aspergillus sp., KBV, Moku virus and Nosema. Secondly, we used an infection study by homogenising diseased wasp larvae and feeding them to entire nests of larvae in the laboratory. Three nests transinfected with diseased larvae all died within 19 days. No pathogen that we monitored, however, had a significantly higher prevalence in diseased than in healthy larvae. RT-qPCR analysis indicated that pathogen infections were significantly correlated, such as between KBV and Aspergillus sp. Social wasps clearly suffer from an array of pathogens, which may lead to the collapse of nests and larval death.}, }
@article {pmid28883460, year = {2017}, author = {Bridgewater, LC and Zhang, C and Wu, Y and Hu, W and Zhang, Q and Wang, J and Li, S and Zhao, L}, title = {Gender-based differences in host behavior and gut microbiota composition in response to high fat diet and stress in a mouse model.}, journal = {Scientific reports}, volume = {7}, number = {1}, pages = {10776}, pmid = {28883460}, issn = {2045-2322}, mesh = {Animals ; *Behavior, Animal ; Computational Biology/methods ; *Diet, High-Fat ; Female ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; Male ; Metagenome ; Metagenomics/methods ; Mice ; Sex Factors ; *Stress, Physiological ; }, abstract = {Obesity is associated with a high prevalence of mood disorders such as anxiety and depression. Both stress and high fat diet can alter the gut microbiota and contribute to obesity. To examine the interrelationships between obesity, stress, gut microbiota and mood disorders, obesity was induced in mice using a high fat diet, and the mice were subsequently stressed using a chronic unpredictable mild stress protocol. During the experiment, the composition of the gut microbiota was analyzed by 16 S rRNA gene high-throughput sequencing, and anxiety-like behaviors were measured. The results revealed distinct gender differences in the impacts of obesity and stress on anxiety-like behaviors, activity levels, and composition of the gut microbiota. Male mice were more vulnerable to the anxiogenic effects of the high fat diet, and obese male mice showed decreased locomotion activity in response to stress whereas obese female mice did not. In females, stress caused the gut microbiota of lean mice to more closely resemble that of obese mice. Taken together, these results suggest the importance of considering gender as a biological variable in studies on the role of gut microbiota in obesity-related mood disorders.}, }
@article {pmid31102141, year = {2019}, author = {Sahoo, K and Sahoo, RK and Gaur, M and Subudhi, E}, title = {Cellulolytic thermophilic microorganisms in white biotechnology: a review.}, journal = {Folia microbiologica}, volume = {}, number = {}, pages = {}, doi = {10.1007/s12223-019-00710-6}, pmid = {31102141}, issn = {1874-9356}, support = {YSS/2014/000413//Science and Engineering Research Board/ ; }, abstract = {Enzymes of microbial origin are of immense importance for organic material decomposition leading to bioremediation of organic waste, bioenergy generation, large-scale industrial bioprocesses, etc. The market demand for microbial cellulase enzyme is growing more rapidly which ultimately becomes the driving force towards research on this biocatalyst, widely used in various industrial activities. The use of novel cellulase genes obtained from various thermophiles through metagenomics and genetic engineering as well as following metabolic engineering pathways would be able to enhance the production of thermophilic cellulase at industrial scale. The present review is mainly focused on thermophilic cellulolytic bacteria, discoveries on cellulase gene, genetically modified cellulase, metabolic engineering, and their various industrial applications. A lot of lacunae are yet to overcome for thermophiles such as metagenome analysis, metabolic pathway modification study, search of heterologous hosts in gene expression system, and improved recombinant strain for better cellulase yield as well as value-added product formation.}, }
@article {pmid30232678, year = {2019}, author = {Osman, JR and Regeard, C and Badel, C and Fernandes, G and DuBow, MS}, title = {Variation of bacterial biodiversity from saline soils and estuary sediments present near the Mediterranean Sea coast of Camargue (France).}, journal = {Antonie van Leeuwenhoek}, volume = {112}, number = {3}, pages = {351-365}, doi = {10.1007/s10482-018-1164-z}, pmid = {30232678}, issn = {1572-9699}, mesh = {Bacteria/*classification/genetics/*isolation &amp; purification ; *Biodiversity ; Cluster Analysis ; DNA, Bacterial/chemistry/genetics ; DNA, Ribosomal/chemistry/genetics ; *Estuaries ; France ; Geologic Sediments/*microbiology ; Mediterranean Sea ; Metagenomics ; Phylogeny ; Polymerase Chain Reaction ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Sequence Analysis, DNA ; *Soil Microbiology ; }, abstract = {Salinity is an important environmental factor influencing microbial community composition. To better understand this influence, we determined the bacterial communities present in 17 different sites of brackish sediment (underwater) and soil (surface) samples from the Camargue region (Rhône river delta) in southern France during the fall of 2013 and 2014 using pyrosequencing of the V3-V4 regions of the 16S rRNA genes amplified by PCR. This region is known for abundant flora and fauna and, though saline, 30% of rice consumed in France is grown here. We found that bacterial abundance in 1 g of soil or sediment, calculated by qPCR, was higher in sediments than in surface soil samples. Members belonging to the Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Chloroflexi and Firmicutes phyla dominated the bacterial communities of sediment samples, while members belonging to the Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Gemmatimonadetes, Actinobacteria, Firmicutes and Acidobacteria phyla dominated the bacterial communities of the soil samples. The most abundant bacterial genera present in the saline sediments and soils from the Camargue belonged mostly to halophilic and sulphate reducing bacteria, suggesting that the Camargue may be a valuable system to investigate saline, yet agriculturally productive, sediment and soil microbial ecosystem.}, }
@article {pmid29630505, year = {2018}, author = {Panebianco, C and Potenza, A and Andriulli, A and Pazienza, V}, title = {Exploring the microbiota to better understand gastrointestinal cancers physiology.}, journal = {Clinical chemistry and laboratory medicine}, volume = {56}, number = {9}, pages = {1400-1412}, doi = {10.1515/cclm-2017-1163}, pmid = {29630505}, issn = {1437-4331}, mesh = {Antineoplastic Agents/therapeutic use ; Colorectal Neoplasms/microbiology/pathology ; Drug Resistance, Neoplasm ; Esophageal Neoplasms/microbiology/pathology ; Gastrointestinal Neoplasms/drug therapy/microbiology/*pathology ; Humans ; Liver Neoplasms/metabolism/pathology ; *Microbiota ; Pancreatic Neoplasms/microbiology/pathology ; Stomach Neoplasms/microbiology/pathology ; }, abstract = {Gastrointestinal cancers account for around 40% of cancer-related deaths worldwide, representing a global health burden. There is a growing body of evidence highlighting the link between microbiota and gastrointestinal tumorigenesis and/or resistance to therapy. In the present manuscript, we reviewed the published studies on the relationship between the microbiota and the different gastrointestinal tumors, namely, gastric, colorectal and esophageal, including also the cancer of accessory organs such as liver and pancreas. There is an emergent interest in the manipulation of gastrointestinal microflora in order to understand the gastrointestinal tumorigenesis' processes and the establishment of chemoresistance mechanisms.}, }
@article {pmid30683956, year = {2019}, author = {Mahato, NK and Sharma, A and Singh, Y and Lal, R}, title = {Comparative metagenomic analyses of a high-altitude Himalayan geothermal spring revealed temperature-constrained habitat-specific microbial community and metabolic dynamics.}, journal = {Archives of microbiology}, volume = {201}, number = {3}, pages = {377-388}, doi = {10.1007/s00203-018-01616-6}, pmid = {30683956}, issn = {1432-072X}, support = {BT/PR15118/BCE/8/1141/2015//Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology/ ; }, mesh = {Altitude ; Archaea/classification/*genetics ; Bacteria/classification/*genetics ; Flagella/genetics ; Geologic Sediments/*microbiology ; Hot Springs/*microbiology ; Hot Temperature ; India ; Metagenome/*genetics ; Metagenomics/methods ; Microbiota/*genetics ; Phylogeny ; Temperature ; Type IV Secretion Systems/genetics ; }, abstract = {Metagenomic surveys across microbial mat (~ 55 °C) samples of high-altitude (1760 m above sea level) Himalayan geothermal springs have revealed specialized community enriched with niche-specific functions. In this study, we have performed metagenomic sequence-based analyses to get insights into taxonomic composition and functional potential of hyperthermophiles in water (~ 95 °C) and sediment samples (78-98 °C). Community analyses revealed predominance of thermophilic bacterial and archeal genera dwelling in water in contrast to microbial mats (55 °C), namely Methylophilus, Methyloversatilis, Emticicia, Caulobacter, Thermus, Enhydrobacter and Pyrobaculum. Sediment samples having surface temperature (~ 78 °C) were colonized by Pyrobaculum and Chloroflexus while genus Massilia was found to be inhabited in high-temperature sediments (~ 98 °C). Functional analyses of metagenomic sequences revealed genetic enrichment of genes such as type IV secretion system, flagellar assembly and two-component system in contrast to mats. Furthermore, inter-sample comparison of enriched microbial diversity among water, sediment and microbial mats revealed habitat-specific clustering of the samples within same environment highlighting the role of temperature dynamics in modulating community structure across different habitats in same niche. However, function-based analysis demonstrated site-specific clustering among sediment, microbial mat and water samples. Furthermore, a novel thermophilic genotype of the genus Emticicia (designated as strain MM) was reconstructed from metagenome data. This is a correlative study between three major habitats present in geothermal spring environment, i.e., water, sediment and microbial mats revealing greater phylogenetic and functional dispersion emphasizing changing habitat-specific dynamics with temperature.}, }
@article {pmid30604012, year = {2019}, author = {Tyagi, A and Singh, B and Billekallu Thammegowda, NK and Singh, NK}, title = {Shotgun metagenomics offers novel insights into taxonomic compositions, metabolic pathways and antibiotic resistance genes in fish gut microbiome.}, journal = {Archives of microbiology}, volume = {201}, number = {3}, pages = {295-303}, doi = {10.1007/s00203-018-1615-y}, pmid = {30604012}, issn = {1432-072X}, support = {YSS/2014/000269//Science and Engineering Research Board/ ; }, mesh = {Animals ; Anti-Bacterial Agents/pharmacology ; Aquaculture ; *Bacteria/classification/drug effects/genetics ; Carps/*microbiology ; Drug Resistance, Multiple, Bacterial/*genetics ; Fishes ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/*genetics ; Gene Transfer, Horizontal ; Metabolic Networks and Pathways ; Metagenomics/methods ; Probiotics ; }, abstract = {Gut microbiota of freshwater carp (Labeo rohita) was investigated by shotgun metagenomics to understand its taxonomic composition and functional capabilities. With the presence of 36 phyla, 326 families and 985 genera, the fish gut microbiota was found to be quite diverse in nature. However, at the phylum level, more than three-fourths of gut microbes belonged to Proteobacteria. Very low prevalence of commonly used probiotic bacteria (Bacillus, Lactobacillus, Streptococcus, and Lactococcus) in fish gut suggested the need to search for alternative probiotics for aquaculture use. Biosynthesis pathways were found to be the most dominant (51%) followed by degradation (39%), energy metabolism (4%) and fermentation (2%). In conformity with herbivorous feeding habit of L. rohita, gut microbiome also had pathways for the degradation of cellulose, hemicellulose, chitin, pectin, starch, and other complex carbohydrates. High prevalence of Actinobacteria and antibiotic biosynthesis pathways in the fish gut microbiome indicated its potential for bioprospecting of potentially novel natural antibiotics. Fifty-one different types of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) belonging to 15 antimicrobial resistance (AMR) gene families and conferring resistance against 24 antibiotic types were detected in fish gut. Some of the ARGs for multi-drug resistance were also found to be located on sequences of plasmid origin. The presence of pathogenic bacteria and ARGs on plasmid sequences suggested the potential risk due to horizontal gene transfer in the confined gut environment. The role of ARGs in fish gut microbiome needs further investigations.}, }
@article {pmid29926341, year = {2019}, author = {Lladó Fernández, S and Větrovský, T and Baldrian, P}, title = {The concept of operational taxonomic units revisited: genomes of bacteria that are regarded as closely related are often highly dissimilar.}, journal = {Folia microbiologica}, volume = {64}, number = {1}, pages = {19-23}, doi = {10.1007/s12223-018-0627-y}, pmid = {29926341}, issn = {1874-9356}, support = {18-25706S//Czech Science Foundation/ ; LTT17022//Ministerstvo Školství, Mládeže a Tělovýchovy/ ; }, mesh = {Bacteria/*classification/*genetics ; DNA, Bacterial/genetics ; Databases, Nucleic Acid ; Genes, Bacterial/genetics ; Genetic Variation ; Genome, Bacterial/*genetics ; Glycoside Hydrolases/genetics ; *Metagenomics ; Microbiota ; Phylogeny ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Sequence Analysis, DNA ; }, abstract = {The concept of operational taxonomic units (OTUs), which constructs &quot;mathematically&quot; defined taxa, is widely accepted and applied to describe bacterial communities using amplicon sequencing of 16S rRNA gene. OTUs are often used to infer functional traits since they are considered to fairly represent of community members. However, the link between molecular taxa, real taxa, and OTUs seems to be much more complicated. Strains of the same bacterial species (ideally belonging to the same OTU) typically only share some genes (the core genome), while other genes are strain-specific and unique. It is thus unclear to what extent are important functional traits homogeneous within an OTU and how correctly can functional traits be inferred for individual OTU members. Here, we have tested in silico the similarity of all genes and, more specifically, the set of genes encoding for glycoside hydrolases (GH) in bacterial genomes that belong to the same OTU. Genome similarity varied among OTUs, but as many as 5-78% of genes were not shared between the two bacterial genomes in the pair. The complement of GH families (the presence of gene families and the number of genes per family) differed in 95% of OTUs. In average, 43% of GH families either differed in gene counts or were present in one genome and absent in the other. These results show a serious limitation of the OTU-based approaches when used to infer the functional traits of bacterial communities and open the questions how to link environmental sequencing data and microbial functions.}, }
@article {pmid29803134, year = {2018}, author = {Duru, IC and Laine, P and Andreevskaya, M and Paulin, L and Kananen, S and Tynkkynen, S and Auvinen, P and Smolander, OP}, title = {Metagenomic and metatranscriptomic analysis of the microbial community in Swiss-type Maasdam cheese during ripening.}, journal = {International journal of food microbiology}, volume = {281}, number = {}, pages = {10-22}, doi = {10.1016/j.ijfoodmicro.2018.05.017}, pmid = {29803134}, issn = {1879-3460}, mesh = {Cheese/analysis/*microbiology ; Cold Temperature ; Fermentation ; Food Handling ; Gene Expression Regulation, Bacterial ; *Metagenomics ; Microbiota/genetics/*physiology ; Taste ; *Transcriptome ; }, abstract = {In Swiss-type cheeses, characteristic nut-like and sweet flavor develops during the cheese ripening due to the metabolic activities of cheese microbiota. Temperature changes during warm and cold room ripening, and duration of ripening can significantly change the gene expression of the cheese microbiota, which can affect the flavor formation. In this study, a metagenomic and metatranscriptomic analysis of Swiss-type Maasdam cheese was performed on samples obtained during ripening in the warm and cold rooms. We reconstructed four different bacterial genomes (Lactococcus lactis, Lactobacillus rhamnosus, Lactobacillus helveticus, and Propionibacterium freudenreichii subsp. shermanii strain JS) from the Maasdam cheese to near completeness. Based on the DNA and RNA mean coverage, Lc. lactis strongly dominated (~80-90%) within the cheese microbial community. Genome annotation showed the potential for the presence of several flavor forming pathways in these species, such as production of methanethiol, free fatty acids, acetoin, diacetyl, acetate, ethanol, and propionate. Using the metatranscriptomic data, we showed that, with the exception of Lc. lactis, the central metabolism of the microbiota was downregulated during cold room ripening suggesting that fewer flavor compounds such as acetoin and propionate were produced. In contrast, Lc. lactis genes related to the central metabolism, including the vitamin biosynthesis and homolactic fermentation, were upregulated during cold room ripening.}, }
@article {pmid29322618, year = {2018}, author = {Kato, S and Shibuya, T and Takaki, Y and Hirai, M and Nunoura, T and Suzuki, K}, title = {Genome-enabled metabolic reconstruction of dominant chemosynthetic colonizers in deep-sea massive sulfide deposits.}, journal = {Environmental microbiology}, volume = {20}, number = {2}, pages = {862-877}, doi = {10.1111/1462-2920.14032}, pmid = {29322618}, issn = {1462-2920}, mesh = {Carbon Dioxide/*metabolism ; Deltaproteobacteria/*genetics/*metabolism ; Ecosystem ; Geologic Sediments/*microbiology ; Metagenome/genetics ; Metagenomics ; Microbiota ; Nitrogen Fixation/genetics/*physiology ; Seawater/microbiology ; Sulfides/*metabolism ; Sulfur/*metabolism ; }, abstract = {Deep-sea massive sulfide deposits remaining after ceasing of hydrothermal activity potentially provide energy for a chemosynthetic ecosystem in the dark, cold marine environments. Although yet-uncultivated bacteria in the phylum Nitrospirae and the class Deltaproteobacteria are known to dominate the microbial communities of sulfide deposits at and below the seafloor, their metabolic capabilities remain largely elusive. Here, we reveal the metabolic potential of these yet-uncultivated bacteria in hydrothermally inactive sulfide deposits collected at the Southern Mariana Trough by seafloor drilling. Near-complete genomes of the predominant bacterial members were recovered from shotgun metagenomic sequences. The genomic capabilities for CO2 and N2 fixation suggest that these bacteria are primary producers in the microbial ecosystem. Their genomes also encode versatile chemolithotrophic energy metabolisms, such as the oxidation of H2 , sulfide and intermediate sulfur species including thiosulfate, all of which can be supplied by chemical reactions between seawater and metal sulfides. Notably, the presence of genes involved in thiosulfate oxidation in Nitrospirae and Deltaproteobacteria genomes is unusual. Our study strongly support the presence of a chemosynthetic ecosystem fuelled by the Earth's internal energy in the deep-sea massive sulfide deposits, and illustrates the unexpected metabolic capability of known bacterial taxonomic groups.}, }
@article {pmid29205750, year = {2018}, author = {Fortunato, CS and Larson, B and Butterfield, DA and Huber, JA}, title = {Spatially distinct, temporally stable microbial populations mediate biogeochemical cycling at and below the seafloor in hydrothermal vent fluids.}, journal = {Environmental microbiology}, volume = {20}, number = {2}, pages = {769-784}, doi = {10.1111/1462-2920.14011}, pmid = {29205750}, issn = {1462-2920}, mesh = {Archaea/*genetics/isolation &amp; purification/*metabolism ; Bacteria/*genetics/isolation &amp; purification/*metabolism ; Carbon/metabolism ; Chemoautotrophic Growth/*genetics ; Geologic Sediments/*microbiology ; Hydrogen/metabolism ; Hydrothermal Vents/*microbiology ; Metagenomics ; Microbiota/genetics ; Nitrogen/metabolism ; Pacific Ocean ; Phylogeny ; Population Dynamics ; Seawater/chemistry/microbiology ; Sulfur/metabolism ; }, abstract = {At deep-sea hydrothermal vents, microbial communities thrive across geochemical gradients above, at, and below the seafloor. In this study, we determined the gene content and transcription patterns of microbial communities and specific populations to understand the taxonomy and metabolism both spatially and temporally across geochemically different diffuse fluid hydrothermal vents. Vent fluids were examined via metagenomic, metatranscriptomic, genomic binning, and geochemical analyses from Axial Seamount, an active submarine volcano on the Juan de Fuca Ridge in the NE Pacific Ocean, from 2013 to 2015 at three different vents: Anemone, Marker 33, and Marker 113. Results showed that individual vent sites maintained microbial communities and specific populations over time, but with spatially distinct taxonomic, metabolic potential, and gene transcription profiles. The geochemistry and physical structure of each vent both played important roles in shaping the dominant organisms and metabolisms present at each site. Genomic binning identified key populations of SUP05, Aquificales and methanogenic archaea carrying out important transformations of carbon, sulfur, hydrogen, and nitrogen, with groups that appear unique to individual sites. This work highlights the connection between microbial metabolic processes, fluid chemistry, and microbial population dynamics at and below the seafloor and increases understanding of the role of hydrothermal vent microbial communities in deep ocean biogeochemical cycles.}, }
@article {pmid29088129, year = {2017}, author = {Pasolli, E and Schiffer, L and Manghi, P and Renson, A and Obenchain, V and Truong, DT and Beghini, F and Malik, F and Ramos, M and Dowd, JB and Huttenhower, C and Morgan, M and Segata, N and Waldron, L}, title = {Accessible, curated metagenomic data through ExperimentHub.}, journal = {Nature methods}, volume = {14}, number = {11}, pages = {1023-1024}, pmid = {29088129}, issn = {1548-7105}, support = {P41 HG004059/HG/NHGRI NIH HHS/United States ; R21 AI121784/AI/NIAID NIH HHS/United States ; U24 CA180996/CA/NCI NIH HHS/United States ; U41 HG004059/HG/NHGRI NIH HHS/United States ; }, mesh = {Computational Biology/*methods ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/genetics ; Genome, Archaeal/genetics ; Genome, Bacterial/genetics ; Genome, Fungal/genetics ; Genome, Human/genetics ; Humans ; Metagenomics/*methods ; Microbiota/*genetics ; *Software ; Species Specificity ; }, }
@article {pmid30535578, year = {2019}, author = {Zhang, F and Zheng, W and Xue, Y and Yao, W}, title = {Suhuai suckling piglet hindgut microbiome-metabolome responses to different dietary copper levels.}, journal = {Applied microbiology and biotechnology}, volume = {103}, number = {2}, pages = {853-868}, doi = {10.1007/s00253-018-9533-0}, pmid = {30535578}, issn = {1432-0614}, support = {JATS[2018]287//The earmarked fund for Jiangsu Agricultural Industry Technology System/ ; 31372321//National Natural Science Foundation of China/ ; }, mesh = {Animals ; Animals, Newborn ; Blood Chemical Analysis ; Copper/*administration &amp; dosage ; Diet/*methods ; Feces/chemistry ; Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/*drug effects ; High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing ; Metabolome/*drug effects ; Metabolomics ; Metagenomics ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Swine ; Trace Elements/*administration &amp; dosage ; }, abstract = {Unabsorbed copper accumulates in the hindgut of pigs that consume high levels of dietary copper, which enhances the coselection of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and is considered detrimental to the environment and to porcine health. In our study, a combination of 16S rRNA pyrosequencing and nontargeted metabolomics was used to investigate the microbiome-metabolome responses to dietary copper levels in the hindgut of suckling piglets. The results showed that the dietary copper level affected the abundance of several Clostridia genera and that the relative abundance of butyrate-producing bacteria, such as Coprococcus, Roseburia, and Acidaminococcus, was reduced in the 300 mg kg-1 (high) Cu group. Metabolomic analysis revealed that dietary copper levels affected protein and carbohydrate metabolites, protein biosynthesis, the urea cycle, galactose metabolism, gluconeogenesis, and amino acid metabolism (including the metabolism of arginine, proline, β-alanine, phenylalanine, tyrosine, and methionine). Furthermore, Pearson's correlation analysis showed that the abundance levels of Coprococcus (family Lachnospiraceae) and operational taxonomic unit (OTU) 18 (family Ruminococcaceae) were positively correlated with energy metabolism pathways (gluconeogenesis, glycolysis, and the pentose phosphate pathway). The abundance of Streptococcus was negatively correlated with amino acid metabolism pathways (protein biosynthesis, glycine, serine, threonine, methionine, phenylalanine, and tyrosine metabolism), and OTU583 and OTU1067 (family Rikenellaceae) were positively correlated with amino acid metabolism pathways. These results suggest that the copper levels consumed by LC (low-copper group) versus HC (high-copper group) animals alter the composition of the gut microbiota and modulate microbial metabolic pathways, which may further affect the health of suckling piglets.}, }
@article {pmid30474727, year = {2019}, author = {Meng, H and Zhou, Z and Wu, R and Wang, Y and Gu, JD}, title = {Diazotrophic microbial community and abundance in acidic subtropical natural and re-vegetated forest soils revealed by high-throughput sequencing of nifH gene.}, journal = {Applied microbiology and biotechnology}, volume = {103}, number = {2}, pages = {995-1005}, doi = {10.1007/s00253-018-9466-7}, pmid = {30474727}, issn = {1432-0614}, support = {31470562//National Natural Science Foundation of China/ ; 701913//Hong Kong RGC GRF grant/ ; }, mesh = {Acids/analysis ; Archaea/*classification/enzymology/genetics/metabolism ; Bacteria/*classification/enzymology/genetics/metabolism ; Chemical Phenomena ; Forests ; *Genetic Variation ; High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing ; Metagenomics ; *Microbiota ; *Nitrogen Fixation ; Oxidoreductases/*genetics ; Seasons ; Soil/chemistry ; *Soil Microbiology ; }, abstract = {Biological nitrogen fixation (BNF) is an important natural biochemical process converting the inert dinitrogen gas (N2) in the atmosphere to ammonia (NH3) in the N cycle. In this study, the nifH gene was chosen to detect the diazotrophic microorganisms with high-throughput sequencing from five acidic forest soils, including three natural forests and two re-vegetated forests. Soil samples were taken in two seasons (summer and winter) at two depth layers (surface and lower depths). A dataset of 179,600 reads obtained from 20 samples were analyzed to provide the microbial community structure, diversity, abundance, and relationship with physiochemical parameters. Both archaea and bacteria were detected in these samples and diazotrophic bacteria were the dominant members contributing to the biological dinitrogen fixation in the acidic forest soils. Cyanobacteria, Firmicutes, Proteobacteria, Spirocheates, and Verrucomicrobia were observed, especially the Proteobacteria as the most abundant phylum. The core genera were Bradyrhizobium and Methylobacterium from α-Proteobacteia, and Desulfovibrio from δ-Proteobacteia in the phylum of Proteobacteia of these samples. The diversity indices and the gene abundances of all samples were higher in the surface layer than the lower layer. Diversity was apparently higher in re-vegetated forests than the natural forests. Significant positive correlation to the organic matter and nitrogen-related parameters was observed, but there was no significant seasonal variation on the community structure and diversity in these samples between the summer and winter. The application of high-throughput sequencing method provides a better understanding and more comprehensive information of diazotrophs in acidic forest soils than conventional and PCR-based ones.}, }
@article {pmid30368579, year = {2019}, author = {Zhu, L and Liao, R and Wu, N and Zhu, G and Yang, C}, title = {Heat stress mediates changes in fecal microbiome and functional pathways of laying hens.}, journal = {Applied microbiology and biotechnology}, volume = {103}, number = {1}, pages = {461-472}, doi = {10.1007/s00253-018-9465-8}, pmid = {30368579}, issn = {1432-0614}, support = {CARS-40-K03//Agriculture Research System of China/ ; }, mesh = {Animals ; Chickens/*microbiology ; Feces/*microbiology ; Female ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/genetics/*physiology ; Heat-Shock Response/*physiology ; Lipids/blood ; Metabolic Networks and Pathways ; }, abstract = {Chicken gastrointestinal microbiota plays important roles in health, productivity, and disease. However, knowledge of the relationship between heat stress and the gut microbial ecosystem of poultry, especially laying hens, is still limited. Here, we aimed to provide important knowledge for heat stress intervention in the egg industry. We performed high-throughput sequencing metagenomics on fecal contents to unravel the microbial taxa and functional capacity of the gut microbiome of caged laying hens under heat stress. Results showed that the fecal microbial communities of laying hens were dominated by Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes, and Proteobacteria phyla. The Firmicutes were significantly decreased, and Bacteroidetes were increased in the fecal microbiota under heat stress. Functional prediction of these changes in microbiota revealed that metabolism-related pathways, including cysteine and methionine metabolism and benzoate degradation, were more abundant. Conversely, retinol metabolism and phenylpropanoid biosynthesis were decreased by heat stress, suggesting differences in metabolism between layers in different temperature environments. Clear contributions were identified between active taxa (genus level) and metabolic pathways, which were associated with the liver and intestinal dysfunction in layers. These data revealed that heat stress induced a significant taxonomic perturbation in the gut microbiome of caged laying hens. This was related to the negative effects of heat stress in poultry and provided important basic knowledge for heat stress intervention.}, }
@article {pmid30362076, year = {2019}, author = {Almeida, OGG and De Martinis, ECP}, title = {Bioinformatics tools to assess metagenomic data for applied microbiology.}, journal = {Applied microbiology and biotechnology}, volume = {103}, number = {1}, pages = {69-82}, doi = {10.1007/s00253-018-9464-9}, pmid = {30362076}, issn = {1432-0614}, support = {17/13759-6//Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo/ ; 6762/2006-4//Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (BR)/ ; }, mesh = {Biodiversity ; Computational Biology/*methods ; Gene Library ; High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing/methods ; Industrial Microbiology/*methods ; Metagenomics/*methods/statistics &amp; numerical data ; Phylogeny ; Quality Control ; }, abstract = {The reduction of the price of DNA sequencing has resulted in the emergence of large data sets to handle and analyze, especially in microbial ecosystems, which are characterized by high taxonomic and functional diversities. To assess the properties of these complex ecosystems, a conceptual background of the application of NGS technology and bioinformatics analysis to metagenomics is required. Accordingly, this article presents an overview of the evolution of knowledge of microbial ecology from traditional culture-dependent methods to culture-independent methods and the last frontier in knowledge, metagenomics. Topics that will be covered include sample preparation for NGS, starting with total DNA extraction and library preparation, followed by a brief discussion of the chemistry of NGS to help provide an understanding of which bioinformatics pipeline approach may be helpful for achieving a researcher's goals. The importance of selecting appropriate sequencing coverage and depth parameters to obtain a suitable measure of microbial diversity is discussed. As all DNA sequencing processes produce base-calling errors that compromise data analysis, including genome assembly and microbial functional analysis, dedicated software is presented and conceptually discussed with regard to potential applications in the general microbial ecology field.}, }
@article {pmid30354816, year = {2018}, author = {Ganesh, BP and Nelson, JW and Eskew, JR and Ganesan, A and Ajami, NJ and Petrosino, JF and Bryan, RM and Durgan, DJ}, title = {Prebiotics, Probiotics, and Acetate Supplementation Prevent Hypertension in a Model of Obstructive Sleep Apnea.}, journal = {Hypertension (Dallas, Tex. : 1979)}, volume = {72}, number = {5}, pages = {1141-1150}, pmid = {30354816}, issn = {1524-4563}, support = {P30 DK056338/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States ; R01 HL134838/HL/NHLBI NIH HHS/United States ; R01 NS080531/NS/NINDS NIH HHS/United States ; }, mesh = {Acetates/*therapeutic use ; Animals ; Blood Pressure/physiology ; Disease Models, Animal ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/physiology ; Hypertension/complications/*prevention &amp; control ; Male ; *Prebiotics ; *Probiotics ; Rats ; Rats, Long-Evans ; Sleep Apnea, Obstructive/*complications ; }, abstract = {Disruption of the gut microbiota, termed gut dysbiosis, has been described in animal models of hypertension and hypertensive patients. We have shown that gut dysbiosis plays a causal role in the development of hypertension in a rat model of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). Functional analysis of the dysbiotic microbiota in OSA demonstrates a loss of short chain fatty acid-producing bacteria. However, measurements of short chain fatty acid concentrations and testing of their role in blood pressure regulation are lacking. We hypothesized that reduced short chain fatty acids in the gut are responsible for OSA-induced hypertension. OSA significantly increased systolic blood pressure at 7 and 14 days (P<0.05), an effect that was abolished by the probiotic Clostridium butyricum or the prebiotic Hylon VII. The 16S rRNA analysis identified several short chain fatty acid-producing bacteria that were significantly increased by Cbutyricum and Hylon treatment. Acetate concentration in the cecum was decreased by 48% after OSA (P<0.05), an effect that was prevented by Cbutyricum and Hylon. Cbutyricum and Hylon reduced OSA-induced dysbiosis, epithelial goblet cell loss, mucus barrier thinning, and activation of brain microglia (P<0.05 for each). To examine the role of acetate in OSA-induced hypertension, we chronically infused acetate into the cecum during 2 weeks of sham or OSA. Restoring cecal acetate concentration prevented OSA-induced gut inflammation and hypertension (P<0.05). These studies identify acetate as a key player in OSA-induced hypertension. We demonstrate that various methods to increase cecal acetate concentrations are protective from the adverse effects of OSA on the microbiota, gut, brain, and blood pressure.}, }
@article {pmid30275573, year = {2018}, author = {Gonzalez, A and Navas-Molina, JA and Kosciolek, T and McDonald, D and Vázquez-Baeza, Y and Ackermann, G and DeReus, J and Janssen, S and Swafford, AD and Orchanian, SB and Sanders, JG and Shorenstein, J and Holste, H and Petrus, S and Robbins-Pianka, A and Brislawn, CJ and Wang, M and Rideout, JR and Bolyen, E and Dillon, M and Caporaso, JG and Dorrestein, PC and Knight, R}, title = {Qiita: rapid, web-enabled microbiome meta-analysis.}, journal = {Nature methods}, volume = {15}, number = {10}, pages = {796-798}, pmid = {30275573}, issn = {1548-7105}, support = {R01 HG004872/HG/NHGRI NIH HHS/United States ; R01 HL140976/HL/NHLBI NIH HHS/United States ; R01 MD011389/MD/NIMHD NIH HHS/United States ; }, mesh = {Computational Biology/*methods ; Humans ; *Internet ; *Metagenomics ; *Microbiota ; *Software ; User-Computer Interface ; }, abstract = {Multi-omic insights into microbiome function and composition typically advance one study at a time. However, in order for relationships across studies to be fully understood, data must be aggregated into meta-analyses. This makes it possible to generate new hypotheses by finding features that are reproducible across biospecimens and data layers. Qiita dramatically accelerates such integration tasks in a web-based microbiome-comparison platform, which we demonstrate with Human Microbiome Project and Integrative Human Microbiome Project (iHMP) data.}, }
@article {pmid29556105, year = {2018}, author = {Beller, HR and Rodrigues, AV and Zargar, K and Wu, YW and Saini, AK and Saville, RM and Pereira, JH and Adams, PD and Tringe, SG and Petzold, CJ and Keasling, JD}, title = {Discovery of enzymes for toluene synthesis from anoxic microbial communities.}, journal = {Nature chemical biology}, volume = {14}, number = {5}, pages = {451-457}, doi = {10.1038/s41589-018-0017-4}, pmid = {29556105}, issn = {1552-4469}, mesh = {Acidobacteria/enzymology/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Anaerobiosis ; Bacteria/*enzymology/genetics ; Biomass ; Carboxy-Lyases/metabolism ; Catalysis ; Genes, Bacterial ; Geologic Sediments/microbiology ; Lakes/microbiology ; Lignin/chemistry ; Likelihood Functions ; Metagenomics ; *Microbiota ; Phenylacetates/chemistry ; Phylogeny ; Proteomics ; Recombinant Proteins/metabolism ; Sewage/microbiology ; Toluene/*metabolism ; }, abstract = {Microbial toluene biosynthesis was reported in anoxic lake sediments more than three decades ago, but the enzyme catalyzing this biochemically challenging reaction has never been identified. Here we report the toluene-producing enzyme PhdB, a glycyl radical enzyme of bacterial origin that catalyzes phenylacetate decarboxylation, and its cognate activating enzyme PhdA, a radical S-adenosylmethionine enzyme, discovered in two distinct anoxic microbial communities that produce toluene. The unconventional process of enzyme discovery from a complex microbial community (>300,000 genes), rather than from a microbial isolate, involved metagenomics- and metaproteomics-enabled biochemistry, as well as in vitro confirmation of activity with recombinant enzymes. This work expands the known catalytic range of glycyl radical enzymes (only seven reaction types had been characterized previously) and aromatic-hydrocarbon-producing enzymes, and will enable first-time biochemical synthesis of an aromatic fuel hydrocarbon from renewable resources, such as lignocellulosic biomass, rather than from petroleum.}, }
@article {pmid30936548, year = {2019}, author = {Thomas, AM and Manghi, P and Asnicar, F and Pasolli, E and Armanini, F and Zolfo, M and Beghini, F and Manara, S and Karcher, N and Pozzi, C and Gandini, S and Serrano, D and Tarallo, S and Francavilla, A and Gallo, G and Trompetto, M and Ferrero, G and Mizutani, S and Shiroma, H and Shiba, S and Shibata, T and Yachida, S and Yamada, T and Wirbel, J and Schrotz-King, P and Ulrich, CM and Brenner, H and Arumugam, M and Bork, P and Zeller, G and Cordero, F and Dias-Neto, E and Setubal, JC and Tett, A and Pardini, B and Rescigno, M and Waldron, L and Naccarati, A and Segata, N}, title = {Metagenomic analysis of colorectal cancer datasets identifies cross-cohort microbial diagnostic signatures and a link with choline degradation.}, journal = {Nature medicine}, volume = {25}, number = {4}, pages = {667-678}, doi = {10.1038/s41591-019-0405-7}, pmid = {30936548}, issn = {1546-170X}, mesh = {Biomarkers, Tumor/metabolism ; Choline/*metabolism ; Cohort Studies ; Colorectal Neoplasms/diagnosis/*metabolism/*microbiology ; Databases, Genetic ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; Humans ; Lyases/genetics/metabolism ; *Metagenomics ; Species Specificity ; }, abstract = {Several studies have investigated links between the gut microbiome and colorectal cancer (CRC), but questions remain about the replicability of biomarkers across cohorts and populations. We performed a meta-analysis of five publicly available datasets and two new cohorts and validated the findings on two additional cohorts, considering in total 969 fecal metagenomes. Unlike microbiome shifts associated with gastrointestinal syndromes, the gut microbiome in CRC showed reproducibly higher richness than controls (P < 0.01), partially due to expansions of species typically derived from the oral cavity. Meta-analysis of the microbiome functional potential identified gluconeogenesis and the putrefaction and fermentation pathways as being associated with CRC, whereas the stachyose and starch degradation pathways were associated with controls. Predictive microbiome signatures for CRC trained on multiple datasets showed consistently high accuracy in datasets not considered for model training and independent validation cohorts (average area under the curve, 0.84). Pooled analysis of raw metagenomes showed that the choline trimethylamine-lyase gene was overabundant in CRC (P = 0.001), identifying a relationship between microbiome choline metabolism and CRC. The combined analysis of heterogeneous CRC cohorts thus identified reproducible microbiome biomarkers and accurate disease-predictive models that can form the basis for clinical prognostic tests and hypothesis-driven mechanistic studies.}, }
@article {pmid29942096, year = {2018}, author = {Hoyles, L and Fernández-Real, JM and Federici, M and Serino, M and Abbott, J and Charpentier, J and Heymes, C and Luque, JL and Anthony, E and Barton, RH and Chilloux, J and Myridakis, A and Martinez-Gili, L and Moreno-Navarrete, JM and Benhamed, F and Azalbert, V and Blasco-Baque, V and Puig, J and Xifra, G and Ricart, W and Tomlinson, C and Woodbridge, M and Cardellini, M and Davato, F and Cardolini, I and Porzio, O and Gentileschi, P and Lopez, F and Foufelle, F and Butcher, SA and Holmes, E and Nicholson, JK and Postic, C and Burcelin, R and Dumas, ME}, title = {Molecular phenomics and metagenomics of hepatic steatosis in non-diabetic obese women.}, journal = {Nature medicine}, volume = {24}, number = {7}, pages = {1070-1080}, pmid = {29942096}, issn = {1546-170X}, support = {MR/L01632X/1//Medical Research Council/United Kingdom ; MR/M501797/1//Medical Research Council/United Kingdom ; }, mesh = {Animals ; Cells, Cultured ; Cohort Studies ; Confounding Factors (Epidemiology) ; Diabetes Mellitus/*genetics ; Fecal Microbiota Transplantation ; Female ; Hepatocytes/metabolism ; Humans ; Metabolome ; Metabolomics ; *Metagenomics ; Mice ; Microbiota ; Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease/*genetics ; Obesity/*genetics ; Phenotype ; Transcriptome/genetics ; }, abstract = {Hepatic steatosis is a multifactorial condition that is often observed in obese patients and is a prelude to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Here, we combine shotgun sequencing of fecal metagenomes with molecular phenomics (hepatic transcriptome and plasma and urine metabolomes) in two well-characterized cohorts of morbidly obese women recruited to the FLORINASH study. We reveal molecular networks linking the gut microbiome and the host phenome to hepatic steatosis. Patients with steatosis have low microbial gene richness and increased genetic potential for the processing of dietary lipids and endotoxin biosynthesis (notably from Proteobacteria), hepatic inflammation and dysregulation of aromatic and branched-chain amino acid metabolism. We demonstrated that fecal microbiota transplants and chronic treatment with phenylacetic acid, a microbial product of aromatic amino acid metabolism, successfully trigger steatosis and branched-chain amino acid metabolism. Molecular phenomic signatures were predictive (area under the curve = 87%) and consistent with the gut microbiome having an effect on the steatosis phenome (>75% shared variation) and, therefore, actionable via microbiome-based therapies.}, }
@article {pmid29702634, year = {2018}, author = {Eisenstein, M}, title = {Microbiology: making the best of PCR bias.}, journal = {Nature methods}, volume = {15}, number = {5}, pages = {317-320}, pmid = {29702634}, issn = {1548-7105}, mesh = {DNA, Bacterial/genetics ; *Metagenomics ; Microbiota/*genetics ; Polymerase Chain Reaction/*methods ; Selection Bias ; }, }
@article {pmid29045670, year = {2018}, author = {Houghton, D and Stewart, CJ and Stamp, C and Nelson, A and Aj Ami, NJ and Petrosino, JF and Wipat, A and Trenell, MI and Turnbull, DM and Greaves, LC}, title = {Impact of Age-Related Mitochondrial Dysfunction and Exercise on Intestinal Microbiota Composition.}, journal = {The journals of gerontology. Series A, Biological sciences and medical sciences}, volume = {73}, number = {5}, pages = {571-578}, pmid = {29045670}, issn = {1758-535X}, support = {G0700718//Medical Research Council/United Kingdom ; MR/L016354/1//Medical Research Council/United Kingdom ; P30 DK056338/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States ; SRF-2011-04-017//Department of Health/United Kingdom ; //Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council/United Kingdom ; }, mesh = {Aging/*physiology ; Animals ; Feces/microbiology ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; Mice ; Mitochondrial Diseases/*physiopathology ; *Physical Conditioning, Animal ; Random Allocation ; Sedentary Behavior ; }, abstract = {Mitochondrial dysfunction is prevalent in the aging gastrointestinal tract. We investigated whether mitochondrial function in aging colonic crypts and exercise influences microbial gut communities in mice. Twelve PolgAmut/mut mice were randomly divided into a sedentary and exercise group at 4 months. Seven-aged matched PolgA+/+ mice remained sedentary throughout. Stool samples were collected at 4, 7, and 11 months, and bacterial profiling was achieved through 16S rRNA sequencing profiling. Mitochondrial enzyme activity was assessed in colonic epithelial crypts at 11 months for PolgAmut/mut and PolgA+/+ mice. Sedentary and exercised PolgAmut/mut mice had significantly higher levels of mitochondrial dysfunction than PolgA+/+ mice (78%, 77%, and 1% of crypts, respectively). Bacterial profiles of sedentary PolgAmut/mut mice were significantly different from the sedentary PolgA+/+ mice, with increases in Lactobacillus and Mycoplasma, and decreases in Alistipes, Odoribacter, Anaeroplasma, Rikenella, Parabacteroides, and Allobaculum in the PolgAmut/mut mice. Exercise did not have any impact upon gut mitochondrial dysfunction; however, exercise did increase gut microbiota diversity and significantly increased bacterial genera Mucispirillum and Desulfovibrio. Mitochondrial dysfunction is associated with changes in the gut microbiota. Endurance exercise moderated some of these changes, establishing that environmental factors can influence gut microbiota, despite mitochondrial dysfunction.}, }
@article {pmid28967193, year = {2018}, author = {De Corte, D and Srivastava, A and Koski, M and Garcia, JAL and Takaki, Y and Yokokawa, T and Nunoura, T and Elisabeth, NH and Sintes, E and Herndl, GJ}, title = {Metagenomic insights into zooplankton-associated bacterial communities.}, journal = {Environmental microbiology}, volume = {20}, number = {2}, pages = {492-505}, pmid = {28967193}, issn = {1462-2920}, support = {268595//European Research Council/International ; }, mesh = {Animals ; Atlantic Ocean ; Bacteria/classification/*genetics/isolation &amp; purification/*metabolism ; *Metagenome ; Metagenomics ; Microbiota/genetics ; Phylogeny ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Seawater/microbiology ; Zooplankton/*microbiology ; }, abstract = {Zooplankton and microbes play a key role in the ocean's biological cycles by releasing and consuming copious amounts of particulate and dissolved organic matter. Additionally, zooplankton provide a complex microhabitat rich in organic and inorganic nutrients in which bacteria thrive. In this study, we assessed the phylogenetic composition and metabolic potential of microbial communities associated with crustacean zooplankton species collected in the North Atlantic. Using Illumina sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene, we found significant differences between the microbial communities associated with zooplankton and those inhabiting the surrounding seawater. Metagenomic analysis of the zooplankton-associated microbial community revealed a highly specialized bacterial community able to exploit zooplankton as microhabitat and thus, mediating biogeochemical processes generally underrepresented in the open ocean. The zooplankton-associated bacterial community is able to colonize the zooplankton's internal and external surfaces using a large set of adhesion mechanisms and to metabolize complex organic compounds released or exuded by the zooplankton such as chitin, taurine and other complex molecules. Moreover, the high number of genes involved in iron and phosphorus metabolisms in the zooplankton-associated microbiome suggests that this zooplankton-associated bacterial community mediates specific biogeochemical processes (through the proliferation of specific taxa) that are generally underrepresented in the ambient waters.}, }
@article {pmid28874832, year = {2017}, author = {Minter, MR and Hinterleitner, R and Meisel, M and Zhang, C and Leone, V and Zhang, X and Oyler-Castrillo, P and Zhang, X and Musch, MW and Shen, X and Jabri, B and Chang, EB and Tanzi, RE and Sisodia, SS}, title = {Antibiotic-induced perturbations in microbial diversity during post-natal development alters amyloid pathology in an aged APPSWE/PS1ΔE9 murine model of Alzheimer's disease.}, journal = {Scientific reports}, volume = {7}, number = {1}, pages = {10411}, pmid = {28874832}, issn = {2045-2322}, support = {P30 DK042086/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States ; }, mesh = {Alzheimer Disease/*etiology/metabolism/pathology ; Amyloid beta-Protein Precursor/*genetics/metabolism ; Amyloidosis/*genetics/metabolism/pathology ; Animals ; Anti-Bacterial Agents/*pharmacology ; Biodiversity ; Biomarkers ; Brain/metabolism/pathology ; Disease Models, Animal ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; Inflammation Mediators/metabolism ; Male ; Metagenome ; Metagenomics/methods ; Mice ; Mice, Transgenic ; Microbiota/*drug effects ; Neuroimmunomodulation/drug effects/genetics/immunology ; Plaque, Amyloid/etiology/metabolism/pathology ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; }, abstract = {Recent evidence suggests the commensal microbiome regulates host immunity and influences brain function; findings that have ramifications for neurodegenerative diseases. In the context of Alzheimer's disease (AD), we previously reported that perturbations in microbial diversity induced by life-long combinatorial antibiotic (ABX) selection pressure in the APPSWE/PS1ΔE9 mouse model of amyloidosis is commensurate with reductions in amyloid-β (Aβ) plaque pathology and plaque-localised gliosis. Considering microbiota-host interactions, specifically during early post-natal development, are critical for immune- and neuro-development we now examine the impact of microbial community perturbations induced by acute ABX exposure exclusively during this period in APPSWE/PS1ΔE9 mice. We show that early post-natal (P) ABX treatment (P14-P21) results in long-term alterations of gut microbial genera (predominantly Lachnospiraceae and S24-7) and reduction in brain Aβ deposition in aged APPSWE/PS1ΔE9 mice. These mice exhibit elevated levels of blood- and brain-resident Foxp3+ T-regulatory cells and display an alteration in the inflammatory milieu of the serum and cerebrospinal fluid. Finally, we confirm that plaque-localised microglia and astrocytes are reduced in ABX-exposed mice. These findings suggest that ABX-induced microbial diversity perturbations during post-natal stages of development coincide with altered host immunity mechanisms and amyloidosis in a murine model of AD.}, }
@article {pmid28860611, year = {2017}, author = {Bhat, M and Pasini, E and Copeland, J and Angeli, M and Husain, S and Kumar, D and Renner, E and Teterina, A and Allard, J and Guttman, DS and Humar, A}, title = {Impact of Immunosuppression on the Metagenomic Composition of the Intestinal Microbiome: a Systems Biology Approach to Post-Transplant Diabetes.}, journal = {Scientific reports}, volume = {7}, number = {1}, pages = {10277}, pmid = {28860611}, issn = {2045-2322}, mesh = {Animals ; Computational Biology/methods ; Diabetes Mellitus/etiology ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/*immunology ; Gene Ontology ; Humans ; Hyperglycemia/etiology ; Immunosuppression/*adverse effects ; Immunosuppressive Agents/adverse effects/therapeutic use ; Insulin Resistance ; Male ; *Metagenome ; *Metagenomics/methods ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S ; Rats ; Sirolimus/adverse effects/therapeutic use ; Systems Biology/methods ; Tacrolimus/adverse effects/therapeutic use ; Transplantation/adverse effects ; }, abstract = {Solid organ transplantation (SOT) outcomes have continued to improve, although long-term use of immunosuppressants can lead to complications such as diabetes, compromising post-transplant outcomes. In this study, we have characterized the intestinal microbiome (IM) composition at the metagenomic level in the context of hyperglycemia induced by immunosuppressants. Sprague-Dawley rats were subjected to doses of tacrolimus and sirolimus that reliably induce hyperglycemia and an insulin-resistant state. Subsequent exposure to probiotics resulted in reversal of hyperglycemia. 16S rRNA and metagenomic sequencing of stool were done to identify the bacterial genes and pathways enriched in immunosuppression. Bacterial diversity was significantly decreased in sirolimus-treated rats, with 9 taxa significantly less present in both immunosuppression groups: Roseburia, Oscillospira, Mollicutes, Rothia, Micrococcaceae, Actinomycetales and Staphylococcus. Following probiotics, these changes were reversed to baseline. At the metagenomic level, the balance of metabolism was shifted towards the catabolic side with an increase of genes involved in sucrose degradation, similar to diabetes. Conversely, the control rats had greater abundance of anabolic processes and genes involved in starch degradation. Immunosuppression leads to a more catabolic microbial profile, which may influence development of diabetes after SOT. Modulation of the microbiome with probiotics may help in minimizing adverse long-term effects of immunosuppression.}, }
@article {pmid30582999, year = {2019}, author = {Snowdon, RJ and Schiessl, S}, title = {Illuminating Crop Adaptation Using Population Genomics.}, journal = {Molecular plant}, volume = {12}, number = {1}, pages = {27-29}, doi = {10.1016/j.molp.2018.12.014}, pmid = {30582999}, issn = {1752-9867}, mesh = {Adaptation, Physiological/genetics ; Brassica rapa/*genetics ; Ecotype ; Genome ; Genomics ; Metagenomics ; }, }
@article {pmid30397356, year = {2018}, author = {Sun, L and Xie, C and Wang, G and Wu, Y and Wu, Q and Wang, X and Liu, J and Deng, Y and Xia, J and Chen, B and Zhang, S and Yun, C and Lian, G and Zhang, X and Zhang, H and Bisson, WH and Shi, J and Gao, X and Ge, P and Liu, C and Krausz, KW and Nichols, RG and Cai, J and Rimal, B and Patterson, AD and Wang, X and Gonzalez, FJ and Jiang, C}, title = {Gut microbiota and intestinal FXR mediate the clinical benefits of metformin.}, journal = {Nature medicine}, volume = {24}, number = {12}, pages = {1919-1929}, doi = {10.1038/s41591-018-0222-4}, pmid = {30397356}, issn = {1546-170X}, support = {T32 LM012415/LM/NLM NIH HHS/United States ; Z01 BC005561-20//NULL/International ; Z01 BC005561-21//NULL/International ; }, mesh = {Bacteroides/drug effects/pathogenicity ; Bile Acids and Salts/metabolism ; Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2/*drug therapy/genetics/microbiology/pathology ; Diet, High-Fat/adverse effects ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/*drug effects/genetics ; Gene Expression Regulation, Bacterial/drug effects ; Glucose Intolerance/drug therapy/genetics/microbiology ; Humans ; Hyperglycemia/drug therapy/genetics/microbiology/pathology ; Metabolome/drug effects/genetics ; Metagenomics/methods ; Metformin/*administration &amp; dosage ; Obesity/*drug therapy/genetics/microbiology/pathology ; Receptors, Cytoplasmic and Nuclear/*genetics ; Ursodeoxycholic Acid/analogs &amp; derivatives ; }, abstract = {The anti-hyperglycemic effect of metformin is believed to be caused by its direct action on signaling processes in hepatocytes, leading to lower hepatic gluconeogenesis. Recently, metformin was reported to alter the gut microbiota community in humans, suggesting that the hyperglycemia-lowering action of the drug could be the result of modulating the population of gut microbiota. However, the critical microbial signaling metabolites and the host targets associated with the metabolic benefits of metformin remained elusive. Here, we performed metagenomic and metabolomic analysis of samples from individuals with newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes (T2D) naively treated with metformin for 3 d, which revealed that Bacteroides fragilis was decreased and the bile acid glycoursodeoxycholic acid (GUDCA) was increased in the gut. These changes were accompanied by inhibition of intestinal farnesoid X receptor (FXR) signaling. We further found that high-fat-diet (HFD)-fed mice colonized with B. fragilis were predisposed to more severe glucose intolerance, and the metabolic benefits of metformin treatment on glucose intolerance were abrogated. GUDCA was further identified as an intestinal FXR antagonist that improved various metabolic endpoints in mice with established obesity. Thus, we conclude that metformin acts in part through a B. fragilis-GUDCA-intestinal FXR axis to improve metabolic dysfunction, including hyperglycemia.}, }
@article {pmid29531366, year = {2018}, author = {Garza, DR and van Verk, MC and Huynen, MA and Dutilh, BE}, title = {Towards predicting the environmental metabolome from metagenomics with a mechanistic model.}, journal = {Nature microbiology}, volume = {3}, number = {4}, pages = {456-460}, doi = {10.1038/s41564-018-0124-8}, pmid = {29531366}, issn = {2058-5276}, mesh = {Bacteria/classification/genetics/*metabolism ; Colon/*microbiology ; Female ; Humans ; Metabolome/*genetics ; Metagenomics/methods ; Microbiota/*genetics ; Models, Biological ; Molecular Sequence Annotation ; Mouth/*microbiology ; Skin/*microbiology ; Vagina/*microbiology ; }, abstract = {The environmental metabolome and metabolic potential of microorganisms are dominant and essential factors shaping microbial community composition. Recent advances in genome annotation and systems biology now allow us to semiautomatically reconstruct genome-scale metabolic models (GSMMs) of microorganisms based on their genome sequence 1 . Next, growth of these models in a defined metabolic environment can be predicted in silico, mechanistically linking the metabolic fluxes of individual microbial populations to the community dynamics. A major advantage of GSMMs is that no training data is needed, besides information about the metabolic capacity of individual genes (genome annotation) and knowledge of the available environmental metabolites that allow the microorganism to grow. However, the composition of the environment is often not fully determined and remains difficult to measure 2 . We hypothesized that the relative abundance of different bacterial species, as measured by metagenomics, can be combined with GSMMs of individual bacteria to reveal the metabolic status of a given biome. Using a newly developed algorithm involving over 1,500 GSMMs of human-associated bacteria, we inferred distinct metabolomes for four human body sites that are consistent with experimental data. Together, we link the metagenome to the metabolome in a mechanistic framework towards predictive microbiome modelling.}, }
@article {pmid30736849, year = {2019}, author = {Fritz, A and Hofmann, P and Majda, S and Dahms, E and Dröge, J and Fiedler, J and Lesker, TR and Belmann, P and DeMaere, MZ and Darling, AE and Sczyrba, A and Bremges, A and McHardy, AC}, title = {CAMISIM: simulating metagenomes and microbial communities.}, journal = {Microbiome}, volume = {7}, number = {1}, pages = {17}, doi = {10.1186/s40168-019-0633-6}, pmid = {30736849}, issn = {2049-2618}, mesh = {Algorithms ; Animals ; *Computer Simulation ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/*genetics ; Humans ; Metagenome/*genetics ; Metagenomics/*methods ; Mice ; Models, Biological ; Sequence Analysis, DNA/methods ; Software ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: Shotgun metagenome data sets of microbial communities are highly diverse, not only due to the natural variation of the underlying biological systems, but also due to differences in laboratory protocols, replicate numbers, and sequencing technologies. Accordingly, to effectively assess the performance of metagenomic analysis software, a wide range of benchmark data sets are required.<br><br>RESULTS: We describe the CAMISIM microbial community and metagenome simulator. The software can model different microbial abundance profiles, multi-sample time series, and differential abundance studies, includes real and simulated strain-level diversity, and generates second- and third-generation sequencing data from taxonomic profiles or de novo. Gold standards are created for sequence assembly, genome binning, taxonomic binning, and taxonomic profiling. CAMSIM generated the benchmark data sets of the first CAMI challenge. For two simulated multi-sample data sets of the human and mouse gut microbiomes, we observed high functional congruence to the real data. As further applications, we investigated the effect of varying evolutionary genome divergence, sequencing depth, and read error profiles on two popular metagenome assemblers, MEGAHIT, and metaSPAdes, on several thousand small data sets generated with CAMISIM.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: CAMISIM can simulate a wide variety of microbial communities and metagenome data sets together with standards of truth for method evaluation. All data sets and the software are freely available at https://github.com/CAMI-challenge/CAMISIM.}, }
@article {pmid30728080, year = {2019}, author = {Yu, K and Yi, S and Li, B and Guo, F and Peng, X and Wang, Z and Wu, Y and Alvarez-Cohen, L and Zhang, T}, title = {An integrated meta-omics approach reveals substrates involved in synergistic interactions in a bisphenol A (BPA)-degrading microbial community.}, journal = {Microbiome}, volume = {7}, number = {1}, pages = {16}, doi = {10.1186/s40168-019-0634-5}, pmid = {30728080}, issn = {2049-2618}, mesh = {Alcaligenaceae/genetics/isolation &amp; purification/*metabolism ; Benzhydryl Compounds/*metabolism ; *Biodegradation, Environmental ; Metagenomics ; Microbial Interactions/physiology ; Microbiota/physiology ; Phenols/*metabolism ; Pseudomonas/genetics/isolation &amp; purification/*metabolism ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Sphingomonas/genetics/isolation &amp; purification/*metabolism ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: Understanding microbial interactions in engineering bioprocesses is important to enhance and optimize performance outcomes and requires dissection of the multi-layer complexities of microbial communities. However, unraveling microbial interactions as well as substrates involved in complex microbial communities is a challenging task. Here, we demonstrate an integrated approach of metagenomics, metatranscriptomics, and targeted metabolite analysis to identify the substrates involved in interspecies interactions from a potential cross-feeding model community-bisphenol A (BPA)-biodegrading community, aiming to establish an identification method of microbial interactions in engineering or environmental bioprocesses.<br><br>RESULTS: The community-level BPA-metabolic pathway was constructed using integrated metagenomics and targeted metabolite analyses. The dynamics of active functions and metabolism of major community members were identified using metagenomic and metatranscriptomic analyses in concert. Correlating the community BPA biodegradation performance to the individual bacterial activities enabled the discovery of substrates involved in a synergistic interaction of cross-feeding between BPA-degrading Sphingonomas species and intermediate users, Pseudomonas sp. and Pusillimonas sp. This proposed synergistic interaction was confirmed by the co-culture of a Sphingonomas sp. and Pseudomonas sp. isolates, which demonstrated enhanced BPA biodegradation compared to the isolate of Sphingonomas sp. alone.<br><br>CONCLUSION: The three types of integrated meta-omics analyses effectively revealed the metabolic capability at both community-wide and individual bacterial levels. The correlation between these two levels revealed the hidden connection between apparent overall community performance and the contributions of individual community members and their interactions in a BPA-degrading microbial community. In addition, we demonstrated that using integrated multi-omics in conjunction with culture-based confirmation approach is effective to elucidate the microbial interactions affecting the performance outcome. We foresee this approach would contribute the future application and operation of environmental bioprocesses on a knowledge-based control.}, }
@article {pmid30696492, year = {2019}, author = {Cernava, T and Erlacher, A and Soh, J and Sensen, CW and Grube, M and Berg, G}, title = {Enterobacteriaceae dominate the core microbiome and contribute to the resistome of arugula (Eruca sativa Mill.).}, journal = {Microbiome}, volume = {7}, number = {1}, pages = {13}, doi = {10.1186/s40168-019-0624-7}, pmid = {30696492}, issn = {2049-2618}, mesh = {Anti-Bacterial Agents/pharmacology ; Base Sequence ; Brassicaceae/*microbiology ; Drug Resistance, Bacterial/genetics ; Enterobacteriaceae/*classification/genetics/*isolation &amp; purification ; Foodborne Diseases/microbiology ; Metagenome/*genetics ; Microbial Sensitivity Tests ; Microbiota/*genetics ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Sequence Analysis, DNA ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: Arugula is a traditional medicinal plant and popular leafy green today. It is mainly consumed raw in the Western cuisine and known to contain various bioactive secondary metabolites. However, arugula has been also associated with high-profile outbreaks causing severe food-borne human diseases. A multiphasic approach integrating data from metagenomics, amplicon sequencing, and arugula-derived bacterial cultures was employed to understand the specificity of the indigenous microbiome and resistome of the edible plant parts.<br><br>RESULTS: Our results indicate that arugula is colonized by a diverse, plant habitat-specific microbiota. The indigenous phyllosphere bacterial community was shown to be dominated by Enterobacteriaceae, which are well-equipped with various antibiotic resistances. Unexpectedly, the prevalence of specific resistance mechanisms targeting therapeutic antibiotics (fluoroquinolone, chloramphenicol, phenicol, macrolide, aminocoumarin) was only surpassed by efflux pump assignments.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: Enterobacteria, being core microbiome members of arugula, have a substantial implication in the overall resistome. Detailed insights into the natural occurrence of antibiotic resistances in arugula-associated microorganisms showed that the plant is a hotspot for distinctive defense mechanisms. The specific functioning of microorganisms in this unusual ecosystem provides a unique model to study antibiotic resistances in an ecological context.}, }
@article {pmid30529583, year = {2019}, author = {Paramsothy, S and Nielsen, S and Kamm, MA and Deshpande, NP and Faith, JJ and Clemente, JC and Paramsothy, R and Walsh, AJ and van den Bogaerde, J and Samuel, D and Leong, RWL and Connor, S and Ng, W and Lin, E and Borody, TJ and Wilkins, MR and Colombel, JF and Mitchell, HM and Kaakoush, NO}, title = {Specific Bacteria and Metabolites Associated With Response to Fecal Microbiota Transplantation in Patients With Ulcerative Colitis.}, journal = {Gastroenterology}, volume = {156}, number = {5}, pages = {1440-1454.e2}, doi = {10.1053/j.gastro.2018.12.001}, pmid = {30529583}, issn = {1528-0012}, mesh = {Bacteria/classification/genetics/growth &amp; development/*metabolism ; Biomarkers/metabolism ; Colitis, Ulcerative/diagnosis/microbiology/*therapy ; Double-Blind Method ; Fecal Microbiota Transplantation/adverse effects ; Feces/microbiology ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; Humans ; Metabolomics ; New South Wales ; Remission Induction ; Ribotyping ; Time Factors ; Treatment Outcome ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND &amp; AIMS: Fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) can induce remission in patients with ulcerative colitis (UC). In a randomized controlled trial of FMT in patients with active UC, we aimed to identify bacterial taxonomic and functional factors associated with response to therapy.<br><br>METHODS: We performed a double-blind trial of 81 patients with active UC randomly assigned to groups that received an initial colonoscopic infusion and then intensive multidonor FMT or placebo enemas, 5 d/wk for 8 weeks. Patients in the FMT group received blended homogenized stool from 3-7 unrelated donors. Patients in the placebo group were eligible to receive open-label FMT after the double-blind study period. We collected 314 fecal samples from the patients at screening, every 4 weeks during treatment, and 8 weeks after the blinded or open-label FMT therapy. We also collected 160 large-bowel biopsy samples from the patients at study entry, at completion of 8 weeks of blinded therapy, and at the end of open-label FMT, if applicable. We analyzed 105 fecal samples from the 14 individual donors (n = 55), who in turn contributed to 21 multidonor batches (n = 50). Bacteria in colonic and fecal samples were analyzed by both 16S ribosomal RNA gene and transcript amplicon sequencing; 285 fecal samples were analyzed by shotgun metagenomics, and 60 fecal samples were analyzed for metabolome features.<br><br>RESULTS: FMT increased microbial diversity and altered composition, based on analyses of colon and fecal samples collected before vs after FMT. Diversity was greater in fecal and colon samples collected before and after FMT treatment from patients who achieved remission compared with patients who did not. Patients in remission after FMT had enrichment of Eubacterium hallii and Roseburia inulivorans compared with patients who did not achieve remission after FMT and had increased levels of short-chain fatty acid biosynthesis and secondary bile acids. Patients who did not achieve remission had enrichment of Fusobacterium gonidiaformans, Sutterella wadsworthensis, and Escherichia species and increased levels of heme and lipopolysaccharide biosynthesis. Bacteroides in donor stool were associated with remission in patients receiving FMT, and Streptococcus species in donor stool was associated with no response to FMT.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: In an analysis of fecal and colonic mucosa samples from patients receiving FMT for active UC and stool samples from donors, we associated specific bacteria and metabolic pathways with induction of remission. These findings may be of value in the design of microbe-based therapies for UC. ClinicalTrials.gov, Number NCT01896635.}, }
@article {pmid29783945, year = {2018}, author = {Westreich, ST and Treiber, ML and Mills, DA and Korf, I and Lemay, DG}, title = {SAMSA2: a standalone metatranscriptome analysis pipeline.}, journal = {BMC bioinformatics}, volume = {19}, number = {1}, pages = {175}, pmid = {29783945}, issn = {1471-2105}, support = {T32-GM008799/NH/NIH HHS/United States ; T32 GM008799/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/United States ; R01AT008759/NH/NIH HHS/United States ; R01 AT008759/AT/NCCIH NIH HHS/United States ; }, mesh = {Gene Expression Profiling/*methods ; High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing/*methods ; Metagenomics/*methods ; Microbiota/genetics ; Sequence Analysis, RNA/*methods ; *Software ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: Complex microbial communities are an area of growing interest in biology. Metatranscriptomics allows researchers to quantify microbial gene expression in an environmental sample via high-throughput sequencing. Metatranscriptomic experiments are computationally intensive because the experiments generate a large volume of sequence data and each sequence must be compared with reference sequences from thousands of organisms.<br><br>RESULTS: SAMSA2 is an upgrade to the original Simple Annotation of Metatranscriptomes by Sequence Analysis (SAMSA) pipeline that has been redesigned for standalone use on a supercomputing cluster. SAMSA2 is faster due to the use of the DIAMOND aligner, and more flexible and reproducible because it uses local databases. SAMSA2 is available with detailed documentation, and example input and output files along with examples of master scripts for full pipeline execution.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: SAMSA2 is a rapid and efficient metatranscriptome pipeline for analyzing large RNA-seq datasets in a supercomputing cluster environment. SAMSA2 provides simplified output that can be examined directly or used for further analyses, and its reference databases may be upgraded, altered or customized to fit the needs of any experiment.}, }
@article {pmid29779275, year = {2018}, author = {Sun, TZ and Teng, F and Jia, SB and Tang, YP and Jiang, M and Huang, S and Yuan, X and Li, XL and Yang, F}, title = {[Salivary microbial communities associated with severe early childhood caries].}, journal = {Hua xi kou qiang yi xue za zhi = Huaxi kouqiang yixue zazhi = West China journal of stomatology}, volume = {36}, number = {2}, pages = {150-155}, doi = {10.7518/hxkq.2018.02.007}, pmid = {29779275}, issn = {1000-1182}, mesh = {Child ; Child, Preschool ; *Dental Caries/microbiology ; Humans ; Metagenomics ; *Microbiota/genetics ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S ; Saliva ; }, abstract = {OBJECTIVE: To compare the salivary microbial profiles of healthy subjects and those with severe early childhood caries (S-ECC) by using high-throughput sequencing.<br><br>METHODS: Salivary samples were obtained from children with S-ECC (group C, n=24) and healthy children (group H, n=24). Total metagenomic DNA was extracted, and DNA amplicons of the V1-V3 hypervariable region of the 16S rRNA gene were generated and subjected to 454 sequencing. The characteristics of oral microbial communities from the two groups were compared based on microbial diversity and taxonomy assignment.<br><br>RESULTS: First, the microbial richness was significantly higher in group C than group H (P<0.05). Second, the microbial community structure was significantly different for the groups H and C (P<0.01). In addition, caries microbiota was significantly conserved in group C (P<0.001). High expression of suspected cariogenic microorganisms in group C (P<0.1) and health related microorganisms in group H (P<0.1) were identified. Finally, models of caries risk assessment were proposed to distinguish caries from healthy subjects with over 70% accuracy.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: Salivary microbiota and certain taxa, such as caries-associated taxa (Prevotella), may be useful to screen/assess the children's risk of developing caries.}, }
@article {pmid29689301, year = {2018}, author = {Connelly, S and Subramanian, P and Hasan, NA and Colwell, RR and Kaleko, M}, title = {Distinct consequences of amoxicillin and ertapenem exposure in the porcine gut microbiome.}, journal = {Anaerobe}, volume = {53}, number = {}, pages = {82-93}, doi = {10.1016/j.anaerobe.2018.04.012}, pmid = {29689301}, issn = {1095-8274}, mesh = {Administration, Intravenous ; Administration, Oral ; Amoxicillin/*administration &amp; dosage ; Animals ; Anti-Bacterial Agents/*administration &amp; dosage ; Drug Resistance, Bacterial/drug effects ; Ertapenem/*administration &amp; dosage ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/*drug effects ; Genes, Bacterial ; Membrane Transport Proteins/genetics ; Metagenomics ; Swine ; beta-Lactamases/genetics ; }, abstract = {The gut microbiome influences many, if not all, aspects of human health. Antibiotics, while lifesaving, have the unintended consequence of killing commensal microbiota inhabiting the gastrointestinal (GI) tract, which can lead to overgrowth of opportunistic pathogens such as Clostridium difficile and emergence of antibiotic-resistant organisms. Here, porcine models were developed to evaluate changes to the gut microbiome caused by two distinct types of beta-lactam antibiotics delivered via common administration routes, oral amoxicillin and intravenous ertapenem. Amoxicillin is one of the most often used broad-spectrum antibiotics, frequently prescribed to young children. Ertapenem, a carbapenem considered a last resort antibiotic, is used sparingly in humans and prohibited for use in animals. Cohorts of normal pigs (n = 5) were treated with amoxicillin (20 mg/kg, PO, BID) or ertapenem (30 mg/kg, IV, SID) for seven days. Microbiomes were evaluated using whole genome shotgun metagenomics analyses of fecal DNA collected prior to, during, and after antibiotic treatment. Each antibiotic resulted in significant and distinct changes in the microbiome, causing elimination of key commensal bacterial species and overgrowth of other, potentially pathogenic taxa. In addition, amoxicillin promoted propagation of a broad range of antibiotic resistance genes, many encoding efflux pump components and beta-lactamases, while ertapenem triggered emergence of genes encoding vancomycin resistance, and beta-lactamases, including the carbapenemase, IMP-27. Notably, microbiota alterations and antibiotic resistance gene propagation displayed unique patterns following exposure to amoxicillin or ertapenem. These data underscore the importance of understanding consequences of individual antibiotic use to predict and potentially mitigate adverse outcomes. The porcine models developed here can facilitate evaluation of therapeutic interventions to prevent antibiotic-mediated microbiome disruption.}, }
@article {pmid29494275, year = {2018}, author = {Humphries, A and Daud, A}, title = {The gut microbiota and immune checkpoint inhibitors.}, journal = {Human vaccines &amp; immunotherapeutics}, volume = {14}, number = {9}, pages = {2178-2182}, pmid = {29494275}, issn = {2164-554X}, mesh = {Animals ; CTLA-4 Antigen/*antagonists &amp; inhibitors ; Cancer Vaccines/*immunology ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/*immunology ; Humans ; Immunotherapy/*methods ; Programmed Cell Death 1 Receptor/*antagonists &amp; inhibitors ; }, abstract = {Although immunotherapy has been remarkably effective across multiple cancer types, there continues to be a significant number of non-responding patients. A possible factor proposed to influence the efficacy of immunotherapies is the gut microbiome. We discuss the results and implications of recent research on the relationship between the gut microbiome, our immune systems, and immune checkpoint inhibitor therapies including anti-CTLA-4 Ab and anti-PD-1 Ab. While the investigations all exhibit interesting results and conclusions, we find little congruence in the specific bacteria that were found favorable for antitumor responses. It is unclear whether the inconsistencies are due to differential approaches in study design (pre-clinical or clinical subjects, anti-CTLA-4 Ab or anti-PD-1 Ab), experimental methods and measurements (metagenomics sequencing and clustering variations) or subject population dynamics (differential cancer types and baseline characteristics). Moreover, we note studies regarding particular bacterial commensals and autoimmune diseases, which challenge findings from these investigations. We conclude that with the current research, clinical investigators can appreciate the critical role of gut microbiota in mediating immunostimulant response. However, prospective research exploring the biochemical mechanisms which commensal bacteria communicate with each other and the immune system is imperative to understand how they can be adjusted properly for higher immunotherapy response.}, }
@article {pmid29291350, year = {2018}, author = {Smith, TE and Pond, CD and Pierce, E and Harmer, ZP and Kwan, J and Zachariah, MM and Harper, MK and Wyche, TP and Matainaho, TK and Bugni, TS and Barrows, LR and Ireland, CM and Schmidt, EW}, title = {Accessing chemical diversity from the uncultivated symbionts of small marine animals.}, journal = {Nature chemical biology}, volume = {14}, number = {2}, pages = {179-185}, pmid = {29291350}, issn = {1552-4469}, support = {R01 GM102602/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/United States ; R01 GM107557/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/United States ; U01 TW006671/TW/FIC NIH HHS/United States ; }, mesh = {Animals ; Anti-HIV Agents/*pharmacology ; Bacteria ; Biological Products/*pharmacology ; DNA/analysis ; *Drug Discovery ; Drug Evaluation, Preclinical ; Genomics ; HIV Infections/*drug therapy ; Humans ; Lysinoalanine/chemistry ; Metagenome ; Metagenomics ; *Microbiota ; Multigene Family ; Peptides/pharmacology ; Structure-Activity Relationship ; *Symbiosis ; Synthetic Biology ; T-Lymphocytes/drug effects ; Urochordata ; }, abstract = {Chemistry drives many biological interactions between the microbiota and host animals, yet it is often challenging to identify the chemicals involved. This poses a problem, as such small molecules are excellent sources of potential pharmaceuticals, pretested by nature for animal compatibility. We discovered anti-HIV compounds from small, marine tunicates from the Eastern Fields of Papua New Guinea. Tunicates are a reservoir for new bioactive chemicals, yet their small size often impedes identification or even detection of the chemicals within. We solved this problem by combining chemistry, metagenomics, and synthetic biology to directly identify and synthesize the natural products. We show that these anti-HIV compounds, the divamides, are a novel family of lanthipeptides produced by symbiotic bacteria living in the tunicate. Neighboring animal colonies contain structurally related divamides that differ starkly in their biological properties, suggesting a role for biosynthetic plasticity in a native context wherein biological interactions take place.}, }
@article {pmid29176696, year = {2017}, author = {}, title = {Overcoming hurdles in sharing microbiome data.}, journal = {Nature microbiology}, volume = {2}, number = {12}, pages = {1573}, doi = {10.1038/s41564-017-0077-3}, pmid = {29176696}, issn = {2058-5276}, mesh = {Computational Biology/*methods ; Information Dissemination/*methods ; Metagenomics/*methods ; *Microbiota ; }, }
@article {pmid28843021, year = {2018}, author = {Heintz-Buschart, A and Pandey, U and Wicke, T and Sixel-Döring, F and Janzen, A and Sittig-Wiegand, E and Trenkwalder, C and Oertel, WH and Mollenhauer, B and Wilmes, P}, title = {The nasal and gut microbiome in Parkinson's disease and idiopathic rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder.}, journal = {Movement disorders : official journal of the Movement Disorder Society}, volume = {33}, number = {1}, pages = {88-98}, pmid = {28843021}, issn = {1531-8257}, mesh = {Aged ; Case-Control Studies ; Cohort Studies ; Female ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/*physiology ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Nose/*microbiology ; Parkinson Disease/*microbiology ; REM Sleep Behavior Disorder/*microbiology ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics/metabolism ; RNA, Ribosomal, 18S/genetics/metabolism ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: Increasing evidence connects the gut microbiota and the onset and/or phenotype of Parkinson's disease (PD). Differences in the abundances of specific bacterial taxa have been reported in PD patients. It is, however, unknown whether these differences can be observed in individuals at high risk, for example, with idiopathic rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder, a prodromal condition of α-synuclein aggregation disorders including PD.<br><br>OBJECTIVES: To compare microbiota in carefully preserved nasal wash and stool samples of subjects with idiopathic rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder, manifest PD, and healthy individuals.<br><br>METHODS: Microbiota of flash-frozen stool and nasal wash samples from 76 PD patients, 21 idiopathic rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder patients, and 78 healthy controls were assessed by 16S and 18S ribosomal RNA amplicon sequencing. Seventy variables, related to demographics, clinical parameters including nonmotor symptoms, and sample processing, were analyzed in relation to microbiome variability and controlled differential analyses were performed.<br><br>RESULTS: Differentially abundant gut microbes, such as Akkermansia, were observed in PD, but no strong differences in nasal microbiota. Eighty percent of the differential gut microbes in PD versus healthy controls showed similar trends in idiopathic rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder, for example, Anaerotruncus and several Bacteroides spp., and correlated with nonmotor symptoms. Metagenomic sequencing of select samples enabled the reconstruction of genomes of so far uncharacterized differentially abundant organisms.<br><br>CONCLUSION: Our study reveals differential abundances of gut microbial taxa in PD and its prodrome idiopathic rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder in comparison to the healthy controls, and highlights the potential of metagenomics to identify and characterize microbial taxa, which are enriched or depleted in PD and/or idiopathic rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder. © 2017 The Authors. Movement Disorders published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society.}, }
@article {pmid28349932, year = {2017}, author = {Nunes-Alves, C}, title = {Microbial communities rock.}, journal = {Nature microbiology}, volume = {2}, number = {}, pages = {17041}, doi = {10.1038/nmicrobiol.2017.41}, pmid = {28349932}, issn = {2058-5276}, mesh = {Biotransformation ; *Environmental Microbiology ; Metabolic Networks and Pathways ; Metagenomics/methods/trends ; Microbiological Techniques/methods/trends ; Microbiology/trends ; *Microbiota ; Minerals/metabolism ; }, }
@article {pmid28120929, year = {2017}, author = {Soppa, J}, title = {Polyploidy and community structure.}, journal = {Nature microbiology}, volume = {2}, number = {}, pages = {16261}, doi = {10.1038/nmicrobiol.2016.261}, pmid = {28120929}, issn = {2058-5276}, mesh = {Archaea/classification/*genetics ; Bacteria/classification/*genetics ; *Biota ; Eukaryota/classification/*genetics ; Metagenomics/methods ; *Polyploidy ; }, }
@article {pmid30871469, year = {2019}, author = {Perz, AI and Giles, CB and Brown, CA and Porter, H and Roopnarinesingh, X and Wren, JD}, title = {MNEMONIC: MetageNomic Experiment Mining to create an OTU Network of Inhabitant Correlations.}, journal = {BMC bioinformatics}, volume = {20}, number = {Suppl 2}, pages = {96}, doi = {10.1186/s12859-019-2623-x}, pmid = {30871469}, issn = {1471-2105}, support = {P20 GM103636/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/United States ; P30 AG050911/AG/NIA NIH HHS/United States ; }, mesh = {Humans ; Metagenomics/*methods ; Microbiota/*genetics ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: The number of publicly available metagenomic experiments in various environments has been rapidly growing, empowering the potential to identify similar shifts in species abundance between different experiments. This could be a potentially powerful way to interpret new experiments, by identifying common themes and causes behind changes in species abundance.<br><br>RESULTS: We propose a novel framework for comparing microbial shifts between conditions. Using data from one of the largest human metagenome projects to date, the American Gut Project (AGP), we obtain differential abundance vectors for microbes using experimental condition information provided with the AGP metadata, such as patient age, dietary habits, or health status. We show it can be used to identify similar and opposing shifts in microbial species, and infer putative interactions between microbes. Our results show that groups of shifts with similar effects on microbiome can be identified and that similar dietary interventions display similar microbial abundance shifts.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: Without comparison to prior data, it is difficult for experimentalists to know if their observed changes in species abundance have been observed by others, both in their conditions and in others they would never consider comparable. Yet, this can be a very important contextual factor in interpreting the significance of a shift. We've proposed and tested an algorithmic solution to this problem, which also allows for comparing the metagenomic signature shifts between conditions in the existing body of data.}, }
@article {pmid30808753, year = {2019}, author = {Ramírez-Flandes, S and González, B and Ulloa, O}, title = {Redox traits characterize the organization of global microbial communities.}, journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America}, volume = {116}, number = {9}, pages = {3630-3635}, doi = {10.1073/pnas.1817554116}, pmid = {30808753}, issn = {1091-6490}, mesh = {Ecology ; *Ecosystem ; Humans ; *Metagenomics ; Microbiota/*genetics ; *Oxidation-Reduction ; Soil Microbiology ; }, abstract = {The structure of biological communities is conventionally described as profiles of taxonomic units, whose ecological functions are assumed to be known or, at least, predictable. In environmental microbiology, however, the functions of a majority of microorganisms are unknown and expected to be highly dynamic and collectively redundant, obscuring the link between taxonomic structure and ecosystem functioning. Although genetic trait-based approaches at the community level might overcome this problem, no obvious choice of gene categories can be identified as appropriate descriptive units in a general ecological context. We used 247 microbial metagenomes from 18 biomes to determine which set of genes better characterizes the differences among biomes on the global scale. We show that profiles of oxidoreductase genes support the highest biome differentiation compared with profiles of other categories of enzymes, general protein-coding genes, transporter genes, and taxonomic gene markers. Based on oxidoreductases' description of microbial communities, the role of energetics in differentiation and particular ecosystem function of different biomes become readily apparent. We also show that taxonomic diversity is decoupled from functional diversity, e.g., grasslands and rhizospheres were the most diverse biomes in oxidoreductases but not in taxonomy. Considering that microbes underpin biogeochemical processes and nutrient recycling through oxidoreductases, this functional diversity should be relevant for a better understanding of the stability and conservation of biomes. Consequently, this approach might help to quantify the impact of environmental stressors on microbial ecosystems in the context of the global-scale biome crisis that our planet currently faces.}, }
@article {pmid30669548, year = {2019}, author = {Chávez-Carbajal, A and Nirmalkar, K and Pérez-Lizaur, A and Hernández-Quiroz, F and Ramírez-Del-Alto, S and García-Mena, J and Hernández-Guerrero, C}, title = {Gut Microbiota and Predicted Metabolic Pathways in a Sample of Mexican Women Affected by Obesity and Obesity Plus Metabolic Syndrome.}, journal = {International journal of molecular sciences}, volume = {20}, number = {2}, pages = {}, doi = {10.3390/ijms20020438}, pmid = {30669548}, issn = {1422-0067}, support = {11a Convocatoria Para Proyectos de Investigación Básica.//Universidad Iberoamericana Ciudad de México/ ; CONACyT-163235 INFR-2011-01//Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología/ ; FONSEC SS/IMSS/ISSSTE-CONACYT-233361.//Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología/ ; }, mesh = {Adult ; Biodiversity ; Female ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; Humans ; *Metabolic Networks and Pathways ; Metabolic Syndrome/complications/*etiology/*metabolism ; Metagenome ; Metagenomics/methods ; Mexico ; Middle Aged ; Obesity/complications/*etiology/*metabolism ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S ; Sex Factors ; Young Adult ; }, abstract = {Obesity is an excessive fat accumulation that could lead to complications like metabolic syndrome. There are reports on gut microbiota and metabolic syndrome in relation to dietary, host genetics, and other environmental factors; however, it is necessary to explore the role of the gut microbiota metabolic pathways in populations like Mexicans, where the prevalence of obesity and metabolic syndrome is high. This study identify alterations of the gut microbiota in a sample of healthy Mexican women (CO), women with obesity (OB), and women with obesity plus metabolic syndrome (OMS). We studied 67 women, characterizing their anthropometric and biochemical parameters along with their gut bacterial diversity by high-throughput DNA sequencing. Our results indicate that in OB or OMS women, Firmicutes was the most abundant bacterial phylum. We observed significant changes in abundances of bacteria belonging to the Ruminococcaceae, Lachnospiraceae, and Erysipelotrichaceae families and significant enrichment of gut bacteria from 16 different taxa that might explain the observed metabolic alterations between the groups. Finally, the predicted functional metagenome of the gut microbiota found in each category shows differences in metabolic pathways related to lipid metabolism. We demonstrate that Mexican women have a particular bacterial gut microbiota characteristic of each phenotype. There are bacteria that potentially explain the observed metabolic differences between the groups, and gut bacteria in OMS and OB conditions carry more genes of metabolic pathways implicated in lipid metabolism.}, }
@article {pmid29767724, year = {2018}, author = {Magnabosco, C and Timmers, PHA and Lau, MCY and Borgonie, G and Linage-Alvarez, B and Kuloyo, O and Alleva, R and Kieft, TL and Slater, GF and van Heerden, E and Sherwood Lollar, B and Onstott, TC}, title = {Fluctuations in populations of subsurface methane oxidizers in coordination with changes in electron acceptor availability.}, journal = {FEMS microbiology ecology}, volume = {94}, number = {7}, pages = {}, doi = {10.1093/femsec/fiy089}, pmid = {29767724}, issn = {1574-6941}, mesh = {Archaea/classification/genetics/*metabolism ; Bacteria/classification/genetics/*metabolism ; Electrons ; Geologic Sediments/*microbiology ; Metagenomics/methods ; Methane/*metabolism ; Microbiota/*physiology ; Oxidation-Reduction ; Proteomics/methods ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; }, abstract = {The concentrations of electron donors and acceptors in the terrestrial subsurface biosphere fluctuate due to migration and mixing of subsurface fluids, but the mechanisms and rates at which microbial communities respond to these changes are largely unknown. Subsurface microbial communities exhibit long cellular turnover times and are often considered relatively static-generating just enough ATP for cellular maintenance. Here, we investigated how subsurface populations of CH4 oxidizers respond to changes in electron acceptor availability by monitoring the biological and geochemical composition in a 1339 m-below-land-surface (mbls) fluid-filled fracture over the course of both longer (2.5 year) and shorter (2-week) time scales. Using a combination of metagenomic, metatranscriptomic, and metaproteomic analyses, we observe that the CH4 oxidizers within the subsurface microbial community change in coordination with electron acceptor availability over time. We then validate these findings through a series of 13C-CH4 laboratory incubation experiments, highlighting a connection between composition of subsurface CH4 oxidizing communities and electron acceptor availability.}, }
@article {pmid29490879, year = {2019}, author = {Wu, WK and Chen, CC and Panyod, S and Chen, RA and Wu, MS and Sheen, LY and Chang, SC}, title = {Optimization of fecal sample processing for microbiome study - The journey from bathroom to bench.}, journal = {Journal of the Formosan Medical Association = Taiwan yi zhi}, volume = {118}, number = {2}, pages = {545-555}, doi = {10.1016/j.jfma.2018.02.005}, pmid = {29490879}, issn = {0929-6646}, mesh = {DNA/*isolation &amp; purification ; Feces/*microbiology ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; Humans ; Metagenomics ; Reagent Kits, Diagnostic ; Sequence Analysis, DNA ; Specimen Handling/*methods/*standards ; }, abstract = {Although great interest has been displayed by researchers in the contribution of gut microbiota to human health, there is still no standard protocol with consensus to guarantee the sample quality of metagenomic analysis. Here we reviewed existing methodology studies and present suggestions for optimizing research pipeline from fecal sample collection to DNA extraction. First, we discuss strategies of clinical metadata collection as common confounders for microbiome research. Second, we propose general principles for freshly collected fecal sample and its storage and share a DIY stool collection kit protocol based on the manual procedure of Human Microbiome Project (HMP). Third, we provide a useful information of collection kit with DNA stabilization buffers and compare their pros and cons for multi-omic study. Fourth, we offer technical strategies as well as information of novel tools for sample aliquoting before long-term storage. Fifth, we discuss the substantial impact of different DNA extraction protocols on technical variations of metagenomic analysis. And lastly, we point out the limitation of current methods and the unmet needs for better quality control of metagenomic analysis. We hope the information provided here will help investigators in this exciting field to advance their studies while avoiding experimental artifacts.}, }
@article {pmid29194980, year = {2018}, author = {Tanner, K and Martí, JM and Belliure, J and Fernández-Méndez, M and Molina-Menor, E and Peretó, J and Porcar, M}, title = {Polar solar panels: Arctic and Antarctic microbiomes display similar taxonomic profiles.}, journal = {Environmental microbiology reports}, volume = {10}, number = {1}, pages = {75-79}, doi = {10.1111/1758-2229.12608}, pmid = {29194980}, issn = {1758-2229}, mesh = {Adaptation, Physiological ; Antarctic Regions ; Arctic Regions ; Bacteria/*classification/genetics/radiation effects ; Biodiversity ; Desiccation ; *Ecosystem ; Metagenomics ; *Microbiota ; *Solar Energy ; Ultraviolet Rays ; }, abstract = {Solar panels located on high (Arctic and Antarctic) latitudes combine the harshness of the climate with that of the solar exposure. We report here that these polar solar panels are inhabited by similar microbial communities in taxonomic terms, dominated by Hymenobacter spp., Sphingomonas spp. and Ascomycota. Our results suggest that solar panels, even on high latitudes, can shape a microbial ecosystem adapted to irradiation and desiccation.}, }
@article {pmid28874721, year = {2017}, author = {Shibagaki, N and Suda, W and Clavaud, C and Bastien, P and Takayasu, L and Iioka, E and Kurokawa, R and Yamashita, N and Hattori, Y and Shindo, C and Breton, L and Hattori, M}, title = {Aging-related changes in the diversity of women's skin microbiomes associated with oral bacteria.}, journal = {Scientific reports}, volume = {7}, number = {1}, pages = {10567}, pmid = {28874721}, issn = {2045-2322}, mesh = {Adult ; Age Factors ; Aged ; Female ; Humans ; *Microbiota ; Middle Aged ; Mouth Mucosa/growth &amp; development/*microbiology ; Propionibacterium/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Skin/growth &amp; development/*microbiology ; }, abstract = {Skin aging is associated with changes in cutaneous physiology including interactions with a skin microbial community. A striking alteration and diversification in the skin microbiome with aging was observed between two different age groups of 37 healthy Japanese women, i.e. younger adults of 21-37 years old and older adults of 60-76 years old, using bacterial 16S rRNA gene sequencing. The analyses revealed that the alpha diversity/species richness was significantly higher in the older than the younger group for the cheek and forehead microbiomes, while the beta diversity in the overall structure significantly differed particularly for the forearm and scalp microbiomes between the two age groups. Taxonomic profiling showed a striking reduction in the relative abundance of the majority skin genus Propionibacterium in the cheek, forearm and forehead microbiomes of the older adults, and identified 38 species including many oral bacteria that significantly differentiated the two age groups with a skin site dependency. Furthermore, we found chronological age-related and unrelated skin clinical parameters that correlate with the observed changes in the skin microbiome diversity. Thus, our data suggested that the diversification of skin microbiomes in adult women was largely affected by chronological and physiological skin aging in association with oral bacteria.}, }
@article {pmid30902785, year = {2019}, author = {Kumar, R and Mishra, A and Jha, B}, title = {Bacterial community structure and functional diversity in subsurface seawater from the western coastal ecosystem of the Arabian Sea, India.}, journal = {Gene}, volume = {701}, number = {}, pages = {55-64}, doi = {10.1016/j.gene.2019.02.099}, pmid = {30902785}, issn = {1879-0038}, mesh = {*Bacteria/classification/genetics/growth &amp; development ; *Biodiversity ; India ; Microbial Consortia/*physiology ; Oceans and Seas ; Seawater/*microbiology ; *Water Microbiology ; }, abstract = {The present study revealed the spatial variability of bacteria in relation to physicochemical variations at four different locations (Diu - DIU, Veraval - VER, Porbandar - POR and Okha - OKH) along the Gujarat coast (Arabian Sea, India). The natural habitat was analyzed for temperature, salinity, pH, total dissolved solids, total organic content, total inorganic content, biological oxygen demand, conductivity and total dissolved oxygen. The lowest salinity and conductivity were observed at the VER site, whereas the highest salinity and conductivity were measured with OKH samples. In contrast, the pH was slightly alkaline at all of the sites. The VER site contained the maximum total dissolved solids (TDS), total carbon (TC), total organic carbon (TOC), and total inorganic carbon (TIC), while OKH showed the maximum dissolve oxygen (DO), biological oxygen demand (BOD), pH, temperature, conductivity, and salinity. The physicochemical characteristics showed that the Gujarat coast is alkaline and has a nutrient heterogeneous nature. Average well color development (AWCD) values, calculated using Biolog EcoPlates, showed that the microbial community from VER contained the highest metabolic activities and could metabolize all 31 substrates, followed by DIU > OKH > POR samples. In contrast, the abundance of the bacterial community, determined by qRT-PCR, was maximum in VER samples, followed by OKH > POR > DIU samples. The Shannon and Simpson indices showed that DIU, POR and OKH seawater clone libraries were more diverse. Furthermore, Chao estimator revealed the high diversity of POR and DIU clone libraries. Interestingly, DIU and OKH did not share any common operational taxonomic units (OTUs), and overall, the maximum bacterial diversity was observed with the POR seawater sample. Moreover, these observations were supported by statistical analysis, such as canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) and principal component analysis (PCA). The molecular phylogeny revealed the dominance of Proteobacteria followed by Firmicutes. Within the Proteobacteria phylum, most of the sequences were affiliated with the Gammaproteobacteria class. In total, about 726 OTUs were observed from all four sites which covers 59.79% DIU, 87.5% VER, 50% POR and 98.83% OKH of samples. This study is the first report to describe physicochemical attributes and the bacterial diversity of the coastal area of Gujarat. The study will provide useful insights about bacterial diversity, distribution, and abundance, as well as their relationships with the habitat.}, }
@article {pmid30574802, year = {2019}, author = {Murphy, R and Morgan, XC and Wang, XY and Wickens, K and Purdie, G and Fitzharris, P and Otal, A and Lawley, B and Stanley, T and Barthow, C and Crane, J and Mitchell, EA and Tannock, GW}, title = {Eczema-protective probiotic alters infant gut microbiome functional capacity but not composition: sub-sample analysis from a RCT.}, journal = {Beneficial microbes}, volume = {10}, number = {1}, pages = {5-17}, doi = {10.3920/BM2017.0191}, pmid = {30574802}, issn = {1876-2891}, mesh = {Adult ; Age Factors ; Biological Transport ; Breast Feeding ; Child, Preschool ; Dermatitis, Atopic/microbiology/*prevention &amp; control ; Dietary Supplements ; Feces/microbiology ; Female ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/*physiology ; Glycerophosphates/metabolism ; Humans ; Infant ; Infant, Newborn ; Lactobacillus rhamnosus/*physiology ; Metagenomics ; Mothers ; Postpartum Period ; *Probiotics ; }, abstract = {Probiotic Lactobacillus rhamnosus HN001 given in early life has been shown to reduce infant eczema risk, but its effect on gut microbiota development has not been quantitatively and functionally examined. The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of early life probiotic exposure on the composition and functional capacity of infant gut microbiota from birth to 2 years considering the effects of age, delivery mode, antibiotics, pets and eczema. We performed shotgun metagenomic sequencing analysis of 650 infant faecal samples, collected at birth, 3, 12, and 24 months, as part of a randomised, controlled, 3-arm trial assessing the effect of L. rhamnosus HN001, Bifidobacterium animalis subsp. lactis HN019 supplementation on eczema development in 474 infants. There was a 50% reduced eczema risk in the HN001 probiotic group compared to placebo. Both mothers (from 35 weeks gestation until 6 months post-partum if breastfeeding) and infants (from birth to 2 years) received either a placebo or one of two probiotics, L. rhamnosus HN001 (6×109 cfu), or B. animalis subsp. lactis HN019 (9×109 cfu). L. rhamnosus HN001 probiotic supplementation was associated with increased overall glycerol-3 phosphate transport capacity and enrichment of L. rhamnosus. There were no other significant changes in infant gut microbiota composition or diversity. Increased capacity to transport glycerol-3-phosphate was positively correlated with relative abundance of L. rhamnosus. Children who developed eczema had gut microbiota with increased capacity for glycosaminoglycan degradation and flagellum assembly but had no significant differences in microbiota composition or diversity. Early life HN001 probiotic use is associated with both increased L. rhamnosus and increased infant gut microbiota functional capacity to transport glycerol-3 phosphate. The mechanistic relationship of such functional alteration in gut microbiota with reduced eczema risk and long-term health merits further investigation.}, }
@article {pmid30369115, year = {2018}, author = {Sivakala, KK and Jose, PA and Anandham, R and Thinesh, T and Jebakumar, SRD and Samaddar, S and Chatterjee, P and Sivakumar, N and Sa, T}, title = {Spatial Physiochemical and Metagenomic Analysis of Desert Environment.}, journal = {Journal of microbiology and biotechnology}, volume = {28}, number = {9}, pages = {1517-1526}, doi = {10.4014/jmb.1804.04005}, pmid = {30369115}, issn = {1738-8872}, mesh = {Bacteria/*chemistry/classification/*genetics/metabolism ; Biodiversity ; *Desert Climate ; India ; Metabolic Networks and Pathways ; *Metagenomics ; Microbiota ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Soil/chemistry ; *Soil Microbiology ; Spatial Analysis ; }, abstract = {Investigating the bacterial diversity and their metabolic capabilities are crucial for interpreting ecological patterns in desert environment, and assessing the presence of exploitable microbial resources. In this study, we evaluated the spatial heterogeneity of physico-chemical parameters, soil bacterial diversity and metabolic adaptation at meter scale. Soil samples were collected from two quadrates a desert environment (Thar Desert, India) which face hot arid climate with very little rainfall and extreme temperatures. Analysis of physico-chemical parameters and subsequent variance analysis (p-values < 0.05) revealed that sulfate, potassium and magnesium ions were the most variable between the quadrates. Microbial diversity of the two quadrates was studied using Illumina bar coded sequencing by targeting V3-V4 regions of 16S rDNA. As the results, 702504 high-quality sequence reads, assigned to 173 operationaltaxonomic units (OTUs) at species level. The most abundant phyla in both quadrates were Actinobacteria (38.72%), Proteobacteria (32.94%), and Acidobacteria (9.24%). At genus level, Gaiellarepresented highest prevalence, followed by Streptomyces, Solirubrobacter, Aciditerrimonas, Geminicoccus, Geodermatophilus, Microvirga, and Rubrobacter. Between the quadrates, significant difference (p-values < 0.05) was found in the abundance of Aciditerrimonas, Geodermatophilus Geminicoccus, Ilumatobacter, Marmoricola, Nakamurella and Solirubrobacter. Metabolic functional mapping revealed diverse biological activities, and was significantly correlated with physico-chemical parameters. The results revealed spatial variation of ions, microbial abundance and functional attributes in the studied quadrates, and patchy nature in local scale. Interestingly, abundance ofthe biotechnologically important phylum Actinobacteria, with large proposition of unclassified speciesin the desert suggested that this arid environment is the promising site for bioprospection.}, }
@article {pmid31031001, year = {2019}, author = {Gregory, AC and Zayed, AA and Conceição-Neto, N and Temperton, B and Bolduc, B and Alberti, A and Ardyna, M and Arkhipova, K and Carmichael, M and Cruaud, C and Dimier, C and Domínguez-Huerta, G and Ferland, J and Kandels, S and Liu, Y and Marec, C and Pesant, S and Picheral, M and Pisarev, S and Poulain, J and Tremblay, JÉ and Vik, D and ,  and Babin, M and Bowler, C and Culley, AI and de Vargas, C and Dutilh, BE and Iudicone, D and Karp-Boss, L and Roux, S and Sunagawa, S and Wincker, P and Sullivan, MB}, title = {Marine DNA Viral Macro- and Microdiversity from Pole to Pole.}, journal = {Cell}, volume = {}, number = {}, pages = {}, doi = {10.1016/j.cell.2019.03.040}, pmid = {31031001}, issn = {1097-4172}, abstract = {Microbes drive most ecosystems and are modulated by viruses that impact their lifespan, gene flow, and metabolic outputs. However, ecosystem-level impacts of viral community diversity remain difficult to assess due to classification issues and few reference genomes. Here, we establish an ∼12-fold expanded global ocean DNA virome dataset of 195,728 viral populations, now including the Arctic Ocean, and validate that these populations form discrete genotypic clusters. Meta-community analyses revealed five ecological zones throughout the global ocean, including two distinct Arctic regions. Across the zones, local and global patterns and drivers in viral community diversity were established for both macrodiversity (inter-population diversity) and microdiversity (intra-population genetic variation). These patterns sometimes, but not always, paralleled those from macro-organisms and revealed temperate and tropical surface waters and the Arctic as biodiversity hotspots and mechanistic hypotheses to explain them. Such further understanding of ocean viruses is critical for broader inclusion in ecosystem models.}, }
@article {pmid30887686, year = {2019}, author = {Weyrich, LS and Farrer, AG and Eisenhofer, R and Arriola, LA and Young, J and Selway, CA and Handsley-Davis, M and Adler, CJ and Breen, J and Cooper, A}, title = {Laboratory contamination over time during low-biomass sample analysis.}, journal = {Molecular ecology resources}, volume = {}, number = {}, pages = {}, doi = {10.1111/1755-0998.13011}, pmid = {30887686}, issn = {1755-0998}, support = {DECRA 150101574//Australian Research Council/ ; }, abstract = {Bacteria are not only ubiquitous on earth but can also be incredibly diverse within clean laboratories and reagents. The presence of both living and dead bacteria in laboratory environments and reagents is especially problematic when examining samples with low endogenous content (e.g., skin swabs, tissue biopsies, ice, water, degraded forensic samples or ancient material), where contaminants can outnumber endogenous microorganisms within samples. The contribution of contaminants within high-throughput studies remains poorly understood because of the relatively low number of contaminant surveys. Here, we examined 144 negative control samples (extraction blank and no-template amplification controls) collected in both typical molecular laboratories and an ultraclean ancient DNA laboratory over 5 years to characterize long-term contaminant diversity. We additionally compared the contaminant content within a home-made silica-based extraction method, commonly used to analyse low endogenous content samples, with a widely used commercial DNA extraction kit. The contaminant taxonomic profile of the ultraclean ancient DNA laboratory was unique compared to modern molecular biology laboratories, and changed over time according to researcher, month and season. The commercial kit also contained higher microbial diversity and several human-associated taxa in comparison to the home-made silica extraction protocol. We recommend a minimum of two strategies to reduce the impacts of laboratory contaminants within low-biomass metagenomic studies: (a) extraction blank controls should be included and sequenced with every batch of extractions and (b) the contributions of laboratory contamination should be assessed and reported in each high-throughput metagenomic study.}, }
@article {pmid30660184, year = {2019}, author = {Keijser, BJF and Agamennone, V and van den Broek, TJ and Caspers, M and van de Braak, A and Bomers, R and Havekes, M and Schoen, E and van Baak, M and Mioch, D and Bomers, L and Montijn, RC}, title = {Dose-dependent impact of oxytetracycline on the veal calf microbiome and resistome.}, journal = {BMC genomics}, volume = {20}, number = {1}, pages = {65}, doi = {10.1186/s12864-018-5419-x}, pmid = {30660184}, issn = {1471-2164}, support = {060.24960//Agentschap NL/ ; }, mesh = {Animals ; Anti-Bacterial Agents/pharmacology ; Cattle ; Dose-Response Relationship, Drug ; Drug Resistance, Microbial/*drug effects/genetics ; Feces/microbiology ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/*drug effects/genetics ; Genes, Bacterial/genetics ; Metagenomics/*methods ; Microbial Sensitivity Tests/methods ; Oxytetracycline/*pharmacology ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/chemistry/genetics ; Random Allocation ; Sequence Analysis, DNA ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: Antibiotic therapy is commonly used in animal agriculture. Antibiotics excreted by the animals can contaminate farming environments, resulting in long term exposure of animals to sub-inhibitory levels of antibiotics. Little is known on the effect of this exposure on antibiotic resistance. In this study, we aimed to investigate the long term effects of sub-inhibitory levels of antibiotics on the gut microbiota composition and resistome of veal calves in vivo. Forty-two veal calves were randomly assigned to three groups. The first group (OTC-high) received therapeutic oral dosages of 1 g oxytetracycline (OTC), twice per day, during 5 days. The second group (OTC-low) received an oral dose of OTC of 100-200 μg per day during 7 weeks, mimicking animal exposure to environmental contamination. The third group (CTR) did not receive OTC, serving as unexposed control. Antibiotic residue levels were determined over time. The temporal effects on the gut microbiota and antibiotic resistance gene abundance was analysed by metagenomic sequencing.<br><br>RESULTS: In the therapeutic group, OTC levels exceeded MIC values. The low group remained at sub-inhibitory levels. The control group did not reach any significant OTC levels. 16S rRNA gene-based analysis revealed significant changes in the calf gut microbiota. Time-related changes accounted for most of the variation in the sequence data. Therapeutic application of OTC had transient effect, significantly impacting gut microbiota composition between day 0 and day 2. By metagenomic sequence analysis we identified six antibiotic resistance genes representing three gene classes (tetM, floR and mel) that differed in relative abundance between any of the intervention groups and the control. qPCR was used to validate observations made by metagenomic sequencing, revealing a peak of tetM abundance at day 28-35 in the OTC-high group. No increase in resistance genes abundance was seen in the OTC-low group.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: Under the conditions tested, sub-therapeutic administration of OTC did not result in increased tetM resistance levels as observed in the therapeutic group.}, }
@article {pmid29988145, year = {2018}, author = {Delzenne, NM and Bindels, LB}, title = {Microbiome metabolomics reveals new drivers of human liver steatosis.}, journal = {Nature medicine}, volume = {24}, number = {7}, pages = {906-907}, doi = {10.1038/s41591-018-0126-3}, pmid = {29988145}, issn = {1546-170X}, mesh = {*Fatty Liver ; Female ; Humans ; Metabolomics ; Metagenomics ; *Microbiota ; Obesity ; }, }
@article {pmid29937307, year = {2018}, author = {Coutinho, FH and Gregoracci, GB and Walter, JM and Thompson, CC and Thompson, FL}, title = {Metagenomics Sheds Light on the Ecology of Marine Microbes and Their Viruses.}, journal = {Trends in microbiology}, volume = {26}, number = {11}, pages = {955-965}, doi = {10.1016/j.tim.2018.05.015}, pmid = {29937307}, issn = {1878-4380}, mesh = {Archaea/genetics/physiology ; Bacteria/genetics ; Bacterial Physiological Phenomena/genetics ; Biodiversity ; Biological Evolution ; Classification ; Cyanobacteria/physiology ; *Ecology ; Ecosystem ; Genomics ; Host Microbial Interactions/physiology ; Marine Biology ; *Metagenomics ; Seawater/*microbiology/*virology ; Virus Physiological Phenomena/genetics ; Viruses/genetics ; }, abstract = {Advances brought about by omics-based approaches have revolutionized our understanding of the diversity and ecological processes involving marine archaea, bacteria, and their viruses. This broad review discusses recent examples of how genomics, metagenomics, and ecogenomics have been applied to reveal the ecology of these biological entities. Three major topics are covered in this revision: (i) the novel roles of microorganisms in ecosystem processes; (ii) virus-host associations; and (iii) ecological associations of microeukaryotes and other microbes. We also briefly comment on the discovery of novel taxa from marine ecosystems; development of a robust taxonomic framework for prokaryotes; breakthroughs on the diversity and ecology of cyanobacteria; and advances on ecological modelling. We conclude by discussing limitations of the field and suggesting directions for future research.}, }
@article {pmid31024486, year = {2019}, author = {Sirén, K and Mak, SST and Melkonian, C and Carøe, C and Swiegers, JH and Molenaar, D and Fischer, U and Gilbert, MTP}, title = {Taxonomic and Functional Characterization of the Microbial Community During Spontaneous in vitro Fermentation of Riesling Must.}, journal = {Frontiers in microbiology}, volume = {10}, number = {}, pages = {697}, doi = {10.3389/fmicb.2019.00697}, pmid = {31024486}, issn = {1664-302X}, abstract = {Although there is an extensive tradition of research into the microbes that underlie the winemaking process, much remains to be learnt. We combined the high-throughput sequencing (HTS) tools of metabarcoding and metagenomics, to characterize how microbial communities of Riesling musts sampled at four different vineyards, and their subsequent spontaneously fermented derivatives, vary. We specifically explored community variation relating to three points: (i) how microbial communities vary by vineyard; (ii) how community biodiversity changes during alcoholic fermentation; and (iii) how microbial community varies between musts that successfully complete alcoholic fermentation and those that become 'stuck' in the process. Our metabarcoding data showed a general influence of microbial composition at the vineyard level. Two of the vineyards (4 and 5) had strikingly a change in the differential abundance of Metschnikowia. We therefore additionally performed shotgun metagenomic sequencing on a subset of the samples to provide preliminary insights into the potential relevance of this observation, and used the data to both investigate functional potential and reconstruct draft genomes (bins). At these two vineyards, we also observed an increase in non-Saccharomycetaceae fungal functions, and a decrease in bacterial functions during the early fermentation stage. The binning results yielded 11 coherent bins, with both vineyards sharing the yeast bins Hanseniaspora and Saccharomyces. Read recruitment and functional analysis of this data revealed that during fermentation, a high abundance of Metschnikowia might serve as a biocontrol agent against bacteria, via a putative iron depletion pathway, and this in turn could help Saccharomyces dominate the fermentation. During alcoholic fermentation, we observed a general decrease in biodiversity in both the metabarcoding and metagenomic data. Unexpected Micrococcus behavior was observed in vineyard 4 according to metagenomic analyses based on reference-based read mapping. Analysis of open reading frames using these data showed an increase of functions assigned to class Actinobacteria in the end of fermentation. Therefore, we hypothesize that bacteria might sit-and-wait until Saccharomyces activity slows down. Complementary approaches to annotation instead of relying a single database provide more coherent information true species. Lastly, our metabarcoding data enabled us to identify a relationship between stuck fermentations and Starmerella abundance. Given that robust chemical analysis indicated that although the stuck samples contained residual glucose, all fructose had been consumed, we hypothesize that this was because fructophilic Starmerella, rather than Saccharomyces, dominated these fermentations. Overall, our results showcase the different ways in which metagenomic analyses can improve our understanding of the wine alcoholic fermentation process.}, }
@article {pmid30659724, year = {2019}, author = {Turgay, E and Steinum, TM and Colquhoun, D and Karataş, S}, title = {Environmental biofilm communities associated with early-stage common dentex (Dentex dentex) culture.}, journal = {Journal of applied microbiology}, volume = {126}, number = {4}, pages = {1032-1043}, doi = {10.1111/jam.14205}, pmid = {30659724}, issn = {1365-2672}, support = {20950//Scientific Research Project Coordination Unit of Istanbul University/ ; }, mesh = {Animal Feed/analysis ; Animals ; Bacteria/classification/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Biofilms/classification/*growth &amp; development ; *Life Cycle Stages ; Metagenomics ; Microbiota/*genetics ; Perciformes/*growth &amp; development/*microbiology ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; }, abstract = {AIMS: To describe the biofilm microbiota associated with various feeding phases during larval common dentex (Dentex dentex) culture.<br><br>METHODS AND RESULTS: A targeted metagenomic (metagenetic) study was performed by means of 16S rRNA gene-based PCR and NextGen pyrosequencing. The resulting dataset was scrutinized with microbial community analysis software (r packages) using r/Rstudio. While median observed and estimated alpha-diversities were 171 ± 38 and 207 ± 27 taxa, respectively, 72·1-85·8% of individual biofilm communities comprised only 27-46 taxa. Members of the genus Methylobacterium and family Rhodobacteraceae dominated biofilms formed during all feeding phases while genera Nannochloropsis and Tetraselmis microalgae were major constituents of biofilms during rotifer live feeding. Both potential fish pathogenic genera, for example, Vibrio and putatively probiotic taxa, for example, Phaeobacter gallaeciensis were identified.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: Relatively stable biofilm communities were identified during each feeding phase but varied significantly between feeding phases, most likely in response to the introduction of live feed/microalgae-associated bacteria into rearing tanks.<br><br>The structure of the bacterial communities identified represents a 'template' for successful larval dentex culture and provides a foundation for future investigations into failed production cycles.}, }
@article {pmid30440093, year = {2019}, author = {Park, CH and Lee, AR and Lee, YR and Eun, CS and Lee, SK and Han, DS}, title = {Evaluation of gastric microbiome and metagenomic function in patients with intestinal metaplasia using 16S rRNA gene sequencing.}, journal = {Helicobacter}, volume = {24}, number = {1}, pages = {e12547}, doi = {10.1111/hel.12547}, pmid = {30440093}, issn = {1523-5378}, support = {//National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF)/ ; NRF-2017R1C1B5015928//Korea government (MSIP; Ministry of Science, ICT &amp; Future Planning)/ ; }, mesh = {Adult ; Aged ; Anti-Bacterial Agents/pharmacology/therapeutic use ; Bacteria/classification/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Disease Progression ; Female ; Gastritis/microbiology/pathology ; Gastritis, Atrophic/drug therapy/microbiology/pathology ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/drug effects/*genetics ; Helicobacter Infections/drug therapy/*microbiology/*pathology ; Helicobacter pylori/drug effects/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Humans ; Intestines/*microbiology/*pathology ; Male ; Metagenomics ; Metaplasia/*microbiology ; Middle Aged ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Stomach Neoplasms/microbiology/pathology ; Type IV Secretion Systems/genetics ; Young Adult ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: Despite recent advances in studies on the gastric microbiome, the role of the non-Helicobacter pylori gastric microbiome in gastric carcinogenesis remains unclear. We evaluated the characteristics of the gastric microbiome and metagenomic functions in patients with IM.<br><br>METHODS: Participants were classified into six groups according to disease status (chronic superficial gastritis [CSG], intestinal metaplasia [IM], and cancer) and H. pylori- infection status (H. pylori-positive and H. pylori-negative). The gastric microbiome was analyzed in mucosal tissues at the gastric antrum by 16S rRNA gene sequencing. Moreover, we assessed the metagenome including the type IV secretion system (T4SS) gene, as T4SS proteins are essential for transferring CagA from H. pylori- into the human gastric epithelium.<br><br>RESULTS: Among the 138 included patients, 48, 9, 23, 14, 12, and 32 were classified into the H. pylori-negative CSG, H. pylori-negative IM, H. pylori-negative cancer, H. pylori-positive CSG, H. pylori-positive IM, and H. pylori-positive cancer groups, respectively. Cyanobacteria were predominant in the H. pylori-negative CSG group compared to in the H. pylori-negative IM and H. pylori-negative cancer groups (H. pylori-negative CSG vs H. pylori-negative IM vs H. pylori-negative cancer: 14.0% vs 4.2% vs 0.04%, P < 0.001). In contrast, Rhizobiales were commonly observed in the H. pylori-negative IM group (H. pylori-negative CSG vs H. pylori-negative IM vs H. pylori-negative cancer: 1.9% vs 15.4% vs 2.8%, P < 0.001). The relative abundance of Rhizobiales increased as H. pylori-infected stomachs progressed from gastritis to IM. In the H. pylori-negative IM group, genes encoding T4SS were prevalent among the metagenome. Additionally, after H. pylori- eradication therapy, the gastric microbiome was similar to the microbiome observed after spontaneous clearance of H. pylori-.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: The relative abundance of Rhizobiales was higher in patients with H. pylori-negative IM than in those with H. pylori-negative CSG or cancer. Additionally, T4SS genes were highly observed in the metagenome of patients with IM. Highly abundant T4SS proteins in these patients may promote gastric carcinogenesis.}, }
@article {pmid30286722, year = {2018}, author = {Mancini, MV and Damiani, C and Accoti, A and Tallarita, M and Nunzi, E and Cappelli, A and Bozic, J and Catanzani, R and Rossi, P and Valzano, M and Serrao, A and Ricci, I and Spaccapelo, R and Favia, G}, title = {Estimating bacteria diversity in different organs of nine species of mosquito by next generation sequencing.}, journal = {BMC microbiology}, volume = {18}, number = {1}, pages = {126}, pmid = {30286722}, issn = {1471-2180}, mesh = {Animal Structures/*microbiology ; Animals ; Bacteria/classification/genetics/*isolation &amp; purification ; *Biodiversity ; Culicidae/classification/*microbiology ; DNA, Bacterial/genetics ; Female ; High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing ; Male ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: Symbiosis in insects is accumulating significant amount of studies: the description of a wide array of mutualistic associations across the evolutionary history of insects suggests that resident microbiota acts as a driving force by affecting several aspects of hosts biology. Among arthropods, mosquito midgut microbiota has been largely investigated, providing crucial insights on the role and implications of host-symbiont relationships. However, limited amount of studies addressed their efforts on the investigation of microbiota colonizing salivary glands and reproductive tracts, crucial organs for pathogen invasion and vertical transmission of symbiotic microorganisms. Using 16S rRNA gene sequencing-based approach, we analysed the microbiota of gut, salivary glands and reproductive tracts of several mosquito species, representing some of the main vectors of diseases, aiming at describing the dynamics of bacterial communities within the individual.<br><br>RESULTS: We identified a shared core microbiota between different mosquito species, although interesting inter- and intra-species differences were detected. Additionally, our results showed deep divergences between genera, underlining microbiota specificity and adaptation to their host.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: The comprehensive landscape of the bacterial microbiota components may ultimately provide crucial insights and novel targets for possible application of symbionts in innovative strategies for the control of vector borne diseases, globally named Symbiotic Control (SC), and suggesting that the holobiont of different mosquito species may significantly vary. Moreover, mosquito species are characterized by distinctive microbiota in different organs, likely reflecting different functions and/or adaptation processes.}, }
@article {pmid30285625, year = {2018}, author = {Pacchioni, F and Esposito, A and Giacobazzi, E and Bettua, C and Struffi, P and Jousson, O}, title = {Air and waterborne microbiome of a pharmaceutical plant provide insights on spatiotemporal variations and community resilience after disturbance.}, journal = {BMC microbiology}, volume = {18}, number = {1}, pages = {124}, pmid = {30285625}, issn = {1471-2180}, mesh = {Air Microbiology ; Bacteria/classification/genetics/*isolation &amp; purification ; DNA, Bacterial/genetics ; Fresh Water/*microbiology ; Groundwater/*microbiology ; *Microbiota ; Phylogeny ; Plants, Medicinal/*microbiology ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: The presence of microrganisms in pharmaceutical production plant environments is typically monitored by cultural methods, however these cannot detect the unculturable fraction of the microbial community. To get more accurate information on the composition of these indoor microbial communities, both water and air microbiome from a pharmaceutical production plant were profiled by 16S amplicon sequencing.<br><br>RESULTS: In the water system, we found taxa which typically characterize surface freshwater, groundwater and oligotrophic environments. The airborne microbiome resulted dominated by taxa usually found in outdoor air in combination with human-associated taxa. The alpha- and beta- diversity values showed that the heat-based sanitization process of the water plant affects the composition of the water microbiome by transiently increasing both diversity and evenness. Taxonomic compositional shifts were also detected in response to sanitization, consisting in an increase of Firmicutes and α-Proteobacteria. On the other hand, seasonality seems to be the main driver of bacterial community composition in air of this work environment.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: This approach resulted useful to describe the taxonomy of these indoor microbiomes and could be further applied to other built environments, in which the knowledge of the microbiome composition is of relevance. In addition, this study could assist in the design of new guidelines to improve microbiological quality control in indoor work environments.}, }
@article {pmid30833550, year = {2019}, author = {Milanese, A and Mende, DR and Paoli, L and Salazar, G and Ruscheweyh, HJ and Cuenca, M and Hingamp, P and Alves, R and Costea, PI and Coelho, LP and Schmidt, TSB and Almeida, A and Mitchell, AL and Finn, RD and Huerta-Cepas, J and Bork, P and Zeller, G and Sunagawa, S}, title = {Microbial abundance, activity and population genomic profiling with mOTUs2.}, journal = {Nature communications}, volume = {10}, number = {1}, pages = {1014}, doi = {10.1038/s41467-019-08844-4}, pmid = {30833550}, issn = {2041-1723}, mesh = {Algorithms ; Cluster Analysis ; Computational Biology/methods ; Gene Expression Profiling ; Genes, Essential ; Genetic Markers ; Genome ; Host Microbial Interactions ; Humans ; *Metagenomics ; Microbiota/*genetics ; Molecular Sequence Annotation ; *Phylogeny ; Sequence Alignment ; Sequence Analysis, DNA ; }, abstract = {Metagenomic sequencing has greatly improved our ability to profile the composition of environmental and host-associated microbial communities. However, the dependency of most methods on reference genomes, which are currently unavailable for a substantial fraction of microbial species, introduces estimation biases. We present an updated and functionally extended tool based on universal (i.e., reference-independent), phylogenetic marker gene (MG)-based operational taxonomic units (mOTUs) enabling the profiling of >7700 microbial species. As more than 30% of them could not previously be quantified at this taxonomic resolution, relative abundance estimates based on mOTUs are more accurate compared to other methods. As a new feature, we show that mOTUs, which are based on essential housekeeping genes, are demonstrably well-suited for quantification of basal transcriptional activity of community members. Furthermore, single nucleotide variation profiles estimated using mOTUs reflect those from whole genomes, which allows for comparing microbial strain populations (e.g., across different human body sites).}, }
@article {pmid30128993, year = {2018}, author = {Mitchell, AB and Glanville, AR}, title = {Introduction to Techniques and Methodologies for Characterizing the Human Respiratory Virome.}, journal = {Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.)}, volume = {1838}, number = {}, pages = {111-123}, doi = {10.1007/978-1-4939-8682-8_9}, pmid = {30128993}, issn = {1940-6029}, mesh = {Animals ; High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing ; Humans ; *Metagenome ; *Metagenomics ; *Microbiota ; Polymerase Chain Reaction ; Respiratory Tract Infections/*virology ; Sequence Analysis, DNA ; Viruses/*genetics ; }, abstract = {There have been great advances in the methodologies available for the detection of respiratory viruses. Accompanying this, our knowledge surrounding the impact of these viruses has also made a great leap forward. We have come a long way from the once commonly accepted belief that the lower respiratory tract was sterile and that the detection of any microbial species must represent a breach in host defence and likely be associated with symptomatic infection. With the advent of molecular detection techniques and improvements in sequencing-based methodologies to make these tools more accessible and cost effective, we now know that there is an abundant and diverse ecosystem within the lower-respiratory tract. This chapter will outline the clinical impact of the human respiratory virome, techniques for sampling the lower respiratory tract, the evolution of the diagnostic tools available, and the current limitations in our instruments and knowledge in this area. The human respiratory virome is an exciting new area of research that will continue to grow with the aid of the methodologies outlined in the following chapters and the advent of even more efficient tools in the future.}, }
@article {pmid30128992, year = {2018}, author = {Mayo-Muñoz, D}, title = {Viral Genome Isolation from Human Faeces for Succession Assessment of the Human Gut Virome.}, journal = {Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.)}, volume = {1838}, number = {}, pages = {97-108}, doi = {10.1007/978-1-4939-8682-8_8}, pmid = {30128992}, issn = {1940-6029}, mesh = {Feces/*virology ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; *Genome, Viral ; High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing ; Humans ; *Metagenome ; *Metagenomics/methods ; Whole Genome Sequencing ; }, abstract = {Despite the important role of the microbiota in the human gastrointestinal tract (GIT) and its impact on life-long health, the successional process through which this microbial community develops during infancy is still poorly understood. Specially, little is known about how the amount and type of viruses present in the GIT, i.e., the virome, varies throughout this period and about the role this collection of viruses may play in the assembly of the GIT microbiota.The patterns of taxonomic change of the GIT viral community can be analyzed in a birth cohort of infants during the first year of life. The present chapter presents a detailed protocol for the isolation and extraction of viral nucleic acids from collected human faecal samples, whole genome amplification (WGA) using phi29 DNA polymerase and preparation for sequencing through high-throughput 454 pyrosequencing. The sequencing data can be posteriorly used for taxonomic classification in order to establish the composition of the virome present in each sample and to assess the process of viral dynamics through time.}, }
@article {pmid30128990, year = {2018}, author = {Kramná, L and Cinek, O}, title = {Virome Sequencing of Stool Samples.}, journal = {Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.)}, volume = {1838}, number = {}, pages = {59-83}, doi = {10.1007/978-1-4939-8682-8_6}, pmid = {30128990}, issn = {1940-6029}, mesh = {Bacteriophages/*classification/*genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; DNA, Viral/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Feces/*virology ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; Gene Library ; *Metagenome ; *Metagenomics/methods ; Polymerase Chain Reaction ; RNA, Viral/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Ultracentrifugation ; }, abstract = {Next-generation sequencing has opened avenues to studying complex populations such as the bacteriome (all bacteria), mycobiome (all fungi), and virome (all viruses in a given sample). Viromes are less often investigated as compared to bacteriomes. The reasons are mostly methodological: because no common pan-viral sequence signature exists, metagenomic sequencing remains the only option. This brings about the need of laborious virus enrichment, multiple signal amplification steps with virtually no possibility of interim quality control, and complicated bioinformatic analysis of the ensuing sequence data. Nevertheless, over the past decade virome sequencing has been enormously successful in identifying new agents in human and animal diseases, and in characterizing viruses in various ecological niches. Recently, virome sequencing has been also employed in studies of non-infectious diseases, which has brought about new challenges of sensitivity, costs, and reproducibility in testing of large sets of samples. Here, we present a detailed protocol that has been utilized in virome studies where hundreds of samples had to be reliably tested in order to assess the association of the stool virome with susceptibility to type 1 diabetes, a non-infectious autoimmune disease.}, }
@article {pmid30128989, year = {2018}, author = {Castro-Mejía, JL and Deng, L and Vogensen, FK and Reyes, A and Nielsen, DS}, title = {Extraction and Purification of Viruses from Fecal Samples for Metagenome and Morphology Analyses.}, journal = {Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.)}, volume = {1838}, number = {}, pages = {49-57}, doi = {10.1007/978-1-4939-8682-8_5}, pmid = {30128989}, issn = {1940-6029}, mesh = {Feces/*virology ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; Humans ; *Metagenome ; *Metagenomics/methods ; Microscopy, Fluorescence ; Ultracentrifugation ; Viruses/*genetics/*isolation &amp; purification/ultrastructure ; }, abstract = {The human enteric virome consists of endogenous retro elements and viruses that infect the host and members of the gut microbiome (GM). Mounting evidence suggests that the gut virome plays a central role in maintaining homeostasis and via the GM influences immunology of the host. To thoroughly characterize the gut virome, it is often very useful to first separate and concentrate extracellular viral-like particles (eVLPs) enabling an integrative characterization of them. Here, we describe a detailed protocol for extraction and concentration of the viral fraction from fecal samples based on a polyethylene glycol precipitation (PEG) approach. These procedures maximize the yields of eVLPs (and their DNA) with high purity well suited for down-stream analysis such as quantification and morphological assessment, determination of phage-host pairs as well as virome sequencing.}, }
@article {pmid28852195, year = {2017}, author = {Ozkan, J and Nielsen, S and Diez-Vives, C and Coroneo, M and Thomas, T and Willcox, M}, title = {Temporal Stability and Composition of the Ocular Surface Microbiome.}, journal = {Scientific reports}, volume = {7}, number = {1}, pages = {9880}, pmid = {28852195}, issn = {2045-2322}, mesh = {Adult ; Conjunctiva/*microbiology ; Eyelids/*microbiology ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Metagenome ; Metagenomics/methods ; *Microbiota ; Middle Aged ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S ; }, abstract = {To determine if there is a core ocular surface microbiome and whether there are microbial community changes over time, the conjunctiva of 45 healthy subjects were sampled at three time points over three months and processed using culture-dependent and -independent methods. Contaminant taxa were removed using a linear regression model using taxa abundances in negative controls as predictor of taxa abundances in subject samples. Both cultured cell counts and sequencing indicated low microbial biomass on the ocular surface. No cultured species was found in all subjects at all times or in all subjects at any one time. After removal of contaminant taxa identified in negative controls using a statistical model, the most commonly detected taxon was Corynebacterium (11.1%). No taxa were found in all subjects at all times or in all subjects in any one time, but there were 26 taxa present in at least one or more subjects at all times including Corynebacterium and Streptococcus. The ocular surface contains a low diversity of microorganisms. Using culture dependent and independent methods, the ocular surface does not appear to support a substantial core microbiome. However, consistently present taxa could be observed within individuals suggesting the possibility of individual-specific core microbiomes.}, }
@article {pmid28852182, year = {2017}, author = {Mancabelli, L and Milani, C and Lugli, GA and Turroni, F and Mangifesta, M and Viappiani, A and Ticinesi, A and Nouvenne, A and Meschi, T and van Sinderen, D and Ventura, M}, title = {Unveiling the gut microbiota composition and functionality associated with constipation through metagenomic analyses.}, journal = {Scientific reports}, volume = {7}, number = {1}, pages = {9879}, pmid = {28852182}, issn = {2045-2322}, mesh = {Case-Control Studies ; Constipation/*etiology/metabolism ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; Gene Amplification ; Humans ; *Metagenome ; *Metagenomics/methods ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S ; }, abstract = {Functional constipation (FC) is a gastrointestinal disorder with a high prevalence among the general population. The precise causes of FC are still unknown and are most likely multifactorial. Growing evidence indicates that alterations of gut microbiota composition contribute to constipation symptoms. Nevertheless, many discrepancies exist in literature and no clear link between FC and gut microbiota composition has as yet been identified. In this study, we performed 16 S rRNA-based microbial profiling analysis of 147 stool samples from 68 FC individuals and compared their microbial profiles with those of 79 healthy subjects (HS). Notably, the gut microbiota of FC individuals was shown to be depleted of members belonging to Bacteroides, Roseburia and Coprococcus 3. Furthermore, the metabolic capabilities of the gut microbiomes of five FC and five HS individuals were evaluated through shotgun metagenomics using a MiSeq platform, indicating that HS are enriched in pathways involved in carbohydrate, fatty acid and lipid metabolism as compared to FC. In contrast, the microbiomes corresponding to FC were shown to exhibit high abundance of genes involved in hydrogen production, methanogenesis and glycerol degradation. The identified differences in bacterial composition and metabolic capabilities may play an important role in development of FC symptoms.}, }
@article {pmid28852143, year = {2017}, author = {Gribben, PE and Nielsen, S and Seymour, JR and Bradley, DJ and West, MN and Thomas, T}, title = {Microbial communities in marine sediments modify success of an invasive macrophyte.}, journal = {Scientific reports}, volume = {7}, number = {1}, pages = {9845}, pmid = {28852143}, issn = {2045-2322}, mesh = {Australia ; Bacteria ; *Biodiversity ; Ecosystem ; Geologic Sediments/*microbiology ; *Introduced Species ; Metagenome ; Metagenomics/methods ; *Microbiota ; *Oceans and Seas ; *Plants ; }, abstract = {Invasive plants have extensive impacts on ecosystem function and biodiversity globally. Our inability to manage invasive species stems in part from a lack of understanding of the processes that control their successful establishment and spread. To date, studies have largely considered how above-ground processes control native/invasive plant interactions. Emerging research from terrestrial and wetland ecosystems demonstrates that below-ground processes under microbial control can determine the outcome of interactions between native and invasive plants. Whether sediment microbes modify the success of invasive macrophytes in marine ecosystems is untested, despite marine sediment microbes controlling many ecological processes (e.g. nutrient cycling) comparable to those in terrestrial ecosystems. We first show that sediment bacterial communities differ between the native seagrass Zostera capricorni and the invasive alga Caulerpa taxifolia and that those differences relate to functional changes in sulfur cycling between the macrophytes. Second, by experimentally manipulating the microbial communities we show that intact microbial communities in Z. capricorni sediments provide biotic resistance by reducing C. taxifolia fragment growth 119% compared to when they are inactive, and intact microbial communities in C. taxifolia sediments have positive feedbacks by increasing fragment growth 200%. Thus, similar to terrestrial ecosystems, microorganisms appear to indirectly control the success of invasive macrophytes in marine ecosystems.}, }
@article {pmid30504642, year = {2019}, author = {Nakagawa, T and Tsuchiya, Y and Ueda, S and Fukui, M and Takahashi, R}, title = {Eelgrass Sediment Microbiome as a Nitrous Oxide Sink in Brackish Lake Akkeshi, Japan.}, journal = {Microbes and environments}, volume = {34}, number = {1}, pages = {13-22}, doi = {10.1264/jsme2.ME18103}, pmid = {30504642}, issn = {1347-4405}, mesh = {Ammonia/metabolism ; Archaea/classification/genetics/isolation &amp; purification/metabolism ; Bacteria/classification/genetics/isolation &amp; purification/metabolism ; Geologic Sediments/*microbiology ; Japan ; Lakes/*microbiology ; Metagenomics ; *Microbiota/genetics ; Nitrous Oxide/*metabolism ; Oxidation-Reduction ; Oxidoreductases/genetics ; *Saline Waters ; *Water Microbiology ; Zosteraceae/*microbiology ; }, abstract = {Nitrous oxide (N2O) is a powerful greenhouse gas; however, limited information is currently available on the microbiomes involved in its sink and source in seagrass meadow sediments. Using laboratory incubations, a quantitative PCR (qPCR) analysis of N2O reductase (nosZ) and ammonia monooxygenase subunit A (amoA) genes, and a metagenome analysis based on the nosZ gene, we investigated the abundance of N2O-reducing microorganisms and ammonia-oxidizing prokaryotes as well as the community compositions of N2O-reducing microorganisms in in situ and cultivated sediments in the non-eelgrass and eelgrass zones of Lake Akkeshi, Japan. Laboratory incubations showed that N2O was reduced by eelgrass sediments and emitted by non-eelgrass sediments. qPCR analyses revealed that the abundance of nosZ gene clade II in both sediments before and after the incubation as higher in the eelgrass zone than in the non-eelgrass zone. In contrast, the abundance of ammonia-oxidizing archaeal amoA genes increased after incubations in the non-eelgrass zone only. Metagenome analyses of nosZ genes revealed that the lineages Dechloromonas-Magnetospirillum-Thiocapsa and Bacteroidetes (Flavobacteriia) within nosZ gene clade II were the main populations in the N2O-reducing microbiome in the in situ sediments of eelgrass zones. Sulfur-oxidizing Gammaproteobacteria within nosZ gene clade II dominated in the lineage Dechloromonas-Magnetospirillum-Thiocapsa. Alphaproteobacteria within nosZ gene clade I were predominant in both zones. The proportions of Epsilonproteobacteria within nosZ gene clade II increased after incubations in the eelgrass zone microcosm supplemented with N2O only. Collectively, these results suggest that the N2O-reducing microbiome in eelgrass meadows is largely responsible for coastal N2O mitigation.}, }
@article {pmid30459201, year = {2018}, author = {Hannigan, GD and Duhaime, MB and Ruffin, MT and Koumpouras, CC and Schloss, PD}, title = {Diagnostic Potential and Interactive Dynamics of the Colorectal Cancer Virome.}, journal = {mBio}, volume = {9}, number = {6}, pages = {}, pmid = {30459201}, issn = {2150-7511}, support = {P30 DK034933/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States ; T32 AI007528/AI/NIAID NIH HHS/United States ; U01 CA086400/CA/NCI NIH HHS/United States ; }, mesh = {Bacteria/genetics/virology ; Bacteriophages/*genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Cohort Studies ; Colorectal Neoplasms/*diagnosis/microbiology/*virology ; Feces/microbiology/virology ; Humans ; Metagenomics ; *Microbiota ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Viruses/*genetics ; }, abstract = {Human viruses (those that infect human cells) have been associated with many cancers, largely due to their mutagenic and functionally manipulative abilities. Despite this, cancer microbiome studies have focused almost exclusively on bacteria instead of viruses. We began evaluating the cancer virome by focusing on colorectal cancer, a primary cause of morbidity and mortality throughout the world and a cancer linked to altered colonic bacterial community compositions but with an unknown association with the gut virome. We used 16S rRNA gene, whole shotgun metagenomic, and purified virus metagenomic sequencing of stool to evaluate the differences in human colorectal cancer virus and bacterial community composition. Through random forest modeling, we identified differences in the healthy and colorectal cancer viromes. The cancer-associated virome consisted primarily of temperate bacteriophages that were also predicted to be bacterium-virus community network hubs. These results provide foundational evidence that bacteriophage communities are associated with colorectal cancer and potentially impact cancer progression by altering the bacterial host communities.IMPORTANCE Colorectal cancer is a leading cause of cancer-related death in the United States and worldwide. Its risk and severity have been linked to colonic bacterial community composition. Although human-specific viruses have been linked to other cancers and diseases, little is known about colorectal cancer virus communities. We addressed this knowledge gap by identifying differences in colonic virus communities in the stool of colorectal cancer patients and how they compared to bacterial community differences. The results suggested an indirect role for the virome in impacting colorectal cancer by modulating the associated bacterial community. These findings both support the idea of a biological role for viruses in colorectal cancer and provide a new understanding of basic colorectal cancer etiology.}, }
@article {pmid30401779, year = {2018}, author = {Bratburd, JR and Keller, C and Vivas, E and Gemperline, E and Li, L and Rey, FE and Currie, CR}, title = {Gut Microbial and Metabolic Responses to Salmonella enterica Serovar Typhimurium and Candida albicans.}, journal = {mBio}, volume = {9}, number = {6}, pages = {}, pmid = {30401779}, issn = {2150-7511}, support = {U19 AI109673/AI/NIAID NIH HHS/United States ; R56 DK071801/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States ; R01 DK108259/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States ; S10 RR029531/RR/NCRR NIH HHS/United States ; T32 AI055397/AI/NIAID NIH HHS/United States ; R01 DK071801/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States ; }, mesh = {Animals ; Biosynthetic Pathways ; Candida albicans/pathogenicity ; Candidiasis/*microbiology ; Cecum/microbiology ; Disease Models, Animal ; Enterobacteriaceae/isolation &amp; purification ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; Germ-Free Life ; Humans ; Male ; Metabolomics ; Metagenomics ; Mice ; Mice, Inbred C57BL ; *Microbiota ; Oxidative Stress ; Salmonella Infections, Animal/*microbiology ; Salmonella typhimurium/pathogenicity ; }, abstract = {The gut microbiota confers resistance to pathogens of the intestinal ecosystem, yet the dynamics of pathogen-microbiome interactions and the metabolites involved in this process remain largely unknown. Here, we use gnotobiotic mice infected with the virulent pathogen Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium or the opportunistic pathogen Candida albicans in combination with metagenomics and discovery metabolomics to identify changes in the community and metabolome during infection. To isolate the role of the microbiota in response to pathogens, we compared mice monocolonized with the pathogen, uninfected mice &quot;humanized&quot; with a synthetic human microbiome, or infected humanized mice. In Salmonella-infected mice, by 3 days into infection, microbiome community structure and function changed substantially, with a rise in Enterobacteriaceae strains and a reduction in biosynthetic gene cluster potential. In contrast, Candida-infected mice had few microbiome changes. The LC-MS metabolomic fingerprint of the cecum differed between mice monocolonized with either pathogen and humanized infected mice. Specifically, we identified an increase in glutathione disulfide, glutathione cysteine disulfide, inosine 5'-monophosphate, and hydroxybutyrylcarnitine in mice infected with Salmonella in contrast to uninfected mice and mice monocolonized with Salmonella These metabolites potentially play a role in pathogen-induced oxidative stress. These results provide insight into how the microbiota community members interact with each other and with pathogens on a metabolic level.IMPORTANCE The gut microbiota is increasingly recognized for playing a critical role in human health and disease, especially in conferring resistance to both virulent pathogens such as Salmonella, which infects 1.2 million people in the United States every year (E. Scallan, R. M. Hoekstra, F. J. Angulo, R. V. Tauxe, et al., Emerg Infect Dis 17:7-15, 2011, https://doi.org/10.3201/eid1701.P11101), and opportunistic pathogens like Candida, which causes an estimated 46,000 cases of invasive candidiasis each year in the United States (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Antibiotic Resistance Threats in the United States, 2013, 2013). Using a gnotobiotic mouse model, we investigate potential changes in gut microbial community structure and function during infection using metagenomics and metabolomics. We observe that changes in the community and in biosynthetic gene cluster potential occur within 3 days for the virulent Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium, but there are minimal changes with a poorly colonizing Candida albicans In addition, the metabolome shifts depending on infection status, including changes in glutathione metabolites in response to Salmonella infection, potentially in response to host oxidative stress.}, }
@article {pmid29507058, year = {2018}, author = {Kim, S and Goel, R and Kumar, A and Qi, Y and Lobaton, G and Hosaka, K and Mohammed, M and Handberg, EM and Richards, EM and Pepine, CJ and Raizada, MK}, title = {Imbalance of gut microbiome and intestinal epithelial barrier dysfunction in patients with high blood pressure.}, journal = {Clinical science (London, England : 1979)}, volume = {132}, number = {6}, pages = {701-718}, pmid = {29507058}, issn = {1470-8736}, support = {R01 HL033610/HL/NHLBI NIH HHS/United States ; R01 HL056921/HL/NHLBI NIH HHS/United States ; R01 HL132448/HL/NHLBI NIH HHS/United States ; R37 HL033610/HL/NHLBI NIH HHS/United States ; }, mesh = {Animals ; Bacteria/classification/immunology/*metabolism ; *Blood Pressure ; Butyrates/blood ; Case-Control Studies ; Cholera Toxin/blood ; Disease Models, Animal ; Epithelial Cells/immunology/metabolism/*microbiology ; Fatty Acid-Binding Proteins/blood ; Feces/microbiology ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; Host-Pathogen Interactions ; Humans ; Hypertension/blood/immunology/*microbiology/physiopathology ; Intestinal Mucosa/immunology/metabolism/*microbiology/physiopathology ; Lipopolysaccharides/blood ; Mice, Inbred C57BL ; Permeability ; Rats, Sprague-Dawley ; Th17 Cells/immunology/metabolism ; }, abstract = {Recent evidence indicates a link between gut pathology and microbiome with hypertension (HTN) in animal models. However, whether this association exists in humans is unknown. Thus, our objectives in the present study were to test the hypotheses that high blood pressure (BP) patients have distinct gut microbiomes and that gut-epithelial barrier function markers and microbiome composition could predict systolic BP (SBP). Fecal samples, analyzed by shotgun metagenomics, displayed taxonomic and functional changes, including altered butyrate production between patients with high BP and reference subjects. Significant increases in plasma of intestinal fatty acid binding protein (I-FABP), lipopolysaccharide (LPS), and augmented gut-targetting proinflammatory T helper 17 (Th17) cells in high BP patients demonstrated increased intestinal inflammation and permeability. Zonulin, a gut epithelial tight junction protein regulator, was markedly elevated, further supporting gut barrier dysfunction in high BP. Zonulin strongly correlated with SBP (R2 = 0.5301, P<0.0001). Two models predicting SBP were built using stepwise linear regression analysis of microbiome data and circulating markers of gut health, and validated in a separate cohort by prediction of SBP from zonulin in plasma (R2 = 0.4608, P<0.0001). The mouse model of HTN, chronic angiotensin II (Ang II) infusion, was used to confirm the effects of butyrate and gut barrier function on the cardiovascular system and BP. These results support our conclusion that intestinal barrier dysfunction and microbiome function are linked to HTN in humans. They suggest that manipulation of gut microbiome and its barrier functions could be the new therapeutic and diagnostic avenues for HTN.}, }
@article {pmid29089173, year = {2018}, author = {Turroni, F and Milani, C and Duranti, S and Mahony, J and van Sinderen, D and Ventura, M}, title = {Glycan Utilization and Cross-Feeding Activities by Bifidobacteria.}, journal = {Trends in microbiology}, volume = {26}, number = {4}, pages = {339-350}, doi = {10.1016/j.tim.2017.10.001}, pmid = {29089173}, issn = {1878-4380}, mesh = {Adaptation, Biological ; Bifidobacterium/genetics/*physiology ; Biological Evolution ; Carbohydrate Metabolism/physiology ; Ecology ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/genetics/*physiology ; Gastrointestinal Tract/microbiology ; Genome, Bacterial ; Humans ; Metagenomics ; Polysaccharides/*metabolism ; Probiotics ; }, abstract = {Bifidobacteria represent one of the first colonizers of the mammalian gut, where such colonization is facilitated by their saccharolytic capabilities. Genomic analyses of bifidobacteria have revealed intriguing genetic strategies employed by these bacteria to access a variety of dietary and host-produced glycans. Bifidobacterial genome evolution therefore represents a fascinating example of how their chromosomes were molded to contain a large number of genes involved in carbohydrate metabolism. One of the reasons as to why bifidobacteria are such dominant and prevalent members of the (early) microbiota is that they may access glycans in the gut through mutualistic cross-feeding or resource-sharing activities, which is indicative of 'social behavior' among bifidobacterial strains.}, }
@article {pmid31004827, year = {2019}, author = {Sung, CM and Lin, YF and Chen, KF and Ke, HM and Huang, HY and Gong, YN and Tsai, WS and Lu, MJ and Cheng, HT and Lin, CY and Kuo, CJ and Tsai, IJ and Hsieh, SY}, title = {Predicting clinical outcomes of cirrhosis patients with hepatic encephalopathy from the fecal microbiome.}, journal = {Cellular and molecular gastroenterology and hepatology}, volume = {}, number = {}, pages = {}, doi = {10.1016/j.jcmgh.2019.04.008}, pmid = {31004827}, issn = {2352-345X}, abstract = {BACKGROUND &amp; AIMS: Gut dysbiosis plays a role in hepatic encephalopathy (HE), while its relationship at the acute episode of overt HE (AHE), the disease progression and clinical outcomes remains unclear. We aimed to identify AHE-specific microbiome and its association to patients' outcomes.<br><br>METHODS: We profiled fecal microbiome changes for a cohort of 62 patients with cirrhosis and AHE i) before treatment, ii) 2-3 days after medication and iii) 2-3 months after recovery, and three control cohorts i) healthy individuals, patients with ii) compensated or iii) decompensated cirrhosis.<br><br>RESULTS: Comparison of the microbiome shift from compensated, decompensated cirrhosis, AHE to recovery revealed the AHE-specific gut-dysbiosis. The gut microbiome diversity was decreased during AHE, further reduced after medication, and only partially reversed during the recovery. The relative abundance of Bacteroidetes phylum in the microbiome decreased, whereas that of Firmicute, Proteobacteria and Actinobacteria increased in patients during AHE compared to those with compensated cirrhosis. A total of 70 operational taxonomic units (OTUs) were significantly different between AHE and decompensated cirrhosis abundances. Of them, the abundance of Veillonella parvula increased the most during AHE via a metagenomics recovery of the genomes. Moreover, the relative abundances of three (Alistipes, Bacteroides, Phascolarctobacterium) and five OTUs (Clostridium-XI, Bacteroides, Bacteroides, Lactobacillus, Clostridium-sedis) at AHE were respectively associated with HE recurrence and overall survival during the subsequent one-year follow-up.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: AHE-specific gut OTUs were identified that may be involved in HE development and able to predict clinical outcomes, providing new strategies for the prevention and treatment of HE recurrence in patients with cirrhosis.}, }
@article {pmid30979963, year = {2019}, author = {Singer, GAC and Fahner, NA and Barnes, JG and McCarthy, A and Hajibabaei, M}, title = {Comprehensive biodiversity analysis via ultra-deep patterned flow cell technology: a case study of eDNA metabarcoding seawater.}, journal = {Scientific reports}, volume = {9}, number = {1}, pages = {5991}, doi = {10.1038/s41598-019-42455-9}, pmid = {30979963}, issn = {2045-2322}, abstract = {The characterization of biodiversity is a crucial element of ecological investigations as well as environmental assessment and monitoring activities. Increasingly, amplicon-based environmental DNA metabarcoding (alternatively, marker gene metagenomics) is used for such studies given its ability to provide biodiversity data from various groups of organisms simply from analysis of bulk environmental samples such as water, soil or sediments. The Illumina MiSeq is currently the most popular tool for carrying out this work, but we set out to determine whether typical studies were reading enough DNA to detect rare organisms (i.e., those that may be of greatest interest such as endangered or invasive species) present in the environment. We collected sea water samples along two transects in Conception Bay, Newfoundland and analyzed them on the MiSeq with a sequencing depth of 100,000 reads per sample (exceeding the 60,000 per sample that is typical of similar studies). We then analyzed these same samples on Illumina's newest high-capacity platform, the NovaSeq, at a depth of 7 million reads per sample. Not surprisingly, the NovaSeq detected many more taxa than the MiSeq thanks to its much greater sequencing depth. However, contrary to our expectations this pattern was true even in depth-for-depth comparisons. In other words, the NovaSeq can detect more DNA sequence diversity within samples than the MiSeq, even at the exact same sequencing depth. Even when samples were reanalyzed on the MiSeq with a sequencing depth of 1 million reads each, the MiSeq's ability to detect new sequences plateaued while the NovaSeq continued to detect new sequence variants. These results have important biological implications. The NovaSeq found 40% more metazoan families in this environment than the MiSeq, including some of interest such as marine mammals and bony fish so the real-world implications of these findings are significant. These results are most likely associated to the advances incorporated in the NovaSeq, especially a patterned flow cell, which prevents similar sequences that are neighbours on the flow cell (common in metabarcoding studies) from being erroneously merged into single spots by the sequencing instrument. This study sets the stage for incorporating eDNA metabarcoding in comprehensive analysis of oceanic samples in a wide range of ecological and environmental investigations.}, }
@article {pmid30962514, year = {2019}, author = {Tan, S and Liu, J and Fang, Y and Hedlund, BP and Lian, ZH and Huang, LY and Li, JT and Huang, LN and Li, WJ and Jiang, HC and Dong, HL and Shu, WS}, title = {Insights into ecological role of a new deltaproteobacterial order Candidatus Acidulodesulfobacterales by metagenomics and metatranscriptomics.}, journal = {The ISME journal}, volume = {}, number = {}, pages = {}, doi = {10.1038/s41396-019-0415-y}, pmid = {30962514}, issn = {1751-7370}, support = {U1501232//National Natural Science Foundation of China (National Science Foundation of China)/ ; 31570506//National Natural Science Foundation of China (National Science Foundation of China)/ ; 41603074//National Natural Science Foundation of China (National Science Foundation of China)/ ; 31600077//National Natural Science Foundation of China (National Science Foundation of China)/ ; 41773132//National Natural Science Foundation of China (National Science Foundation of China)/ ; 41622106//National Natural Science Foundation of China (National Science Foundation of China)/ ; 31570500//National Natural Science Foundation of China (National Science Foundation of China)/ ; 41630103//National Natural Science Foundation of China (National Science Foundation of China)/ ; 2016A030312003//Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province (Guangdong Natural Science Foundation)/ ; DEB-1557042//National Science Foundation (NSF)/ ; }, abstract = {Several abundant but yet uncultivated bacterial groups exist in extreme iron- and sulfur-rich environments, and the physiology, biodiversity, and ecological roles of these bacteria remain a mystery. Here we retrieved four metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) from an artificial acid mine drainage (AMD) system, and propose they belong to a new deltaproteobacterial order, Candidatus Acidulodesulfobacterales. The distribution pattern of Ca. Acidulodesulfobacterales in AMDs across Southeast China correlated strongly with ferrous iron. Reconstructed metabolic pathways and gene expression profiles showed that they were likely facultatively anaerobic autotrophs capable of nitrogen fixation. In addition to dissimilatory sulfate reduction, encoded by dsrAB, dsrD, dsrL, and dsrEFH genes, these microorganisms might also oxidize sulfide, depending on oxygen concentration and/or oxidation reduction potential. Several genes with homology to those involved in iron metabolism were also identified, suggesting their potential role in iron cycling. In addition, the expression of abundant resistance genes revealed the mechanisms of adaptation and response to the extreme environmental stresses endured by these organisms in the AMD environment. These findings shed light on the distribution, diversity, and potential ecological role of the new order Ca. Acidulodesulfobacterales in nature.}, }
@article {pmid30962029, year = {2019}, author = {Brink, M and Rhode, C and Macey, BM and Christison, KW and Roodt-Wilding, R}, title = {Metagenomic assessment of body surface bacterial communities of the sea urchin, Tripneustes gratilla.}, journal = {Marine genomics}, volume = {}, number = {}, pages = {}, doi = {10.1016/j.margen.2019.03.010}, pmid = {30962029}, issn = {1876-7478}, abstract = {Sea urchins, including Tripneustes gratilla, are susceptible to a disease known as bald sea urchin disease, which has the potential to lead to economic losses in this emerging aquaculture industry in South Africa. This disease is characterized by lesions that form on sea urchin exoskeletal surfaces. This study aimed to characterize the body surface bacterial communities associated with T. gratilla, using a 16S rDNA gene metagenomics approach, to provide insight into the bacterial agents associated with this aquaculture species, as well as with this balding disease. Bacterial samples were collected from non-lesioned healthy animals obtained from natural locations along the eastern coast of South Africa, as well as from different cultured cohorts: non-lesioned healthy-, lesioned diseased- and non-lesioned stressed animals. A total of 1,067,515 individual bacterial operational taxonomic units (OTUs) were identified, belonging to 133 family-, 123 genus- and 113 species level OTU groups. Alpha diversity analyses, based on Chao1, Shannon and Simpson indices, showed that there were no statistically significant differences (ANOVA; P > 0.05) between the respective cohorts, as all cohorts displayed a high degree of bacterial diversity. Similarly, beta diversity analyses (Non-metric multidimensional scaling) showed a large degree of overlapping OTUs across the four cohorts. Within each cohort, various OTUs commonly associated with marine environments were found, predominantly belonging to the families Vibrionaceae, Saprospiraceae, Flavobacteriaceae and Sphingomonadaceae. Differential abundance analysis (DESeq2) revealed that OTUs that are differentially abundant across cohorts were likely not responsible for this balding disease, suggesting that complex bacterial agents, rather than a specific pathogenic agent, are likely causing this disease. Furthermore, the putative metabolic functions assigned to the bacterial communities showed that heterotrophic bacteria appear to be responsible for tissue lysis of degrading animal matter. The results from this study, obtained through univariate and multivariate-based approaches, contributes to future management strategies of this emerging aquaculture species by providing insight into the bacterial communities associated with both natural and cultured environments.}, }
@article {pmid30946154, year = {2019}, author = {Sessa, L and Reddel, S and Manno, E and Quagliariello, A and Cotugno, N and Del Chierico, F and Amodio, D and Capponi, C and Leone, F and Bernardi, S and Rossi, P and Putignani, L and Palma, P}, title = {Distinct gut microbiota profile in antiretroviral therapy-treated perinatally HIV-infected patients associated with cardiac and inflammatory biomarkers.}, journal = {AIDS (London, England)}, volume = {33}, number = {6}, pages = {1001-1011}, doi = {10.1097/QAD.0000000000002131}, pmid = {30946154}, issn = {1473-5571}, abstract = {OBJECTIVE: Persistent inflammation and higher risk to develop cardiovascular diseases still represent a major complication for HIV-infected patients despite effective antiretroviral therapy (ART). We investigated the correlation between the gut microbiota profile, markers of inflammation, vascular endothelial activation (VEA) and microbial translocation (MT) in perinatally HIV-infected patients (PHIV) under ART.<br><br>DESIGN: Cross-sectional study including 61 ART-treated PHIV (age range 3-30 years old) and 71 age-matched healthy controls. Blood and stool sample were collected at the same time and analyzed for gut microbiota composition and plasma biomarkers.<br><br>METHODS: Gut microbiota composition was determined by 16S rRNA targeted-metagenomics. Soluble markers of MT, inflammation and VEA were quantified by ELISA or Luminex assay. Markers of immune activation were analyzed by flow cytometry on CD4 and CD8T cells.<br><br>RESULTS: We identified two distinct gut microbiota profiles (groups A and B) among PHIV. No different clinical parameters (age, sex, ethnicity, clinical class), dietary and sexual habits were found between the groups. The group A showed a relative dominance of Akkermansia muciniphila, whereas gut microbiota of group B was characterized by a higher biodiversity. The analysis of soluble markers revealed a significantly higher level of soluble E-selectine (P = 0.0296), intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (P = 0.0028), vascular adhesion molecule-1 (P = 0.0230), IL-6 (P = 0.0247) and soluble CD14 (P = 0.0142) in group A compared with group B.<br><br>CONCLUSION: Distinctive gut microbiota profiles are differently associated with inflammation, microbial translocation and VEA. Future studies are needed to understand the role of A. muciniphila and risk to develop cardiovascular diseases in PHIV.}, }
@article {pmid30927421, year = {2019}, author = {Ding, GC and Bai, M and Han, H and Li, H and Ding, X and Yang, H and Xu, T and Li, J}, title = {Microbial taxonomic, nitrogen cycling and phosphorus recycling community composition during long-term organic greenhouse farming.}, journal = {FEMS microbiology ecology}, volume = {95}, number = {5}, pages = {}, doi = {10.1093/femsec/fiz042}, pmid = {30927421}, issn = {1574-6941}, abstract = {Understanding the interplay between the farming system and soil microbiomes could aid the design of a sustainable and efficient farming system. A comparative greenhouse experiment consisting of organic (ORG), integrated (INT) and conventional (CON) farming systems was established in northern China in 2002. The effects of 12 years of organic farming on soil microbiomes were explored by metagenomic and 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing analyses. Long-term ORG shifted the community composition of dominant phyla, especially Acidobacteria, increased the relative abundance of Ignavibacteria and Acidobacteria Gp6 and decreased the relative abundance of Nitrosomonas, Bacillus and Paenibacillus. Metagenomic analysis further revealed that relative abundance of ammonia oxidizing microorganisms (Bacteria and Archaea) and anaerobic ammonium oxidation bacteria decreased during ORG. Conversely, the relative abundance of bacteria-carrying periplasmic nitrate reductases (napA) was slightly higher for ORG. Long-term organic farming also caused significant alterations to the community composition of functional groups associated with ammonia oxidation, denitrification and phosphorus recycling. In summary, this study provides key insights into the composition of soil microbiomes and long-term organic farming under greenhouse conditions.}, }
@article {pmid30906284, year = {2019}, author = {Cycoń, M and Mrozik, A and Piotrowska-Seget, Z}, title = {Antibiotics in the Soil Environment-Degradation and Their Impact on Microbial Activity and Diversity.}, journal = {Frontiers in microbiology}, volume = {10}, number = {}, pages = {338}, doi = {10.3389/fmicb.2019.00338}, pmid = {30906284}, issn = {1664-302X}, abstract = {Antibiotics play a key role in the management of infectious diseases in humans, animals, livestock, and aquacultures all over the world. The release of increasing amount of antibiotics into waters and soils creates a potential threat to all microorganisms in these environments. This review addresses issues related to the fate and degradation of antibiotics in soils and the impact of antibiotics on the structural, genetic and functional diversity of microbial communities. Due to the emergence of bacterial resistance to antibiotics, which is considered a worldwide public health problem, the abundance and diversity of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in soils are also discussed. When antibiotic residues enter the soil, the main processes determining their persistence are sorption to organic particles and degradation/transformation. The wide range of DT50 values for antibiotic residues in soils shows that the processes governing persistence depend on a number of different factors, e.g., physico-chemical properties of the residue, characteristics of the soil, and climatic factors (temperature, rainfall, and humidity). The results presented in this review show that antibiotics affect soil microorganisms by changing their enzyme activity and ability to metabolize different carbon sources, as well as by altering the overall microbial biomass and the relative abundance of different groups (i.e., Gram-negative bacteria, Gram-positive bacteria, and fungi) in microbial communities. Studies using methods based on analyses of nucleic acids prove that antibiotics alter the biodiversity of microbial communities and the presence of many types of ARGs in soil are affected by agricultural and human activities. It is worth emphasizing that studies on ARGs in soil have resulted in the discovery of new genes and enzymes responsible for bacterial resistance to antibiotics. However, many ambiguous results indicate that precise estimation of the impact of antibiotics on the activity and diversity of soil microbial communities is a great challenge.}, }
@article {pmid30886779, year = {2019}, author = {Eisenhofer, R and Weyrich, LS}, title = {Assessing alignment-based taxonomic classification of ancient microbial DNA.}, journal = {PeerJ}, volume = {7}, number = {}, pages = {e6594}, doi = {10.7717/peerj.6594}, pmid = {30886779}, issn = {2167-8359}, abstract = {The field of palaeomicrobiology-the study of ancient microorganisms-is rapidly growing due to recent methodological and technological advancements. It is now possible to obtain vast quantities of DNA data from ancient specimens in a high-throughput manner and use this information to investigate the dynamics and evolution of past microbial communities. However, we still know very little about how the characteristics of ancient DNA influence our ability to accurately assign microbial taxonomies (i.e. identify species) within ancient metagenomic samples. Here, we use both simulated and published metagenomic data sets to investigate how ancient DNA characteristics affect alignment-based taxonomic classification. We find that nucleotide-to-nucleotide, rather than nucleotide-to-protein, alignments are preferable when assigning taxonomies to short DNA fragment lengths routinely identified within ancient specimens (<60 bp). We determine that deamination (a form of ancient DNA damage) and random sequence substitutions corresponding to ∼100,000 years of genomic divergence minimally impact alignment-based classification. We also test four different reference databases and find that database choice can significantly bias the results of alignment-based taxonomic classification in ancient metagenomic studies. Finally, we perform a reanalysis of previously published ancient dental calculus data, increasing the number of microbial DNA sequences assigned taxonomically by an average of 64.2-fold and identifying microbial species previously unidentified in the original study. Overall, this study enhances our understanding of how ancient DNA characteristics influence alignment-based taxonomic classification of ancient microorganisms and provides recommendations for future palaeomicrobiological studies.}, }
@article {pmid30871459, year = {2019}, author = {Thrash, A and Arick, M and Barbato, RA and Jones, RM and Douglas, TA and Esdale, J and Perkins, EJ and Garcia-Reyero, N}, title = {Keanu: a novel visualization tool to explore biodiversity in metagenomes.}, journal = {BMC bioinformatics}, volume = {20}, number = {Suppl 2}, pages = {103}, doi = {10.1186/s12859-019-2629-4}, pmid = {30871459}, issn = {1471-2105}, abstract = {BACKGROUND: One of the main challenges when analyzing complex metagenomics data is the fact that large amounts of information need to be presented in a comprehensive and easy-to-navigate way. In the process of analyzing FASTQ sequencing data, visualizing which organisms are present in the data can be useful, especially with metagenomics data or data suspected to be contaminated. Here, we describe the development and application of a command-line tool, Keanu, for visualizing and exploring sample content in metagenomics data. We developed Keanu as an interactive tool to make viewing complex data easier.<br><br>RESULTS: Keanu, a tool for exploring sequence content, helps a user to understand the presence and abundance of organisms in a sample by analyzing alignments against a database that contains taxonomy data and displaying them in an interactive web page. The content of a sample can be presented either as a collapsible tree, with node size indicating abundance, or as a bilevel partition graph, with arc size indicating abundance. Here, we illustrate how Keanu works by exploring shotgun metagenomics data from a sample collected from a bluff that contained paleosols and a krotovina in an alpine site in Ft. Greely, Alaska.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: Keanu provides a simple means by which researchers can explore and visualize species present in sequence data generated from complex communities and environments. Keanu is written in Python and is freely available at https://github.com/IGBB/keanu .}, }
@article {pmid30868805, year = {2019}, author = {Liu, ZX and Xu, J and Sun, W and Shi, YH and Chen, SL}, title = {[Application of DNA metabarcoding in species identification of Chinese herbal medicines].}, journal = {Zhongguo Zhong yao za zhi = Zhongguo zhongyao zazhi = China journal of Chinese materia medica}, volume = {44}, number = {1}, pages = {1-8}, doi = {10.19540/j.cnki.cjcmm.2019.0001}, pmid = {30868805}, issn = {1001-5302}, abstract = {DNA metabarcoding,one rapid and robust method using specific standard DNA fragments,has been widely used for rapid species identification of a bulk sample through high-throughput sequencing technologies.While it has been widely used in the studies of metagenomics,animal and plant biodiversity,it has gradually come to be used as a profitable method in species identification of mixed Chinese herbal medicines.In this paper,we mainly summarize the current studies of the application of DNA metabarcoding in species identification of mixed Chinese herbal medicines.Moreover,high-throughput sequencing technologies adopted in those studies,such as Sanger,the next-generation,and third-generation sequencing technologies,are discussed.It is conducted to provide a theoretical guidance for the application of DNA metabarcoding in species identification of mixed Chinese herbal medicines and in more other biodiversity studies.}, }
@article {pmid30850636, year = {2019}, author = {Hendriksen, RS and Munk, P and Njage, P and van Bunnik, B and McNally, L and Lukjancenko, O and Röder, T and Nieuwenhuijse, D and Pedersen, SK and Kjeldgaard, J and Kaas, RS and Clausen, PTLC and Vogt, JK and Leekitcharoenphon, P and van de Schans, MGM and Zuidema, T and de Roda Husman, AM and Rasmussen, S and Petersen, B and ,  and Amid, C and Cochrane, G and Sicheritz-Ponten, T and Schmitt, H and Alvarez, JRM and Aidara-Kane, A and Pamp, SJ and Lund, O and Hald, T and Woolhouse, M and Koopmans, MP and Vigre, H and Petersen, TN and Aarestrup, FM}, title = {Global monitoring of antimicrobial resistance based on metagenomics analyses of urban sewage.}, journal = {Nature communications}, volume = {10}, number = {1}, pages = {1124}, doi = {10.1038/s41467-019-08853-3}, pmid = {30850636}, issn = {2041-1723}, mesh = {Africa ; Asia ; Bacteria/classification/*drug effects/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Drug Resistance, Multiple, Bacterial/*genetics ; Epidemiological Monitoring ; Europe ; *Genes, Bacterial ; Humans ; *Metagenome ; Metagenomics/methods ; Microbial Consortia/drug effects/genetics ; North America ; Oceania ; Population Health ; Sewage/*microbiology ; Socioeconomic Factors ; South America ; }, abstract = {Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a serious threat to global public health, but obtaining representative data on AMR for healthy human populations is difficult. Here, we use metagenomic analysis of untreated sewage to characterize the bacterial resistome from 79 sites in 60 countries. We find systematic differences in abundance and diversity of AMR genes between Europe/North-America/Oceania and Africa/Asia/South-America. Antimicrobial use data and bacterial taxonomy only explains a minor part of the AMR variation that we observe. We find no evidence for cross-selection between antimicrobial classes, or for effect of air travel between sites. However, AMR gene abundance strongly correlates with socio-economic, health and environmental factors, which we use to predict AMR gene abundances in all countries in the world. Our findings suggest that global AMR gene diversity and abundance vary by region, and that improving sanitation and health could potentially limit the global burden of AMR. We propose metagenomic analysis of sewage as an ethically acceptable and economically feasible approach for continuous global surveillance and prediction of AMR.}, }
@article {pmid30841395, year = {2019}, author = {Cordeiro, MC and Garcia, GD and Rocha, AM and Tschoeke, DA and Campeão, ME and Appolinario, LR and Soares, AC and Leomil, L and Froes, A and Bahiense, L and Rezende, CE and de Almeida, MG and Rangel, TP and De Oliveira, BCV and de Almeida, DQR and Thompson, MC and Thompson, CC and Thompson, FL}, title = {Insights on the freshwater microbiomes metabolic changes associated with the world's largest mining disaster.}, journal = {The Science of the total environment}, volume = {654}, number = {}, pages = {1209-1217}, doi = {10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.11.112}, pmid = {30841395}, issn = {1879-1026}, mesh = {*Chemical Hazard Release ; Disasters ; *Environmental Monitoring ; Fresh Water/*microbiology ; Microbiota ; Mining ; *Water Microbiology ; Water Pollutants, Chemical/*analysis ; }, abstract = {To evaluate the impacts of the Fundão tailings dam failure (Minas Gerais, Brazil) on water quality of the Doce River, we analyzed metagenomics and physicochemical parameters during the month of the disaster and again 6 and 10 months after the disaster. To compare dam conditions before and after the failure, we performed a meta-analysis of physicochemical data from a public database. Immediately after the failure, suspended particulate matter (SPM) in the Doce River was 225-1877 mg L-1. Turbidity and dissolved aluminum and iron concentrations were extremely high, whereas dissolved oxygen was below Brazilian legislation norm (<5 mg L-1) in several locations. Six months later, physicochemical values were below thresholds set by Brazilian guidelines (e.g., SPM = 8-166 mg L-1). Short-term impacts on microbial communities included an increase in Actinobacteria and Bacteroidetes and gene sequences related to microbial virulence, motility, respiration, membrane transport, iron and nitrogen metabolism, suggesting changes in microbial metabolic profiles. The 11 recovered partial genomes from metagenomes (MAGs) had genes related to Fe cycle and metal resistance.}, }
@article {pmid30814504, year = {2019}, author = {Mahnert, A and Moissl-Eichinger, C and Zojer, M and Bogumil, D and Mizrahi, I and Rattei, T and Martinez, JL and Berg, G}, title = {Man-made microbial resistances in built environments.}, journal = {Nature communications}, volume = {10}, number = {1}, pages = {968}, doi = {10.1038/s41467-019-08864-0}, pmid = {30814504}, issn = {2041-1723}, mesh = {Biodiversity ; *Built Environment ; *Drug Resistance, Microbial/genetics ; *Environmental Microbiology ; Gram-Negative Bacteria/drug effects/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Gram-Positive Bacteria/drug effects/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Humans ; Metagenome ; *Microbiota/drug effects/genetics ; }, abstract = {Antimicrobial resistance is a serious threat to global public health, but little is known about the effects of microbial control on the microbiota and its associated resistome. Here we compare the microbiota present on surfaces of clinical settings with other built environments. Using state-of-the-art metagenomics approaches and genome and plasmid reconstruction, we show that increased confinement and cleaning is associated with a loss of microbial diversity and a shift from Gram-positive bacteria, such as Actinobacteria and Firmicutes, to Gram-negative such as Proteobacteria. Moreover, the microbiome of highly maintained built environments has a different resistome when compared to other built environments, as well as a higher diversity in resistance genes. Our results highlight that the loss of microbial diversity correlates with an increase in resistance, and the need for implementing strategies to restore bacterial diversity in certain built environments.}, }
@article {pmid30808694, year = {2019}, author = {Feng, J and Penton, CR and He, Z and Van Nostrand, JD and Yuan, MM and Wu, L and Wang, C and Qin, Y and Shi, ZJ and Guo, X and Schuur, EAG and Luo, Y and Bracho, R and Konstantinidis, KT and Cole, JR and Tiedje, JM and Yang, Y and Zhou, J}, title = {Long-Term Warming in Alaska Enlarges the Diazotrophic Community in Deep Soils.}, journal = {mBio}, volume = {10}, number = {1}, pages = {}, doi = {10.1128/mBio.02521-18}, pmid = {30808694}, issn = {2150-7511}, mesh = {Alaska ; *Biota ; *Global Warming ; Metagenomics ; Microarray Analysis ; *Nitrogen Fixation ; Oxidoreductases/genetics ; Plant Development ; *Soil Microbiology ; Tundra ; }, abstract = {Tundra ecosystems are typically carbon (C) rich but nitrogen (N) limited. Since biological N2 fixation is the major source of biologically available N, the soil N2-fixing (i.e., diazotrophic) community serves as an essential N supplier to the tundra ecosystem. Recent climate warming has induced deeper permafrost thaw and adversely affected C sequestration, which is modulated by N availability. Therefore, it is crucial to examine the responses of diazotrophic communities to warming across the depths of tundra soils. Herein, we carried out one of the deepest sequencing efforts of nitrogenase gene (nifH) to investigate how 5 years of experimental winter warming affects Alaskan soil diazotrophic community composition and abundance spanning both the organic and mineral layers. Although soil depth had a stronger influence on diazotrophic community composition than warming, warming significantly (P < 0.05) enhanced diazotrophic abundance by 86.3% and aboveground plant biomass by 25.2%. Diazotrophic composition in the middle and lower organic layers, detected by nifH sequencing and a microarray-based tool (GeoChip), was markedly altered, with an increase of α-diversity. Changes in diazotrophic abundance and composition significantly correlated with soil moisture, soil thaw duration, and plant biomass, as shown by structural equation modeling analyses. Therefore, more abundant diazotrophic communities induced by warming may potentially serve as an important mechanism for supplementing biologically available N in this tundra ecosystem.IMPORTANCE With the likelihood that changes in global climate will adversely affect the soil C reservoir in the northern circumpolar permafrost zone, an understanding of the potential role of diazotrophic communities in enhancing biological N2 fixation, which constrains both plant production and microbial decomposition in tundra soils, is important in elucidating the responses of soil microbial communities to global climate change. A recent study showed that the composition of the diazotrophic community in a tundra soil exhibited no change under a short-term (1.5-year) winter warming experiment. However, it remains crucial to examine whether the lack of diazotrophic community responses to warming is persistent over a longer time period as a possibly important mechanism in stabilizing tundra soil C. Through a detailed characterization of the effects of winter warming on diazotrophic communities, we showed that a long-term (5-year) winter warming substantially enhanced diazotrophic abundance and altered community composition, though soil depth had a stronger influence on diazotrophic community composition than warming. These changes were best explained by changes in soil moisture, soil thaw duration, and plant biomass. These results provide crucial insights into the potential factors that may impact future C and N availability in tundra regions.}, }
@article {pmid30808380, year = {2019}, author = {DeMaere, MZ and Darling, AE}, title = {bin3C: exploiting Hi-C sequencing data to accurately resolve metagenome-assembled genomes.}, journal = {Genome biology}, volume = {20}, number = {1}, pages = {46}, doi = {10.1186/s13059-019-1643-1}, pmid = {30808380}, issn = {1474-760X}, mesh = {Computer Simulation ; Feces/microbiology ; *Genome, Bacterial ; Humans ; Metagenomics/*methods ; Microbiota/*genetics ; Sequence Analysis, DNA ; *Software ; }, abstract = {Most microbes cannot be easily cultured, and metagenomics provides a means to study them. Current techniques aim to resolve individual genomes from metagenomes, so-called metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs). Leading approaches depend upon time series or transect studies, the efficacy of which is a function of community complexity, target abundance, and sequencing depth. We describe an unsupervised method that exploits the hierarchical nature of Hi-C interaction rates to resolve MAGs using a single time point. We validate the method and directly compare against a recently announced proprietary service, ProxiMeta. bin3C is an open-source pipeline and makes use of the Infomap clustering algorithm (https://github.com/cerebis/bin3C).}, }
@article {pmid30793504, year = {2019}, author = {Kwon, YM and Patra, AK and Chiura, HX and Kim, SJ}, title = {Production of extracellular vesicles with light-induced proton pump activity by proteorhodopsin-containing marine bacteria.}, journal = {MicrobiologyOpen}, volume = {}, number = {}, pages = {e808}, doi = {10.1002/mbo3.808}, pmid = {30793504}, issn = {2045-8827}, support = {2019M00700//MABIK/ ; }, abstract = {The production and release of extracellular vesicles (EVs) is a common process occurring in various types of bacteria. However, little is known regarding the functions of EVs derived from marine bacteria. We observed that during cell growth, Sediminicola sp. YIK13, a proteorhodopsin (PR)-containing marine flavobacterium, produces EVs (S13EVs). Transmission electron microscopy showed that Sediminicola sp. YIK13 released two spherical vesicle types, with mono- and/or bi-layered membranes, in the culture. Interestingly, the S13EVs have an orange pigment, indicating the presence of putative carotenoid and PR pigments ascribed to the parental cells. The S13EVs demonstrated the same PR-derived absorption peak spectrum and light-induced proton pump activity as the parental cells. Western blot (immunoblot) analysis of the S13EVs revealed the presence of PR. We confirmed the 16S rRNA gene, pro gene, and genes required for chromophore retinal synthesis, namely blh and crtI, in the DNA packaged into these vesicles. In addition, by metagenomic sequencing, we found microbial rhodopsin-related genes in vesicles derived from natural aquatic environments. Our results suggest that EVs as well potentially pursue horizontal gene transfer of diverse microbial rhodopsin genes in marine ecosystems.}, }
@article {pmid30782660, year = {2019}, author = {López-Pérez, M and Jayakumar, JM and Haro-Moreno, JM and Zaragoza-Solas, A and Reddi, G and Rodriguez-Valera, F and Shapiro, OH and Alam, M and Almagro-Moreno, S}, title = {Evolutionary Model of Cluster Divergence of the Emergent Marine Pathogen Vibrio vulnificus: From Genotype to Ecotype.}, journal = {mBio}, volume = {10}, number = {1}, pages = {}, doi = {10.1128/mBio.02852-18}, pmid = {30782660}, issn = {2150-7511}, mesh = {Aquaculture ; Aquatic Organisms/microbiology ; Cluster Analysis ; Computational Biology ; *Ecotype ; Evolution, Molecular ; Gene Flow ; Gene Transfer, Horizontal ; *Genetic Variation ; Genome, Bacterial ; *Genotype ; Phenotype ; Recombination, Genetic ; Vibrio vulnificus/*classification/*genetics/isolation &amp; purification/physiology ; }, abstract = {Vibrio vulnificus, an opportunistic pathogen, is the causative agent of a life-threatening septicemia and a rising problem for aquaculture worldwide. The genetic factors that differentiate its clinical and environmental strains remain enigmatic. Furthermore, clinical strains have emerged from every clade of V. vulnificus In this work, we investigated the underlying genomic properties and population dynamics of the V. vulnificus species from an evolutionary and ecological point of view. Genome comparisons and bioinformatic analyses of 113 V. vulnificus isolates indicate that the population of V. vulnificus is made up of four different clusters. We found evidence that recombination and gene flow between the two largest clusters (cluster 1 [C1] and C2) have drastically decreased to the point where they are diverging independently. Pangenome and phenotypic analyses showed two markedly different lifestyles for these two clusters, indicating commensal (C2) and bloomer (C1) ecotypes, with differences in carbohydrate utilization, defense systems, and chemotaxis, among other characteristics. Nonetheless, we identified frequent intra- and interspecies exchange of mobile genetic elements (e.g., antibiotic resistance plasmids, novel &quot;chromids,&quot; or two different and concurrent type VI secretion systems) that provide high levels of genetic diversity in the population. Surprisingly, we identified strains from both clusters in the mucosa of aquaculture species, indicating that manmade niches are bringing strains from the two clusters together. We propose an evolutionary model of V. vulnificus that could be broadly applicable to other pathogenic vibrios and facultative bacterial pathogens to pursue strategies to prevent their infections and emergence.IMPORTANCEVibrio vulnificus is an emergent marine pathogen and is the cause of a deadly septicemia. However, the genetic factors that differentiate its clinical and environmental strains and its several biotypes remain mostly enigmatic. In this work, we investigated the underlying genomic properties and population dynamics of the V. vulnificus species to elucidate the traits that make these strains emerge as a human pathogen. The acquisition of different ecological determinants could have allowed the development of highly divergent clusters with different lifestyles within the same environment. However, we identified strains from both clusters in the mucosa of aquaculture species, indicating that manmade niches are bringing strains from the two clusters together, posing a potential risk of recombination and of emergence of novel variants. We propose a new evolutionary model that provides a perspective that could be broadly applicable to other pathogenic vibrios and facultative bacterial pathogens to pursue strategies to prevent their infections.}, }
@article {pmid30782659, year = {2019}, author = {Klein, C and Gonzalez, D and Samwel, K and Kahesa, C and Mwaiselage, J and Aluthge, N and Fernando, S and West, JT and Wood, C and Angeletti, PC}, title = {Relationship between the Cervical Microbiome, HIV Status, and Precancerous Lesions.}, journal = {mBio}, volume = {10}, number = {1}, pages = {}, doi = {10.1128/mBio.02785-18}, pmid = {30782659}, issn = {2150-7511}, mesh = {Bacteria/*classification/genetics ; Cervix Uteri/*microbiology/*pathology ; Cluster Analysis ; DNA, Bacterial/chemistry/genetics ; DNA, Ribosomal/chemistry/genetics ; Female ; HIV Infections/*complications ; High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing ; Humans ; Metagenomics ; *Microbiota ; Phylogeny ; Precancerous Conditions/*epidemiology ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Sequence Analysis, DNA ; Tanzania/epidemiology ; Uterine Cervical Neoplasms/*epidemiology ; }, abstract = {Nearly all cervical cancers are causally associated with human papillomavirus (HPV). The burden of HPV-associated dysplasias in sub-Saharan Africa is influenced by HIV. To investigate the role of the bacterial microbiome in cervical dysplasia, cytobrush samples were collected directly from cervical lesions of 144 Tanzanian women. The V4 hypervariable region of the 16S rRNA gene was amplified and deep sequenced. Alpha diversity metrics (Chao1, PD whole tree, and operational taxonomic unit [OTU] estimates) displayed significantly higher bacterial richness in HIV-positive patients (P = 0.01) than in HIV-negative patients. In HIV-positive patients, there was higher bacterial richness in patients with high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions (HSIL) (P = 0.13) than those without lesions. The most abundant OTUs associated with high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions were Mycoplasmatales, Pseudomonadales, and Staphylococcus We suggest that a chronic mycoplasma infection of the cervix may contribute to HPV-dependent dysplasia by sustained inflammatory signals.IMPORTANCE HPV is known to be the causal agent in the majority of cervical cancers. However, the role of the cervical bacterial microbiome in cervical cancer is not clear. To investigate that possibility, we collected cervical cytobrush samples from 144 Tanzanian women and performed deep sequencing of bacterial 16S rRNA genes. We found that HIV-positive patients had greater bacterial richness (P = 0.01) than HIV-negative patients. We also observed that women with high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions (HSIL) had greater cervical bacterial diversity than women with cytologically normal cervices. Data from our precise sampling of cervical lesions leads us to propose that Mycoplasma contributes to a cervical microbiome status that promotes HPV-related cervical lesions. These results suggest a greater influence of the bacterial microbiota on the outcome of HPV infection than previously thought.}, }
@article {pmid30777011, year = {2019}, author = {Feng, Y and Ramnarine, VR and Bell, R and Volik, S and Davicioni, E and Hayes, VM and Ren, S and Collins, CC}, title = {Metagenomic and metatranscriptomic analysis of human prostate microbiota from patients with prostate cancer.}, journal = {BMC genomics}, volume = {20}, number = {1}, pages = {146}, doi = {10.1186/s12864-019-5457-z}, pmid = {30777011}, issn = {1471-2164}, support = {CSC201606325044//China Scholarship Council/ ; 201012TFF//Terry Fox Foundation/ ; T2013-01//Prostate Cancer Canada/ ; 81472397//National Natural Science Foundation of China/ ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: Prostate cancer (PCa) is the most common malignant neoplasm among men in many countries. Since most precancerous and cancerous tissues show signs of inflammation, chronic bacterial prostatitis has been hypothesized to be a possible etiology. However, establishing a causal relationship between microbial inflammation and PCa requires a comprehensive analysis of the prostate microbiome. The aim of this study was to characterize the microbiome in prostate tissue of PCa patients and investigate its association with tumour clinical characteristics as well as host expression profiles.<br><br>RESULTS: The metagenome and metatranscriptome of tumour and the adjacent benign tissues were assessed in 65 Chinese radical prostatectomy specimens. Escherichia, Propionibacterium, Acinetobacter and Pseudomonas were abundant in both metagenome and metatranscriptome, thus constituting the core of the prostate microbiome. The biodiversity of the microbiomes could not be differentiated between the matched tumour/benign specimens or between the tumour specimens of low and high Gleason Scores. The expression profile of ten Pseudomonas genes was strongly correlated with that of eight host small RNA genes; three of the RNA genes may negatively associate with metastasis. Few viruses could be identified from the prostate microbiomes.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: This is the first study of the human prostate microbiome employing an integrated metagenomics and metatranscriptomics approach. In this Chinese cohort, both metagenome and metatranscriptome analyses showed a non-sterile microenvironment in the prostate of PCa patients, but we did not find links between the microbiome and local progression of PCa. However, the correlated expression of Pseudomonas genes and human small RNA genes may provide tantalizing preliminary evidence that Pseudomonas infection may impede metastasis.}, }
@article {pmid30764497, year = {2019}, author = {Plaza-Díaz, J and Gómez-Fernández, A and Chueca, N and Torre-Aguilar, MJ and Gil, Á and Perez-Navero, JL and Flores-Rojas, K and Martín-Borreguero, P and Solis-Urra, P and Ruiz-Ojeda, FJ and Garcia, F and Gil-Campos, M}, title = {Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) with and without Mental Regression is Associated with Changes in the Fecal Microbiota.}, journal = {Nutrients}, volume = {11}, number = {2}, pages = {}, doi = {10.3390/nu11020337}, pmid = {30764497}, issn = {2072-6643}, support = {404 Research Grant INVEST from the Spanish Society of Pediatrics and Red de Salud Materno Infantil (RED SAMID)//FUNDACIÓ AGRUPACIÓ Àmbit de la Infància/ ; }, mesh = {Autism Spectrum Disorder/*microbiology ; Bacteria/*classification/genetics ; Child, Preschool ; DNA, Bacterial/genetics ; Diet ; Feces/microbiology ; Female ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing ; Humans ; Male ; Metagenomics ; }, abstract = {New microbiome sequencing technologies provide novel information about the potential interactions among intestinal microorganisms and the host in some neuropathologies as autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The microbiota⁻gut⁻brain axis is an emerging aspect in the generation of autistic behaviors; evidence from animal models suggests that intestinal microbial shifts may produce changes fitting the clinical picture of autism. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the fecal metagenomic profiles in children with ASD and compare them with healthy participants. This comparison allows us to ascertain how mental regression (an important variable in ASD) could influence the intestinal microbiota profile. For this reason, a subclassification in children with ASD by mental regression (AMR) and no mental regression (ANMR) phenotype was performed. The present report was a descriptive observational study. Forty-eight children aged 2⁻6 years with ASD were included: 30 with ANMR and 18 with AMR. In addition, a control group of 57 normally developing children was selected and matched to the ASD group by sex and age. Fecal samples were analyzed with a metagenomic approach using a next-generation sequencing platform. Several differences between children with ASD, compared with the healthy group, were detected. Namely, Actinobacteria and Proteobacteria at phylum level, as well as, Actinobacteria, Bacilli, Erysipelotrichi, and Gammaproteobacteria at class level were found at higher proportions in children with ASD. Additionally, Proteobacteria levels showed to be augmented exclusively in AMR children. Preliminary results, using a principal component analysis, showed differential patterns in children with ASD, ANMR and AMR, compared to healthy group, both for intestinal microbiota and food patterns. In this study, we report, higher levels of Actinobacteria, Proteobacteria and Bacilli, aside from Erysipelotrichi, and Gammaproteobacteria in children with ASD compared to healthy group. Furthermore, AMR children exhibited higher levels of Proteobacteria. Further analysis using these preliminary results and mixing metagenomic and other &quot;omic&quot; technologies are needed in larger cohorts of children with ASD to confirm these intestinal microbiota changes.}, }
@article {pmid30761108, year = {2019}, author = {Ulloa, R and Moya-Beltrán, A and Rojas-Villalobos, C and Nuñez, H and Chiacchiarini, P and Donati, E and Giaveno, A and Quatrini, R}, title = {Domestication of Local Microbial Consortia for Efficient Recovery of Gold Through Top-Down Selection in Airlift Bioreactors.}, journal = {Frontiers in microbiology}, volume = {10}, number = {}, pages = {60}, doi = {10.3389/fmicb.2019.00060}, pmid = {30761108}, issn = {1664-302X}, abstract = {Extreme acidophiles play central roles in the geochemical cycling of diverse elements in low pH environments. This has been harnessed in biotechnologies such as biomining, where microorganisms facilitate the recovery of economically important metals such as gold. By generating both extreme acidity and a chemical oxidant (ferric iron) many species of prokaryotes that thrive in low pH environments not only catalyze mineral dissolution but also trigger both community and individual level adaptive changes. These changes vary in extent and direction depending on the ore mineralogy, water availability and local climate. The use of indigenous versus introduced microbial consortia in biomining practices is still a matter of debate. Yet, indigenous microbial consortia colonizing sulfidic ores that have been domesticated, i.e., selected for their ability to survive under specific polyextreme conditions, are claimed to outperform un-adapted foreign consortia. Despite this, little is known on the domestication of acidic microbial communities and the changes elicited in their members. In this study, high resolution targeted metagenomic techniques were used to analyze the changes occurring in the community structure of local microbial consortia acclimated to growing under extreme acidic conditions and adapted to endure the conditions imposed by the target mineral during biooxidation of a gold concentrate in an airlift reactor over a period of 2 years. The results indicated that operative conditions evolving through biooxidation of the mineral concentrate exerted strong selective pressures that, early on, purge biodiversity in favor of a few Acidithiobacillus spp. over other iron oxidizing acidophiles. Metagenomic analysis of the domesticated consortium present at the end of the adaptation experiment enabled reconstruction of the RVS1-MAG, a novel representative of Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans from the Andacollo gold mineral district. Comparative genomic analysis performed with this genome draft revealed a net enrichment of gene functions related to heavy metal transport and stress management that are likely to play a significant role in adaptation and survival to adverse conditions experienced by these acidophiles during growth in presence of gold concentrates.}, }
@article {pmid30759800, year = {2019}, author = {Tremblay, ÉD and Kimoto, T and Bérubé, JA and Bilodeau, GJ}, title = {High-Throughput Sequencing to Investigate Phytopathogenic Fungal Propagules Caught in Baited Insect Traps.}, journal = {Journal of fungi (Basel, Switzerland)}, volume = {5}, number = {1}, pages = {}, doi = {10.3390/jof5010015}, pmid = {30759800}, issn = {2309-608X}, support = {OLF-P-1304, GRDI, QIS and CFIA OFL-P-1411, Genome Canada, and Genome BC (LSARP2112), CFIA-RPS and CFIA-TD and GRDI-CFIA mandated//Canadian Food Inspection Agency/ ; }, abstract = {Studying the means of dispersal of plant pathogens is crucial to better understand the dynamic interactions involved in plant infections. On one hand, entomologists rely mostly on both traditional molecular methods and morphological characteristics, to identify pests. On the other hand, high-throughput sequencing (HTS) is becoming the go-to avenue for scientists studying phytopathogens. These organisms sometimes infect plants, together with insects. Considering the growing number of exotic insect introductions in Canada, forest pest-management efforts would benefit from the development of a high-throughput strategy to investigate the phytopathogenic fungal and oomycete species interacting with wood-boring insects. We recycled formerly discarded preservative fluids from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency annual survey using insect traps and analysed more than one hundred samples originating from across Canada. Using the Ion Torrent Personal Genome Machine (PGM) HTS technology and fusion primers, we performed metabarcoding to screen unwanted fungi and oomycetes species, including Phytophthora spp. Community profiling was conducted on the four different wood-boring, insect-attracting semiochemicals; although the preservative (contained ethanol) also attracted other insects. Phytopathogenic fungi (e.g., Leptographium spp. and Merialaricis in the pine sawyer semiochemical) and oomycetes (mainly Peronospora spp. and Pythium aff. hypogynum in the General Longhorn semiochemical), solely associated with one of the four types of semiochemicals, were detected. This project demonstrated that the insect traps' semiochemical microbiome represents a new and powerful matrix for screening phytopathogens. Compared to traditional diagnostic techniques, the fluids allowed for a faster and higher throughput assessment of the biodiversity contained within. Additionally, minimal modifications to this approach would allow it to be used in other phytopathology fields.}, }
@article {pmid30759613, year = {2019}, author = {Wang, X and Li, X and Yu, L and Huang, L and Xiu, J and Lin, W and Zhang, Y}, title = {Characterizing the microbiome in petroleum reservoir flooded by different water sources.}, journal = {The Science of the total environment}, volume = {653}, number = {}, pages = {872-885}, doi = {10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.10.410}, pmid = {30759613}, issn = {1879-1026}, mesh = {Betaproteobacteria/genetics/*metabolism ; China ; Environmental Monitoring ; Gammaproteobacteria/genetics/*metabolism ; Metagenomics ; *Microbiota/genetics ; Oil and Gas Fields/*microbiology ; Petroleum/*metabolism ; Phylogeny ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S ; Water Microbiology ; *Water Resources/supply &amp; distribution ; }, abstract = {Petroleum reservoir is an unusual subsurface biosphere, where indigenous microbes lived and evolved for million years. However, continual water injection changed the situation by introduction of new electron acceptors, donors and exogenous microbes. In this study, 16S-rRNA gene sequencing, comparative metagenomics and genomic bins reconstruction were employed to investigate the microbial community and metabolic potential in three typical water-flooded blocks of the Shen84 oil reservoir in Liaohe oil field, China. The results showed significant difference of microbial community compositions and metabolic characteristics existed between the injected water and the produced water/oil mixtures; however, there was considerable uniformity between the produced samples in different blocks. Microbial communities in the produced fluids were dominated by exogenous facultative microbes such as Pseudomonas and Thauera members from Proteobacteria phylum. Metabolic potentials for O2-dependent hydrocarbon degradation, dissimilarly nitrate reduction, and thiosulfate‑sulfur oxidation were much more abundant, whereas genes involved in dissimilatory sulfate reduction, anaerobic hydrocarbon degradation and methanogenesis were less abundant in the oil reservoir. Statistical analysis indicated the water composition had an obvious influence on microbial community composition and metabolic potential. The water-flooding process accompanied with introduction of nitrate or nitrite, and dissolved oxygen promoted the alteration of microbiome in oil reservoir from slow-growing anaerobic indigenous microbes (such as Thermotoga, Clostridia, and Syntrophobacter) to fast-growing opportunists as Beta- and Gama- Proteobacteria. The findings of this study shed light on the microbial ecology change in water flooded petroleum reservoir.}, }
@article {pmid30755506, year = {2019}, author = {Hausmann, B and Pelikan, C and Rattei, T and Loy, A and Pester, M}, title = {Long-Term Transcriptional Activity at Zero Growth of a Cosmopolitan Rare Biosphere Member.}, journal = {mBio}, volume = {10}, number = {1}, pages = {}, doi = {10.1128/mBio.02189-18}, pmid = {30755506}, issn = {2150-7511}, mesh = {Bacterial Load ; Biomass ; Gene Expression Profiling ; Genome, Bacterial ; Metagenomics ; Peptococcaceae/*genetics/*growth &amp; development ; Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction ; Sequence Analysis, DNA ; Soil Microbiology ; *Transcription, Genetic ; }, abstract = {Microbial diversity in the environment is mainly concealed within the rare biosphere (all species with <0.1% relative abundance). While dormancy explains a low-abundance state very well, the mechanisms leading to rare but active microorganisms remain elusive. We used environmental systems biology to genomically and transcriptionally characterize &quot;Candidatus Desulfosporosinus infrequens,&quot; a low-abundance sulfate-reducing microorganism cosmopolitan to freshwater wetlands, where it contributes to cryptic sulfur cycling. We obtained its near-complete genome by metagenomics of acidic peat soil. In addition, we analyzed anoxic peat soil incubated under in situ-like conditions for 50 days by Desulfosporosinus-targeted qPCR and metatranscriptomics. The Desulfosporosinus population stayed at a constant low abundance under all incubation conditions, averaging 1.2 × 106 16S rRNA gene copies per cm³ soil. In contrast, transcriptional activity of &quot;Ca. Desulfosporosinus infrequens&quot; increased at day 36 by 56- to 188-fold when minor amendments of acetate, propionate, lactate, or butyrate were provided with sulfate, compared to the no-substrate-control. Overall transcriptional activity was driven by expression of genes encoding ribosomal proteins, energy metabolism, and stress response but not by expression of genes encoding cell growth-associated processes. Since our results did not support growth of these highly active microorganisms in terms of biomass increase or cell division, they had to invest their sole energy for maintenance, most likely counterbalancing acidic pH conditions. This finding explains how a rare biosphere member can contribute to a biogeochemically relevant process while remaining in a zero-growth state over a period of 50 days.IMPORTANCE The microbial rare biosphere represents the largest pool of biodiversity on Earth and constitutes, in sum of all its members, a considerable part of a habitat's biomass. Dormancy or starvation is typically used to explain the persistence of low-abundance microorganisms in the environment. We show that a low-abundance microorganism can be highly transcriptionally active while remaining in a zero-growth state for at least 7 weeks. Our results provide evidence that this zero growth at a high cellular activity state is driven by maintenance requirements. We show that this is true for a microbial keystone species, in particular a cosmopolitan but permanently low-abundance sulfate-reducing microorganism in wetlands that is involved in counterbalancing greenhouse gas emissions. In summary, our results provide an important step forward in understanding time-resolved activities of rare biosphere members relevant for ecosystem functions.}, }
@article {pmid30740092, year = {2019}, author = {Grządziel, J and Gałązka, A}, title = {Fungal Biodiversity of the Most Common Types of Polish Soil in a Long-Term Microplot Experiment.}, journal = {Frontiers in microbiology}, volume = {10}, number = {}, pages = {6}, doi = {10.3389/fmicb.2019.00006}, pmid = {30740092}, issn = {1664-302X}, abstract = {The aim of the study was to investigate fungal genetic diversity in eight different types of soil in a long-term microplot experiment founded in 1881 in Puławy, Poland. The experiment consists of eight plots (14 m2), each 1 m deep with concrete walls, filled with profiles of different soils. The soils represent the most common Polish soil types (Cambic Leptosol, Fluvic Cambisol, Gleyic Chernozem, Cambisol and Haplic Cambisol, two Brunic Arenosols and Haplic Luvisol). Each soil was characterized by different pH (from 4.0 to 7.5) and organic carbon content (4.5-21.3 g kg-1). The soil structure was not destroyed by compaction because the soils had always been cultivated by hand. The same plant species were always grown in all plots at the same time and the soils received the same fertilization. Moreover, the soils were always under the same weather conditions. Ascomycota was the most abundant phylum in all samples, ranging from 70 to 90% of total fungi. Some genera (Mortierella, Solicoccozyma, and Mycosphaerella) were found to be adapted to a wide range of pH. Acidic soils were dominated by Talaromyces, Cladophialophora, Devriesia, and Saitozyma, while good quality soils primarily consisted of Plectosphaerella, Tetracladium, and Mortierella. The study confirmed previous reports that pH has a decisive influence on soil fungal diversity, but also indicated the strong impact of soil type itself. These studies have launched a new cycle of research in these historical soil profiles.}, }
@article {pmid30718869, year = {2019}, author = {Forster, SC and Kumar, N and Anonye, BO and Almeida, A and Viciani, E and Stares, MD and Dunn, M and Mkandawire, TT and Zhu, A and Shao, Y and Pike, LJ and Louie, T and Browne, HP and Mitchell, AL and Neville, BA and Finn, RD and Lawley, TD}, title = {A human gut bacterial genome and culture collection for improved metagenomic analyses.}, journal = {Nature biotechnology}, volume = {37}, number = {2}, pages = {186-192}, doi = {10.1038/s41587-018-0009-7}, pmid = {30718869}, issn = {1546-1696}, mesh = {Bacteria/classification ; Computational Biology/methods ; Contig Mapping ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; *Genome, Bacterial ; Genome, Human ; Humans ; *Metagenome ; *Metagenomics ; Phylogeny ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/metabolism ; Sequence Analysis, DNA ; Species Specificity ; }, abstract = {Understanding gut microbiome functions requires cultivated bacteria for experimental validation and reference bacterial genome sequences to interpret metagenome datasets and guide functional analyses. We present the Human Gastrointestinal Bacteria Culture Collection (HBC), a comprehensive set of 737 whole-genome-sequenced bacterial isolates, representing 273 species (105 novel species) from 31 families found in the human gastrointestinal microbiota. The HBC increases the number of bacterial genomes derived from human gastrointestinal microbiota by 37%. The resulting global Human Gastrointestinal Bacteria Genome Collection (HGG) classifies 83% of genera by abundance across 13,490 shotgun-sequenced metagenomic samples, improves taxonomic classification by 61% compared to the Human Microbiome Project (HMP) genome collection and achieves subspecies-level classification for almost 50% of sequences. The improved resource of gastrointestinal bacterial reference sequences circumvents dependence on de novo assembly of metagenomes and enables accurate and cost-effective shotgun metagenomic analyses of human gastrointestinal microbiota.}, }
@article {pmid30718868, year = {2019}, author = {Zou, Y and Xue, W and Luo, G and Deng, Z and Qin, P and Guo, R and Sun, H and Xia, Y and Liang, S and Dai, Y and Wan, D and Jiang, R and Su, L and Feng, Q and Jie, Z and Guo, T and Xia, Z and Liu, C and Yu, J and Lin, Y and Tang, S and Huo, G and Xu, X and Hou, Y and Liu, X and Wang, J and Yang, H and Kristiansen, K and Li, J and Jia, H and Xiao, L}, title = {1,520 reference genomes from cultivated human gut bacteria enable functional microbiome analyses.}, journal = {Nature biotechnology}, volume = {37}, number = {2}, pages = {179-185}, doi = {10.1038/s41587-018-0008-8}, pmid = {30718868}, issn = {1546-1696}, mesh = {Bacteria/classification ; Cluster Analysis ; Computational Biology/*methods ; Conserved Sequence ; Feces ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; Genome, Bacterial ; Genomics ; Humans ; *Metagenome ; Metagenomics ; Phylogeny ; Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Sequence Analysis, DNA ; }, abstract = {Reference genomes are essential for metagenomic analyses and functional characterization of the human gut microbiota. We present the Culturable Genome Reference (CGR), a collection of 1,520 nonredundant, high-quality draft genomes generated from >6,000 bacteria cultivated from fecal samples of healthy humans. Of the 1,520 genomes, which were chosen to cover all major bacterial phyla and genera in the human gut, 264 are not represented in existing reference genome catalogs. We show that this increase in the number of reference bacterial genomes improves the rate of mapping metagenomic sequencing reads from 50% to >70%, enabling higher-resolution descriptions of the human gut microbiome. We use the CGR genomes to annotate functions of 338 bacterial species, showing the utility of this resource for functional studies. We also carry out a pan-genome analysis of 38 important human gut species, which reveals the diversity and specificity of functional enrichment between their core and dispensable genomes.}, }
@article {pmid30717665, year = {2019}, author = {Jayasundara, D and Herath, D and Senanayake, D and Saeed, I and Yang, CY and Sun, Y and Chang, BC and Tang, SL and Halgamuge, SK}, title = {ENVirT: inference of ecological characteristics of viruses from metagenomic data.}, journal = {BMC bioinformatics}, volume = {19}, number = {Suppl 13}, pages = {377}, doi = {10.1186/s12859-018-2398-5}, pmid = {30717665}, issn = {1471-2105}, support = {LP140100670//Australian Research Council/ ; DP150103512//Australian Research Council/ ; }, mesh = {*Algorithms ; Computer Simulation ; *Ecological and Environmental Phenomena ; Fermented Foods ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; Genome, Viral ; Humans ; Lakes/virology ; *Metagenomics ; Time Factors ; Viruses/genetics ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: Estimating the parameters that describe the ecology of viruses,particularly those that are novel, can be made possible using metagenomic approaches. However, the best-performing existing methods require databases to first estimate an average genome length of a viral community before being able to estimate other parameters, such as viral richness. Although this approach has been widely used, it can adversely skew results since the majority of viruses are yet to be catalogued in databases.<br><br>RESULTS: In this paper, we present ENVirT, a method for estimating the richness of novel viral mixtures, and for the first time we also show that it is possible to simultaneously estimate the average genome length without a priori information. This is shown to be a significant improvement over database-dependent methods, since we can now robustly analyze samples that may include novel viral types under-represented in current databases. We demonstrate that the viral richness estimates produced by ENVirT are several orders of magnitude higher in accuracy than the estimates produced by existing methods named PHACCS and CatchAll when benchmarked against simulated data. We repeated the analysis of 20 metavirome samples using ENVirT, which produced results in close agreement with complementary in virto analyses.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: These insights were previously not captured by existing computational methods. As such, ENVirT is shown to be an essential tool for enhancing our understanding of novel viral populations.}, }
@article {pmid30715365, year = {2019}, author = {Goss-Souza, D and Mendes, LW and Borges, CD and Rodrigues, JLM and Tsai, SM}, title = {Amazon forest-to-agriculture conversion alters rhizosphere microbiome composition while functions are kept.}, journal = {FEMS microbiology ecology}, volume = {95}, number = {3}, pages = {}, doi = {10.1093/femsec/fiz009}, pmid = {30715365}, issn = {1574-6941}, abstract = {The conversion of native forest to agriculture is the main cause of microbial biodiversity loss in Amazon soils. In order to better understand this effect, we used metagenomics to investigate microbial patterns and functions in bulk soil and rhizosphere of soybean, in a long-term forest-to-agriculture conversion. Long-term forest-to-agriculture led to microbial homogenization and loss of diversity in both bulk soil and rhizosphere, mainly driven by decreasing aluminum concentration and increased cations saturation in soil, due to liming and fertilization in long-term no-till cropping. Data revealed that long-term no-till cropping culminated in a decrease in Acidobacteria, Actinobacteria and Proteobacteria abundances. However, α- and β-Proteobacteria abundances were higher in the rhizosphere than in bulk soil, regardless of the time after forest-to-agriculture conversion. Changes in functional potential occurred predominantly in bulk soil, with decreases in functions related to potassium metabolism and virulence, disease and defense, while functions related to nucleic acids metabolism increased. Functions in the soybean rhizosphere remained stable, except for those related to potassium metabolism, which decreased after 20-year no-till cropping. Together, our results show that the soybean root system selects microbial taxa via trade-offs, to maintain functional resilience in the rhizosphere microbiome over time.}, }
@article {pmid30712189, year = {2019}, author = {Brito, EMS and Romero-Núñez, VM and Caretta, CA and Bertin, P and Valerdi-Negreros, JC and Guyoneaud, R and Goñi-Urriza, M}, title = {The bacterial diversity on steam vents from Paricutín and Sapichu volcanoes.}, journal = {Extremophiles : life under extreme conditions}, volume = {23}, number = {2}, pages = {249-263}, doi = {10.1007/s00792-019-01078-8}, pmid = {30712189}, issn = {1433-4909}, support = {0627/15//Convocatoria de Apoyo a la Investigacion de la UG (DAIP)/ ; ANR-CONACyT-188775//Biometal Project/ ; }, abstract = {Vapor steam vents are prevailing structures on geothermal sites in which local geochemical conditions allow the development of extremophilic microorganisms. We describe the structure of the prokaryotic community able to grow on the walls and rocks of such microecosystems in two terrestrial Mexican volcanoes: Paricutín (PI and PII samples) and its satellite Sapichu (S sample). The investigated samples showed similar diversity indices, with few dominant OTUs (abundance > 1%): 21, 16 and 23, respectively for PI, PII and S. However, each steam vent showed a particular community profile: PI was dominated by photosynthetic bacteria (Cyanobacteria and Chloroflexia class), PII by Actinobacteria and Proteobacteria, and S by Ktedonobacteria class, Acidobacteria and Cyanobacteria phyla. Concerning the predicted metabolic potential, we found a dominance of cellular pathways, especially the ones for energy generation with metabolisms for sulfur respiration, nitrogen fixation, methanogenesis, carbon fixation, photosynthesis, and metals, among others. We suggest a different maturity stage for the three studied fumaroles, from the youngest (PI) to the oldest (S and PII), also influenced by the temperature and other geochemical parameters. Furthermore, four anaerobic strains were isolated, belonging to Clostridia class (Clostridium sphenoides, C. swellfunanium and Anaerocolumna cellulosilytica) and to Bacilli class (Paenibacillus azoreducens).}, }
@article {pmid30704595, year = {2019}, author = {Kamimura, BA and De Filippis, F and Sant'Ana, AS and Ercolini, D}, title = {Large-scale mapping of microbial diversity in artisanal Brazilian cheeses.}, journal = {Food microbiology}, volume = {80}, number = {}, pages = {40-49}, doi = {10.1016/j.fm.2018.12.014}, pmid = {30704595}, issn = {1095-9998}, mesh = {Animals ; *Biodiversity ; Brazil ; Cheese/*microbiology ; Cluster Analysis ; DNA, Bacterial/genetics ; *Food Microbiology ; Geography ; Microbiota/*genetics ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Sequence Analysis, DNA ; }, abstract = {Brazilian artisanal cheeses are characterized by the use of raw milk and in some cases, natural starter cultures, known as &quot;pingo&quot;, as well as following simple and traditional manufacturing technology. In this study, a large-scale screening of the microbial ecology of 11 different types of artisanal cheeses produced in five geographical areas of Brazil was performed. Besides, the specific origin-related microbial signatures were identified. Clear geography- and technology-based differences in the microbiota were observed. Lactic acid bacteria dominated in all cheeses although Enterobacteriaceae and Staphylococcus also occurred in North, Northeast and Central cheeses. Differences in the lactic acid bacteria patterns were also highlighted: Streptococcus, Leuconostoc, Lactococcus and Lactobacillus were differently combined in terms of relative abundance according to product type and region of production. This study provides a comprehensive, unprecedented microbiological mapping of Brazilian cheeses, highlighting the impact of geographical origin and mode of production on microbial diversity. The results obtained will help to plan an evaluation of microbial contamination sources that will need to be studied for the improvement of cheese quality and safety.}, }
@article {pmid30701707, year = {2019}, author = {Jerde, CL and Wilson, EA and Dressler, TL}, title = {Measuring global fish species richness with eDNA metabarcoding.}, journal = {Molecular ecology resources}, volume = {19}, number = {1}, pages = {19-22}, doi = {10.1111/1755-0998.12929}, pmid = {30701707}, issn = {1755-0998}, support = {AID-OAA-A-16-00057//United States Agency for International Development/ ; }, mesh = {Animals ; *Biodiversity ; Computational Biology ; DNA/chemistry/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; DNA Barcoding, Taxonomic/*methods ; Fishes/*classification/*genetics ; French Guiana ; High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing ; Metagenomics/*methods ; Water/chemistry ; }, abstract = {Despite mounting threats to global freshwater and marine biodiversity, including climate change, habitat alteration, overharvesting and pollution, we struggle to know which species are present below the water's surface that are suffering from these stressors. However, the idea that a water sample containing environmental DNA (eDNA) can be screened using high-throughput sequencing and bioinformatics to reveal the identity of aquatic species is a revolutionary advance for studying the patterns of species extirpation, invasive species establishment and the dynamics of species richness. To date, many of the critical tests of fisheries diversity using this metabarcoding approach have been conducted in lower diversity systems (<40 fish species), but in this issue of Molecular Ecology Resources, Cilleros et al. (2018) described their eDNA application in the species-rich French Guiana fishery (>200 fish species) and showed the greater potential and some limitations of using eDNA in species-rich environments.}, }
@article {pmid30696735, year = {2019}, author = {Baxter, NT and Schmidt, AW and Venkataraman, A and Kim, KS and Waldron, C and Schmidt, TM}, title = {Dynamics of Human Gut Microbiota and Short-Chain Fatty Acids in Response to Dietary Interventions with Three Fermentable Fibers.}, journal = {mBio}, volume = {10}, number = {1}, pages = {}, doi = {10.1128/mBio.02566-18}, pmid = {30696735}, issn = {2150-7511}, support = {52008119/HHMI/Howard Hughes Medical Institute/United States ; }, mesh = {Adolescent ; Adult ; Biostatistics ; Chemistry Techniques, Analytical ; Chicory ; Dietary Fiber/*administration &amp; dosage ; Fatty Acids, Volatile/*metabolism ; Feces/*chemistry/*microbiology ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/*drug effects ; Humans ; Inulin/administration &amp; dosage ; Metagenomics ; Solanum tuberosum ; Starch/administration &amp; dosage ; Young Adult ; Zea mays ; }, abstract = {Production of short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs), especially butyrate, in the gut microbiome is required for optimal health but is frequently limited by the lack of fermentable fiber in the diet. We attempted to increase butyrate production by supplementing the diets of 174 healthy young adults for 2 weeks with resistant starch from potatoes (RPS), resistant starch from maize (RMS), inulin from chicory root, or an accessible corn starch control. RPS resulted in the greatest increase in total SCFAs, including butyrate. Although the majority of microbiomes responded to RPS with increases in the relative abundance of bifidobacteria, those that responded with an increase in Ruminococcus bromii or Clostridium chartatabidum were more likely to yield higher butyrate concentrations, especially when their microbiota were replete with populations of the butyrate-producing species Eubacterium rectale RMS and inulin induced different changes in fecal communities, but they did not generate significant increases in fecal butyrate levels.IMPORTANCE These results reveal that not all fermentable fibers are equally capable of stimulating SCFA production, and they highlight the importance of the composition of an individual's microbiota in determining whether or not they respond to a specific dietary supplement. In particular, R. bromii or C. chartatabidum may be required for enhanced butyrate production in response to RS. Bifidobacteria, though proficient at degrading RS and inulin, may not contribute to the butyrogenic effect of those fermentable fibers in the short term.}, }
@article {pmid30690359, year = {2019}, author = {Qiao, R and Sheng, C and Lu, Y and Zhang, Y and Ren, H and Lemos, B}, title = {Microplastics induce intestinal inflammation, oxidative stress, and disorders of metabolome and microbiome in zebrafish.}, journal = {The Science of the total environment}, volume = {662}, number = {}, pages = {246-253}, doi = {10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.01.245}, pmid = {30690359}, issn = {1879-1026}, mesh = {Animals ; Dose-Response Relationship, Drug ; Dysbiosis/chemically induced/immunology/*physiopathology ; Fish Diseases/chemically induced/*immunology/physiopathology ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/drug effects ; Inflammation/chemically induced/*immunology ; Intestines/immunology/physiology ; Metabolome/drug effects ; Metagenomics ; Oxidative Stress/drug effects ; Polystyrenes/*adverse effects/metabolism ; Random Allocation ; Toxicity Tests, Chronic ; Water Pollutants, Chemical/*adverse effects/metabolism ; *Zebrafish/metabolism/microbiology ; }, abstract = {Microplastics (MPs) can be ingested by a variety of species and mainly accumulate in the gut. However, the consequences of MPs exposure in the gut are largely unknown. Here we evaluated the impacts of MPs exposure in zebrafish gut. Animals were experimentally exposed to polystyrene MPs (5-μm beads; 50 μg/L and 500 μg/L) for 21 days and monitored for alterations in tissue histology, enzymatic biomarkers, gut microbiome and metabolomic responses. Inflammation and oxidative stress were observed in the zebrafish gut after exposed to MPs. Furthermore, significant alterations in the gut microbiome and tissue metabolic profiles were observed, with most of these were associated with oxidative stress, inflammation and lipid metabolism. This study provides evidence that MPs exposure causes gut damage as well as alterations in gut metabolome and microbiome, yielding novel insights into the consequences of MPs exposure.}, }
@article {pmid30683856, year = {2019}, author = {Ellegaard, KM and Engel, P}, title = {Genomic diversity landscape of the honey bee gut microbiota.}, journal = {Nature communications}, volume = {10}, number = {1}, pages = {446}, doi = {10.1038/s41467-019-08303-0}, pmid = {30683856}, issn = {2041-1723}, mesh = {Age Factors ; Animals ; Bees/*microbiology ; Bifidobacterium/classification/*genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; *Biological Variation, Individual ; DNA, Bacterial/genetics ; Firmicutes/classification/*genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Gammaproteobacteria/classification/*genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/*genetics ; Genetic Variation ; Metagenomics ; Microbial Consortia/genetics ; Phylogeny ; Symbiosis/physiology ; }, abstract = {The structure and distribution of genomic diversity in natural microbial communities is largely unexplored. Here, we used shotgun metagenomics to assess the diversity of the honey bee gut microbiota, a community consisting of few bacterial phylotypes. Our results show that most phylotypes are composed of sequence-discrete populations, which co-exist in individual bees and show age-specific abundance profiles. In contrast, strains present within these sequence-discrete populations were found to segregate into individual bees. Consequently, despite a conserved phylotype composition, each honey bee harbors a distinct community at the functional level. While ecological differentiation seems to facilitate coexistence at higher taxonomic levels, our findings suggest that, at the level of strains, priority effects during community assembly result in individualized profiles, despite the social lifestyle of the host. Our study underscores the need to move beyond phylotype-level characterizations to understand the function of this community, and illustrates its potential for strain-level analysis.}, }
@article {pmid30680877, year = {2019}, author = {Alessandri, G and Milani, C and Mancabelli, L and Mangifesta, M and Lugli, GA and Viappiani, A and Duranti, S and Turroni, F and Ossiprandi, MC and van Sinderen, D and Ventura, M}, title = {Metagenomic dissection of the canine gut microbiota: insights into taxonomic, metabolic and nutritional features.}, journal = {Environmental microbiology}, volume = {21}, number = {4}, pages = {1331-1343}, doi = {10.1111/1462-2920.14540}, pmid = {30680877}, issn = {1462-2920}, support = {//EU Joint Programming Initiative - A Healthy Diet for a Healthy Life/ ; //Fondazione Cariparma/ ; //Ministero dell'Istruzione, dell'Università e della Ricerca/ ; 15/JP-HDHL/3280//Science Foundation Ireland/Ireland ; //JPI HDHL/ ; }, abstract = {Domestication of dogs from wolves is the oldest known example of ongoing animal selection, responsible for generating more than 300 dog breeds worldwide. In order to investigate the taxonomic and functional evolution of the canine gut microbiota, a multi-omics approach was applied to six wild wolves and 169 dog faecal samples, the latter encompassing 51 breeds, which fully covers currently known canine genetic biodiversity. Specifically, 16S rRNA gene and bifidobacterial Internally Transcribed Spacer (ITS) profiling were employed to reconstruct and then compare the canine core gut microbiota to those of wolves and humans, revealing that artificial selection and subsequent cohabitation of dogs with their owners influenced the microbial population of canine gut through loss and acquisition of specific bacterial taxa. Moreover, comparative analysis of the intestinal bacterial population of dogs fed on Bones and Raw Food (BARF) or commercial food (CF) diet, coupled with shotgun metagenomics, highlighted that both bacterial composition and metabolic repertoire of the canine gut microbiota have evolved to adapt to high-protein or high-carbohydrates intake. Altogether, these data indicate that artificial selection and domestication not only affected the canine genome, but also shaped extensively the bacterial population harboured by the canine gut.}, }
@article {pmid30680143, year = {2019}, author = {Rytkönen, S and Vesterinen, EJ and Westerduin, C and Leviäkangas, T and Vatka, E and Mutanen, M and Välimäki, P and Hukkanen, M and Suokas, M and Orell, M}, title = {From feces to data: A metabarcoding method for analyzing consumed and available prey in a bird-insect food web.}, journal = {Ecology and evolution}, volume = {9}, number = {1}, pages = {631-639}, doi = {10.1002/ece3.4787}, pmid = {30680143}, issn = {2045-7758}, abstract = {Diets play a key role in understanding trophic interactions. Knowing the actual structure of food webs contributes greatly to our understanding of biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. The research of prey preferences of different predators requires knowledge not only of the prey consumed, but also of what is available. In this study, we applied DNA metabarcoding to analyze the diet of 4 bird species (willow tits Poecile montanus, Siberian tits Poecile cinctus, great tits Parus major and blue tits Cyanistes caeruleus) by using the feces of nestlings. The availability of their assumed prey (Lepidoptera) was determined from feces of larvae (frass) collected from the main foraging habitat, birch (Betula spp.) canopy. We identified 53 prey species from the nestling feces, of which 11 (21%) were also detected from the frass samples (eight lepidopterans). Approximately 80% of identified prey species in the nestling feces represented lepidopterans, which is in line with the earlier studies on the parids' diet. A subsequent laboratory experiment showed a threshold for fecal sample size and the barcoding success, suggesting that the smallest frass samples do not contain enough larval DNA to be detected by high-throughput sequencing. To summarize, we apply metabarcoding for the first time in a combined approach to identify available prey (through frass) and consumed prey (via nestling feces), expanding the scope and precision for future dietary studies on insectivorous birds.}, }
@article {pmid30649062, year = {2019}, author = {Sessa, L and Reddel, S and Manno, E and Quagliariello, A and Cotugno, N and Del Chierico, F and Amodio, D and Capponi, C and Leone, F and Bernardi, S and Rossi, P and Putignani, L and Palma, P}, title = {Distinct gut microbiota profile in ART-treated perinatally HIV-infected patients associated with cardiac and inflammatory biomarkers.}, journal = {AIDS (London, England)}, volume = {}, number = {}, pages = {}, doi = {10.1097/QAD.0000000000002131}, pmid = {30649062}, issn = {1473-5571}, abstract = {OBJECTIVE: Persistent inflammation and higher risk to develop cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) still represent a major complication for HIV-infected patients despite effective antiretroviral therapy (ART). We investigated the correlation between the gut microbiota (GM) profile, markers of inflammation, vascular endothelial activation (VEA) and microbial translocation (MT) in perinatally HIV-infected patients (PHIV) under ART.<br><br>DESIGN: Cross-sectional study including sixty-one ART-treated PHIV (age range 3-30 years old) and seventy-one age-matched healthy controls (CTRL). Blood and stool sample were collected at the same time and analyzed for GM composition and plasma biomarkers.<br><br>METHODS: GM composition was determined by 16S rRNA targeted-metagenomics. Soluble markers of MT, SI and VEA were quantified by ELISA or Luminex assay. Markers of immune activation were analyzed by flow cytometry on CD4+ and CD8+T-cells.<br><br>RESULTS: We identified two distinct GM profiles (group A and B) among PHIV. No different clinical parameters (age, sex, ethnicity, clinical class), dietary and sexual habits were found between the groups. The group A showed a relative dominance of Akkermansia muciniphila (A.muciniphila), whereas GM of group B was characterized by a higher biodiversity. The analysis of soluble markers revealed a significantly higher level of sE-selectin (p = 0.0296), ICAM-1 (p = 0.0028), VCAM-1 (p = 0.0230), IL-6 (p = 0.0247) and sCD14 (p = 0.0142) in group A compared to group B.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: Distinctive GM profiles are differently associated with inflammation, MT and VEA. Future studies are needed in order to understand the role of A.muciniphila and risk to develop CVDs in PHIV.}, }
@article {pmid30648011, year = {2019}, author = {Susi, H and Filloux, D and Frilander, MJ and Roumagnac, P and Laine, AL}, title = {Diverse and variable virus communities in wild plant populations revealed by metagenomic tools.}, journal = {PeerJ}, volume = {7}, number = {}, pages = {e6140}, doi = {10.7717/peerj.6140}, pmid = {30648011}, issn = {2167-8359}, abstract = {Wild plant populations may harbour a myriad of unknown viruses. As the majority of research efforts have targeted economically important plant species, the diversity and prevalence of viruses in the wild has remained largely unknown. However, the recent shift towards metagenomics-based sequencing methodologies, especially those targeting small RNAs, is finally enabling virus discovery from wild hosts. Understanding this diversity of potentially pathogenic microbes in the wild can offer insights into the components of natural biodiversity that promotes long-term coexistence between hosts and parasites in nature, and help predict when and where risks of disease emergence are highest. Here, we used small RNA deep sequencing to identify viruses in Plantago lanceolata populations, and to understand the variation in their prevalence and distribution across the Åland Islands, South-West Finland. By subsequent design of PCR primers, we screened the five most common viruses from two sets of P. lanceolata plants: 164 plants collected from 12 populations irrespective of symptoms, and 90 plants collected from five populations showing conspicuous viral symptoms. In addition to the previously reported species Plantago lanceolata latent virus (PlLV), we found four potentially novel virus species belonging to Caulimovirus, Betapartitivirus, Enamovirus, and Closterovirus genera. Our results show that virus prevalence and diversity varied among the sampled host populations. In six of the virus infected populations only a single virus species was detected, while five of the populations supported between two to five of the studied virus species. In 20% of the infected plants, viruses occurred as coinfections. When the relationship between conspicuous viral symptoms and virus infection was investigated, we found that plants showing symptoms were usually infected (84%), but virus infections were also detected from asymptomatic plants (44%). Jointly, these results reveal a diverse virus community with newly developed tools and protocols that offer exciting opportunities for future studies on the eco-evolutionary dynamics of viruses infecting plants in the wild.}, }
@article {pmid30642268, year = {2019}, author = {Aiemjoy, K and Altan, E and Aragie, S and Fry, DM and Phan, TG and Deng, X and Chanyalew, M and Tadesse, Z and Callahan, EK and Delwart, E and Keenan, JD}, title = {Viral species richness and composition in young children with loose or watery stool in Ethiopia.}, journal = {BMC infectious diseases}, volume = {19}, number = {1}, pages = {53}, doi = {10.1186/s12879-019-3674-3}, pmid = {30642268}, issn = {1471-2334}, support = {F31 HD088070-01A1//National Institute of Child Health and Human Development/ ; U10 EY016214//National Eye Institute/ ; R01 HL105770//National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute/ ; }, mesh = {Biodiversity ; Caliciviridae Infections/virology ; Child, Preschool ; Diarrhea/epidemiology/*virology ; Ethiopia/epidemiology ; Feces/*virology ; Female ; Humans ; Infant ; Infant, Newborn ; Male ; Metagenomics ; Norovirus/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Picornaviridae/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Picornaviridae Infections/virology ; Prevalence ; Viruses/genetics/*isolation &amp; purification ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: Stool consistency is an important diagnostic criterion in both research and clinical medicine and is often used to define diarrheal disease.<br><br>METHODS: We examine the pediatric enteric virome across stool consistencies to evaluate differences in richness and community composition using fecal samples collected from children aged 0 to 5 years participating in a clinical trial in the Amhara region of Ethiopia. The consistency of each sample was graded according to the modified Bristol Stool Form Scale for children (mBSFS-C) before a portion of stool was preserved for viral metagenomic analysis. Stool samples were grouped into 29 pools according to stool consistency type. Differential abundance was determined using negative-binomial modeling.<br><br>RESULTS: Of 446 censused children who were eligible to participate, 317 presented for the study visit examination and 269 provided stool samples. The median age of children with stool samples was 36 months. Species richness was highest in watery-consistency stool and decreased as stool consistency became firmer (Spearman's r = - 0.45, p = 0.013). The greatest differential abundance comparing loose or watery to formed stool was for norovirus GII (7.64, 95% CI 5.8, 9.5) followed by aichivirus A (5.93, 95% CI 4.0, 7.89) and adeno-associated virus 2 (5.81, 95%CI 3.9, 7.7).<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: In conclusion, we documented a difference in pediatric enteric viromes according to mBSFS-C stool consistency category, both in species richness and composition.}, }
@article {pmid30635058, year = {2019}, author = {Simon, JC and Marchesi, JR and Mougel, C and Selosse, MA}, title = {Host-microbiota interactions: from holobiont theory to analysis.}, journal = {Microbiome}, volume = {7}, number = {1}, pages = {5}, doi = {10.1186/s40168-019-0619-4}, pmid = {30635058}, issn = {2049-2618}, mesh = {Animals ; Food Microbiology ; *Host Microbial Interactions ; Humans ; *Microbiota ; Plants/microbiology ; Symbiosis ; }, abstract = {In the recent years, the holobiont concept has emerged as a theoretical and experimental framework to study the interactions between hosts and their associated microbial communities in all types of ecosystems. The spread of this concept in many branches of biology results from the fairly recent realization of the ubiquitous nature of host-associated microbes and their central role in host biology, ecology, and evolution. Through this special series &quot;Host-microbiota interactions: from holobiont theory to analysis,&quot; we wanted to promote this field of research which has considerable implications for human health, food production, and ecosystem protection. In this preface, we highlight a collection of articles selected for this special issue that show, use, or debate the concept of holobiont to approach taxonomically and ecologically diverse organisms, from humans and plants to sponges and insects. We also identify some theoretical and methodological challenges and propose directions for future research on holobionts.}, }
@article {pmid30625669, year = {2019}, author = {Costeira, R and Doherty, R and Allen, CCR and Larkin, MJ and Kulakov, LA}, title = {Analysis of viral and bacterial communities in groundwater associated with contaminated land.}, journal = {The Science of the total environment}, volume = {656}, number = {}, pages = {1413-1426}, doi = {10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.11.429}, pmid = {30625669}, issn = {1879-1026}, mesh = {Bacteria/classification/*genetics ; Groundwater/*microbiology/virology ; *Metagenome ; *Microbiota ; Northern Ireland ; Soil Pollutants/*analysis ; Viruses/classification/*genetics ; }, abstract = {This work aimed at the comprehensive analysis of total microbial communities inhabiting a typical hydrocarbon-polluted site, where chemical characteristics of the groundwater were readily available. To achieve this, a joint metagenomic characterization of bacteria and viruses surrounding a contaminant plume was performed over a one-year period. The results presented demonstrated that both potential hydrocarbon degraders and their bacteriophages were dominant around the plume, and that the viral and bacterial diversities found at the site were probably influenced by the pH of the groundwater. Niche-specific and dispersed associations between phages and bacteria were identified. The niche phage-host associations were found at the edge of the site and at the core of the plume where pH was the highest (9.52). The identified host populations included several classes of bacteria (e.g. Clostridia and Proteobacteria). Thirty-six viral generalists were also discovered, with BGW-G9 having the broadest host range across 23 taxa, including Pseudomonas, Polycyclovorans, Methylocaldum and Candidatus Magnetobacterium species. The phages with broad host ranges are presumed to have significant effects on prokaryotic production and horizontal gene transfer, and therefore impact the biodegradation processes conducted by various bacteria of the environment studied. This study for the first time characterized the phages and their bacterial hosts associated with a contaminant plume.}, }
@article {pmid30623233, year = {2019}, author = {Kim, JY and Kim, EM and Yi, MH and Lee, J and Lee, S and Hwang, Y and Yong, D and Sohn, WM and Yong, TS}, title = {Chinese liver fluke Clonorchis sinensis infection changes the gut microbiome and increases probiotic Lactobacillus in mice.}, journal = {Parasitology research}, volume = {118}, number = {2}, pages = {693-699}, doi = {10.1007/s00436-018-6179-x}, pmid = {30623233}, issn = {1432-1955}, support = {NRF-2016R1A2B4016194//National Research Foundation of Korea/ ; 2011-0012166//National Research Foundation of Korea/ ; }, mesh = {Animals ; Clonorchiasis/*immunology/parasitology ; Clonorchis sinensis/growth &amp; development/*immunology ; Feces/microbiology ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/*physiology ; High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing ; Lactobacillus/classification/cytology/*growth &amp; development ; Metacercariae/cytology ; Mice ; Mice, Inbred C57BL ; Probiotics/*analysis ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; }, abstract = {Chinese liver fluke Clonorchis sinensis changes the host's immune system. Recently, it has been reported that helminths including C. sinensis can ameliorate immune-related diseases such as allergy. In addition, recent studies showed that helminth infection can alleviate immune-mediated disorders by altering the gut microbiome. However, changes in the gut microbiome due to C. sinensis have not been reported yet. In this study, changes in the gut microbiome of C57BL/6 mice infected with C. sinensis metacercariae were evaluated over time. Stool was analyzed by 16S rRNA amplicon analysis using high-throughput sequencing technology. There was no apparent difference in species richness and diversity between the infected and control groups. However, the composition of the microbiome was different between the infected and control groups at 20 days and 30 days post-infection, and the difference disappeared at 50 days post-infection. In particular, this microbiome alteration was associated with a change in the relative abundance of genus Lactobacillus and the probiotic Lactobacillus species that are known to have an immune-modulation role in immune-mediated diseases.}, }
@article {pmid30621868, year = {2019}, author = {Ottesen, A and Ramachandran, P and Reed, E and Gu, G and Gorham, S and Ducharme, D and Newell, M and Rideout, S and Turini, T and Hill, T and Strain, E and Brown, E}, title = {Metagenome tracking biogeographic agroecology: Phytobiota of tomatoes from Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina and California.}, journal = {Food microbiology}, volume = {79}, number = {}, pages = {132-136}, doi = {10.1016/j.fm.2018.12.001}, pmid = {30621868}, issn = {1095-9998}, mesh = {Bacteria/classification/genetics/*isolation &amp; purification ; California ; *Food Microbiology ; Food Safety ; Lycopersicon esculentum/*microbiology ; Maryland ; Metagenomics ; Microbiota/*genetics ; North Carolina ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Salmonella/classification/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Virginia ; }, abstract = {Describing baseline microbiota associated with agricultural commodities in the field is an important step towards improving our understanding of a wide range of important objectives from plant pathology and horticultural sustainability, to food safety. Environmental pressures on plants (wind, dust, drought, water, temperature) vary by geography and characterizing the impact of these variable pressures on phyllosphere microbiota will contribute to improved stewardship of fresh produce for both plant and human health. A higher resolution understanding of the incidence of human pathogens on food plants and co-occurring phytobiota using metagenomic approaches (metagenome tracking) may contribute to improved source attribution and risk assessment in cases where human pathogens become introduced to agro-ecologies. Between 1990 and 2007, as many as 1990 culture-confirmed Salmonella illnesses were linked to tomatoes from as many as 12 multistate outbreaks (Bell et al., 2012; Bell et al., 2015; Bennett et al., 2014; CDC, 2004; CDC, 2007; Greene et al., 2005a; Gruszynski et al., 2014). When possible, source attribution for these incidents revealed a biogeographic trend, most events were associated with eastern growing regions. To improve our understanding of potential biogeographically linked trends in contamination of tomatoes by Salmonella, we profiled microbiota from the surfaces of tomatoes from Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina and California. Bacterial profiles from California tomatoes were completely different than those of Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina (which were highly similar to each other). A statistically significant enrichment of Firmicutes taxa was observed in California phytobiota compared to the three eastern states. Rhizobiaceae, Sphingobacteriaceae and Xanthobacteraceae were the most abundant bacterial families associated with tomatoes grown in eastern states. These baseline metagenomic profiles of phyllosphere microbiota may contribute to improved understanding of how certain ecologies provide supportive resources for human pathogens on plants and how components of certain agro-ecologies may play a role in the introduction of human pathogens to plants.}, }
@article {pmid30621867, year = {2019}, author = {Marino, M and Dubsky de Wittenau, G and Saccà, E and Cattonaro, F and Spadotto, A and Innocente, N and Radovic, S and Piasentier, E and Marroni, F}, title = {Metagenomic profiles of different types of Italian high-moisture Mozzarella cheese.}, journal = {Food microbiology}, volume = {79}, number = {}, pages = {123-131}, doi = {10.1016/j.fm.2018.12.007}, pmid = {30621867}, issn = {1095-9998}, mesh = {Animals ; Bacteria/classification/genetics/*isolation &amp; purification ; Biodiversity ; Buffaloes ; Cattle ; Cheese/analysis/*microbiology ; Cluster Analysis ; DNA, Bacterial/genetics ; *Food Microbiology ; Metagenomics ; Microbiota/*genetics ; Milk/microbiology ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Sequence Analysis, DNA ; }, abstract = {The microbiota of different types of Italian high-moisture Mozzarella cheese produced using cow or buffalo milk, acidified with natural or selected cultures, and sampled at the dairy or at the mass market, was evaluated using a Next Generation Sequencing approach, in order to identify possible drivers of the bacterial diversity. Cow Mozzarella and buffalo Mozzarella acidified with commercial cultures were dominated by Streptococcus thermophilus, while buffalo samples acidified with natural whey cultures showed similar prevalence of L. delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus, L. helveticus and S. thermophilus. Moreover, several species of non-starter lactic acid bacteria were frequently detected. The diversity in cow Mozzarella microbiota was much higher than that of water buffalo samples. Cluster analysis clearly separated cow's cheeses from buffalo's ones, the former having a higher prevalence of psychrophilic taxa, and the latter of Lactobacillus and Streptococcus. A higher prevalence of psychrophilic species and potential spoilers was observed in samples collected at the mass retail, suggesting that longer exposures to cooling temperatures and longer production-to-consumption times could significantly affect microbiota diversity. Our results could help in detecting some kind of thermal abuse during the production or storage of mozzarella cheese.}, }
@article {pmid30619130, year = {2018}, author = {Timmers, PHA and Vavourakis, CD and Kleerebezem, R and Damsté, JSS and Muyzer, G and Stams, AJM and Sorokin, DY and Plugge, CM}, title = {Metabolism and Occurrence of Methanogenic and Sulfate-Reducing Syntrophic Acetate Oxidizing Communities in Haloalkaline Environments.}, journal = {Frontiers in microbiology}, volume = {9}, number = {}, pages = {3039}, doi = {10.3389/fmicb.2018.03039}, pmid = {30619130}, issn = {1664-302X}, support = {322551//European Research Council/International ; 323009//European Research Council/International ; }, abstract = {Anaerobic syntrophic acetate oxidation (SAO) is a thermodynamically unfavorable process involving a syntrophic acetate oxidizing bacterium (SAOB) that forms interspecies electron carriers (IECs). These IECs are consumed by syntrophic partners, typically hydrogenotrophic methanogenic archaea or sulfate reducing bacteria. In this work, the metabolism and occurrence of SAOB at extremely haloalkaline conditions were investigated, using highly enriched methanogenic (M-SAO) and sulfate-reducing (S-SAO) cultures from south-western Siberian hypersaline soda lakes. Activity tests with the M-SAO and S-SAO cultures and thermodynamic calculations indicated that H2 and formate are important IECs in both SAO cultures. Metagenomic analysis of the M-SAO cultures showed that the dominant SAOB was 'Candidatus Syntrophonatronum acetioxidans,' and a near-complete draft genome of this SAOB was reconstructed. 'Ca. S. acetioxidans' has all genes necessary for operating the Wood-Ljungdahl pathway, which is likely employed for acetate oxidation. It also encodes several genes essential to thrive at haloalkaline conditions; including a Na+-dependent ATP synthase and marker genes for 'salt-out' strategies for osmotic homeostasis at high soda conditions. Membrane lipid analysis of the M-SAO culture showed the presence of unusual bacterial diether membrane lipids which are presumably beneficial at extreme haloalkaline conditions. To determine the importance of SAO in haloalkaline environments, previously obtained 16S rRNA gene sequencing data and metagenomic data of five different hypersaline soda lake sediment samples were investigated, including the soda lakes where the enrichment cultures originated from. The draft genome of 'Ca. S. acetioxidans' showed highest identity with two metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) of putative SAOBs that belonged to the highly abundant and diverse Syntrophomonadaceae family present in the soda lake sediments. The 16S rRNA gene amplicon datasets of the soda lake sediments showed a high similarity of reads to 'Ca. S. acetioxidans' with abundance as high as 1.3% of all reads, whereas aceticlastic methanogens and acetate oxidizing sulfate-reducers were not abundant (≤0.1%) or could not be detected. These combined results indicate that SAO is the primary anaerobic acetate oxidizing pathway at extreme haloalkaline conditions performed by haloalkaliphilic syntrophic consortia.}, }
@article {pmid30612183, year = {2019}, author = {Ding, W and Zhang, W and Alikunhi, NM and Batang, Z and Pei, B and Wang, R and Chen, L and Al-Suwailem, A and Qian, PY}, title = {Metagenomic Analysis of Zinc Surface-Associated Marine Biofilms.}, journal = {Microbial ecology}, volume = {77}, number = {2}, pages = {406-416}, doi = {10.1007/s00248-018-01313-3}, pmid = {30612183}, issn = {1432-184X}, mesh = {Bacteria/classification/*genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Bacterial Physiological Phenomena ; Biodiversity ; *Biofilms ; Indian Ocean ; Metagenomics ; Phylogeny ; Seawater/analysis/*microbiology ; Zinc/analysis/*metabolism ; }, abstract = {Biofilms are a significant source of marine biofouling. Marine biofilm communities are established when microorganisms adhere to immersed surfaces. Despite the microbe-inhibiting effect of zinc surfaces, microbes can still attach to the surface and form biofilms. However, the diversity of biofilm-forming microbes that can attach to zinc surfaces and their common functional features remain elusive. Here, by analyzing 9,000,000 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequences and 270 Gb of metagenomic data, we comprehensively explored the taxa and functions related to biofilm formation in subtidal zones of the Red Sea. A clear difference was observed between the biofilm and adjacent seawater microbial communities in terms of the taxonomic structure at phylum and genus levels, and a huge number of genera were only present in the biofilms. Saturated alpha-diversity curves suggested the existence of more than 14,000 operational taxonomic units in one biofilm sample, which is much higher than previous estimates. Remarkably, the biofilms contained abundant and diverse transposase genes, which were localized along microbial chromosomal segments and co-existed with genes related to metal ion transport and resistance. Genomic analyses of two cyanobacterial strains that were abundant in the biofilms revealed a variety of metal ion transporters and transposases. Our analyses revealed the high diversity of biofilm-forming microbes that can attach to zinc surfaces and the ubiquitous role of transposase genes in microbial adaptation to toxic metal surfaces.}, }
@article {pmid30609942, year = {2019}, author = {Yang, SH and Tandon, K and Lu, CY and Wada, N and Shih, CJ and Hsiao, SS and Jane, WN and Lee, TC and Yang, CM and Liu, CT and Denis, V and Wu, YT and Wang, LT and Huang, L and Lee, DC and Wu, YW and Yamashiro, H and Tang, SL}, title = {Metagenomic, phylogenetic, and functional characterization of predominant endolithic green sulfur bacteria in the coral Isopora palifera.}, journal = {Microbiome}, volume = {7}, number = {1}, pages = {3}, doi = {10.1186/s40168-018-0616-z}, pmid = {30609942}, issn = {2049-2618}, mesh = {Animals ; Anthozoa/*microbiology ; Chlorobi/*classification/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; DNA, Bacterial/genetics ; DNA, Ribosomal/genetics ; Metagenomics/*methods ; Phylogeny ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Sequence Analysis, DNA ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: Endolithic microbes in coral skeletons are known to be a nutrient source for the coral host. In addition to aerobic endolithic algae and Cyanobacteria, which are usually described in the various corals and form a green layer beneath coral tissues, the anaerobic photoautotrophic green sulfur bacteria (GSB) Prosthecochloris is dominant in the skeleton of Isopora palifera. However, due to inherent challenges in studying anaerobic microbes in coral skeleton, the reason for its niche preference and function are largely unknown.<br><br>RESULTS: This study characterized a diverse and dynamic community of endolithic microbes shaped by the availability of light and oxygen. In addition, anaerobic bacteria isolated from the coral skeleton were cultured for the first time to experimentally clarify the role of these GSB. This characterization includes GSB's abundance, genetic and genomic profiles, organelle structure, and specific metabolic functions and activity. Our results explain the advantages endolithic GSB receive from living in coral skeletons, the potential metabolic role of a clade of coral-associated Prosthecochloris (CAP) in the skeleton, and the nitrogen fixation ability of CAP.<br><br>CONCLUSION: We suggest that the endolithic microbial community in coral skeletons is diverse and dynamic and that light and oxygen are two crucial factors for shaping it. This study is the first to demonstrate the ability of nitrogen uptake by specific coral-associated endolithic bacteria and shed light on the role of endolithic bacteria in coral skeletons.}, }
@article {pmid30609875, year = {2019}, author = {Waseem, H and Jameel, S and Ali, J and Saleem Ur Rehman, H and Tauseef, I and Farooq, U and Jamal, A and Ali, MI}, title = {Contributions and Challenges of High Throughput qPCR for Determining Antimicrobial Resistance in the Environment: A Critical Review.}, journal = {Molecules (Basel, Switzerland)}, volume = {24}, number = {1}, pages = {}, doi = {10.3390/molecules24010163}, pmid = {30609875}, issn = {1420-3049}, mesh = {Anti-Infective Agents/*pharmacology ; Computational Biology/methods ; Data Analysis ; *Drug Resistance, Microbial ; *Environmental Microbiology ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; Genes, Bacterial ; *High-Throughput Screening Assays ; Humans ; Metagenome ; Metagenomics/methods ; Quality Control ; *Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction ; }, abstract = {Expansion in whole genome sequencing and subsequent increase in antibiotic resistance targets have paved the way of high throughput qPCR (HT-qPCR) for analyzing hundreds of antimicrobial resistance genes (ARGs) in a single run. A meta-analysis of 51 selected studies is performed to evaluate ARGs abundance trends over the last 7 years. WaferGenTM SmartChip is found to be the most widely used HT-qPCR platform among others for evaluating ARGs. Up till now around 1000 environmental samples (excluding biological replicates) from different parts of the world have been analyzed on HT-qPCR. Calculated detection frequency and normalized ARGs abundance (ARGs/16S rRNA gene) reported in gut microbiome studies have shown a trend of low ARGs as compared to other environmental matrices. Disparities in the HT-qPCR data analysis which are causing difficulties to researchers in precise interpretation of results have been highlighted and a possible way forward for resolving them is also suggested. The potential of other amplification technologies and point of care or field deployable devices for analyzing ARGs have also been discussed in the review. Our review has focused on updated information regarding the role, current status and future perspectives of HT-qPCR in the field of antimicrobial resistance.}, }
@article {pmid30606162, year = {2019}, author = {Xue, F and Nan, X and Li, Y and Pan, X and Guo, Y and Jiang, L and Xiong, B}, title = {Metagenomic insights into effects of thiamine supplementation on ruminal non-methanogen archaea in high-concentrate diets feeding dairy cows.}, journal = {BMC veterinary research}, volume = {15}, number = {1}, pages = {7}, doi = {10.1186/s12917-018-1745-0}, pmid = {30606162}, issn = {1746-6148}, support = {Grant No. 31572435//Project of National Nature Science Foundation of China/ ; 2016YFD0700205//National Key Research and Development Plan/ ; }, mesh = {Animal Feed ; Animals ; Archaea/*drug effects/genetics ; Cattle ; Diet/*veterinary ; *Dietary Supplements ; Eating/drug effects ; Female ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/drug effects ; Hydrogen-Ion Concentration ; Lactation/drug effects ; Metagenomics ; Rumen/chemistry/*microbiology ; Thiamine/analysis/*pharmacology ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: Overfeeding of high-concentrate diet (HC) frequently leads to subacute ruminal acidosis (SARA) in modern dairy cows' production. Thiamine supplementation has been confirmed to attenuate HC induced SARA by increasing ruminal pH and ratio of acetate to propionate, and decreasing rumen lactate, biogenic amines and lipopolysaccharide (LPS). The effects of thiamine supplementation in HC on rumen bacteria and fungi profile had been detected in our previous studies, however, effects of thiamine supplementation in HC on rumen non-methanogen archaea is still unclear. The objective of the present study was therefore to investigate the effects of thiamine supplementation on ruminal archaea, especially non-methanogens in HC induced SARA cows.<br><br>RESULTS: HC feeding significantly decreased dry matter intake, milk production, milk fat content, ruminal pH and the concentrations of thiamine and acetate in rumen fluid compared with control diet (CON) (P < 0.05), while the concentrations of propionate and ammonia-nitrogen (NH3-N) were significantly increased compared with CON (P < 0.05). These changes caused by HC were inversed by thiamine supplementation (P < 0.05). The taxonomy results showed that ruminal archaea ranged from 0.37 to 0.47% of the whole microbiota. Four characterized phyla, a number of Candidatus archaea and almost 660 species were identified in the present study. In which Euryarchaeota occupied the largest proportion of the whole archaea. Furthermore, thiamine supplementation treatment significantly increased the relative abundance of non-methanogens compared with CON and HC treatments. Thaumarchaeota was increased in HC compared with CON. Thiamine supplementation significantly increased Crenarchaeota, Nanoarchaeota and the Candidatus phyla, however decreased Thaumarchaeota compared with HC treatment.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: HC feeding significantly decreased ruminal pH and increased the content of NH3-N which led to N loss and the increase of the relative abundance of Thaumarchaeota. Thiamine supplementation increased ruminal pH, improved the activity of ammonia utilizing bacteria, and decreased Thaumarchaeota abundance to reduce the ruminal NH3 content and finally reduced N loss. Overall, these findings contributed to the understanding of thiamine's function in dairy cows and provided new strategies to improve dairy cows' health under high-concentrate feeding regime.}, }
@article {pmid30598099, year = {2018}, author = {Abe, K and Hirayama, M and Ohno, K and Shimamura, T}, title = {A latent allocation model for the analysis of microbial composition and disease.}, journal = {BMC bioinformatics}, volume = {19}, number = {Suppl 19}, pages = {519}, doi = {10.1186/s12859-018-2530-6}, pmid = {30598099}, issn = {1471-2105}, mesh = {*Algorithms ; Bacteria/*classification ; Case-Control Studies ; Colorectal Neoplasms/*microbiology ; Computer Simulation ; Humans ; *Microbiota ; *Models, Statistical ; Parkinson Disease/*microbiology ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: Establishing the relationship between microbiota and specific diseases is important but requires appropriate statistical methodology. A specialized feature of microbiome count data is the presence of a large number of zeros, which makes it difficult to analyze in case-control studies. Most existing approaches either add a small number called a pseudo-count or use probability models such as the multinomial and Dirichlet-multinomial distributions to explain the excess zero counts, which may produce unnecessary biases and impose a correlation structure taht is unsuitable for microbiome data.<br><br>RESULTS: The purpose of this article is to develop a new probabilistic model, called BERnoulli and MUltinomial Distribution-based latent Allocation (BERMUDA), to address these problems. BERMUDA enables us to describe the differences in bacteria composition and a certain disease among samples. We also provide a simple and efficient learning procedure for the proposed model using an annealing EM algorithm.<br><br>CONCLUSION: We illustrate the performance of the proposed method both through both the simulation and real data analysis. BERMUDA is implemented with R and is available from GitHub (https://github.com/abikoushi/Bermuda).}, }
@article {pmid30598080, year = {2018}, author = {Chen, HM and Chang, TH and Lin, FM and Liang, C and Chiu, CM and Yang, TL and Yang, T and Huang, CY and Cheng, YN and Chang, YA and Chang, PY and Weng, SL}, title = {Vaginal microbiome variances in sample groups categorized by clinical criteria of bacterial vaginosis.}, journal = {BMC genomics}, volume = {19}, number = {Suppl 10}, pages = {876}, doi = {10.1186/s12864-018-5284-7}, pmid = {30598080}, issn = {1471-2164}, mesh = {Adult ; DNA, Bacterial/genetics ; Female ; *Genetic Variation ; Humans ; Microbiota/*genetics ; Vagina/*microbiology ; Vaginosis, Bacterial/microbiology ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: One of the most common and recurrent vaginal infections is bacterial vaginosis (BV). The diagnosis is based on changes to the &quot;normal&quot; vaginal microbiome; however, the normal microbiome appears to differ according to reproductive status and ethnicity, and even among individuals within these groups. The Amsel criteria and Nugent score test are widely used for diagnosing BV; however, these tests are based on different criteria, and so may indicate distinct changes in the vaginal microbial community. Nevertheless, few studies have compared the results of these test against metagenomics analysis.<br><br>METHODS: Vaginal flora samples from 77 participants were classified according to the Amsel criteria and Nugent score test. The microbiota composition was analyzed using 16S ribosome RNA gene amplicon sequencing. Bioinformatics analysis and multivariate statistical analysis were used to evaluate the microbial diversity and function.<br><br>RESULTS: Only 3 % of the participants diagnosed BV negative using the Amsel criteria (A-) were BV-positive according to the Nugent score test (N+), while over half of the BV-positive patients using the Amsel criteria (A+) were BV-negative according to the Nugent score test (N-). Thirteen genera showed significant differences in distribution among BV status defined by BV tests (e.g., A - N-, A + N- and A + N+). Variations in the four most abundant taxa, Lactobacillus, Gardnerella, Prevotella, and Escherichia, were responsible for most of this dissimilarity. Furthermore, vaginal microbial diversity differed significantly among the three groups classified by the Nugent score test (N-, N+, and intermediate flora), but not between the Amsel criteria groups. Numerous predictive microbial functions, such as bacterial chemotaxis and bacterial invasion of epithelial cells, differed significantly among multiple BV test, but not between the A- and A+ groups.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: Metagenomics analysis can greatly expand our current understanding of vaginal microbial diversity in health and disease. Metagenomics profiling may also provide more reliable diagnostic criteria for BV testing.}, }
@article {pmid30597002, year = {2019}, author = {Choi, I and Ponsero, AJ and Bomhoff, M and Youens-Clark, K and Hartman, JH and Hurwitz, BL}, title = {Libra: scalable k-mer-based tool for massive all-vs-all metagenome comparisons.}, journal = {GigaScience}, volume = {8}, number = {2}, pages = {}, doi = {10.1093/gigascience/giy165}, pmid = {30597002}, issn = {2047-217X}, abstract = {Background: Shotgun metagenomics provides powerful insights into microbial community biodiversity and function. Yet, inferences from metagenomic studies are often limited by dataset size and complexity and are restricted by the availability and completeness of existing databases. De novo comparative metagenomics enables the comparison of metagenomes based on their total genetic content.<br><br>Results: We developed a tool called Libra that performs an all-vs-all comparison of metagenomes for precise clustering based on their k-mer content. Libra uses a scalable Hadoop framework for massive metagenome comparisons, Cosine Similarity for calculating the distance using sequence composition and abundance while normalizing for sequencing depth, and a web-based implementation in iMicrobe (http://imicrobe.us) that uses the CyVerse advanced cyberinfrastructure to promote broad use of the tool by the scientific community.<br><br>Conclusions: A comparison of Libra to equivalent tools using both simulated and real metagenomic datasets, ranging from 80 million to 4.2 billion reads, reveals that methods commonly implemented to reduce compute time for large datasets, such as data reduction, read count normalization, and presence/absence distance metrics, greatly diminish the resolution of large-scale comparative analyses. In contrast, Libra uses all of the reads to calculate k-mer abundance in a Hadoop architecture that can scale to any size dataset to enable global-scale analyses and link microbial signatures to biological processes.}, }
@article {pmid30594064, year = {2019}, author = {Procopio, N and Ghignone, S and Williams, A and Chamberlain, A and Mello, A and Buckley, M}, title = {Metabarcoding to investigate changes in soil microbial communities within forensic burial contexts.}, journal = {Forensic science international. Genetics}, volume = {39}, number = {}, pages = {73-85}, doi = {10.1016/j.fsigen.2018.12.002}, pmid = {30594064}, issn = {1878-0326}, mesh = {Animals ; Burial ; DNA Barcoding, Taxonomic/*methods ; Forensic Sciences ; Metagenomics/methods ; Microbiota/*genetics ; Models, Animal ; Polymerase Chain Reaction ; *Postmortem Changes ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S ; *Soil Microbiology ; Swine ; }, abstract = {The estimation of the time elapsed since death (post-mortem interval, or PMI) is one of the key themes that forensic scientists have to address frequently. However, the estimation of PMI still suffers from poor accuracy and biases especially when decomposition stages are prolonged, so further improvements in methods for PMI estimation are desirable. Soil microbial communities associated with decomposing bodies have been shown to be good candidates for the estimation of the PMI of exposed bodies. Nevertheless, further research is required to better understand the bacterial succession associated with decomposition of buried carcasses in order to test its reliability and applicability for the estimation of PMI and to better understand the dynamics involved with decomposition within this particular scenario. Therefore we explored the succession of soil microbial communities associated with four decomposing pig carcasses (from one to six months PMI) using a metabarcoding approach. The sequencing of the bacterial 16S rRNA variable region 4 (V4) revealed trends linking particular microbial taxa with specific PMIs, and notably an increase in Proteobacteria, Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes at specific PMIs as well as a decrease in Acidobacteria. Our results, in accordance with previous studies conducted on exposed bodies of different mammalian species (including humans), also showed a general reduction of the taxonomic richness from two months PMI onwards, as well as an incomplete re-establishment of the starting soil microbial conditions after six months PMI. We also found specific mammal-derived taxa, such as Bacteroides spp., being still present in the soil after six months PMI. As such, this study serves as a baseline for additional research to allow the characterisation of biomarkers associated with specific PMIs. Due to the similarity between the results presented here and those reported in other types of decomposition studies we believe that the metabarcoding approach has considerable potential in the estimation of the PMI, particularly to clarify cases involving heavily skeletonised bodies or for the investigation of clandestine graves in which the carcass has been moved from its original place of deposition.}, }
@article {pmid30589606, year = {2019}, author = {Yasir, M and Qureshi, AK and Khan, I and Bibi, F and Rehan, M and Khan, SB and Azhar, EI}, title = {Culturomics-Based Taxonomic Diversity of Bacterial Communities in the Hot Springs of Saudi Arabia.}, journal = {Omics : a journal of integrative biology}, volume = {23}, number = {1}, pages = {17-27}, doi = {10.1089/omi.2018.0176}, pmid = {30589606}, issn = {1557-8100}, mesh = {Bacteria/*genetics ; Biodiversity ; Hot Springs/*microbiology ; Hot Temperature ; Metagenomics/methods ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Saudi Arabia ; Sequence Analysis, DNA/methods ; }, abstract = {Hot springs are natural habitats for thermophilic microorganisms and provide a significant opportunity for bioprospecting thermostable biomolecules. However, the scientific community has only a fragmented understanding of the microbial diversity and composition in these biotopes. In this study, bacterial diversity in sediment samples from six hot springs of Saudi Arabia was investigated using an improved culture-dependent approach. High-throughput MALDI-TOF MS (matrix assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry) and 16S rRNA genes sequencing were used for the identification of purified isolates. Most of the hot springs had a neutral pH and a temperature range of 45-89°C. Relatively higher colony-forming units (1.9 ± 0.45 × 104) were observed with 60°C incubation of an 89°C sediment sample from the hot spring at Ain al Harra1. Among the 536 purified isolates, 6 novel candidate species were found, and the remaining isolates represented 139 distinct species. Several species, such as Bacillus cereus, Bacillus subtilis, and Bacillus schlegelii, were ubiquitous in the hot springs sampled, but 102 of the identified species were uniquely distributed among the hot springs. Sixteen of the isolated thermophilic bacteria, including Geobacillus kaustophilus, Thermus oshimai, and Brevibacillus thermoruber, grew at ≥60°C. In addition, 21 species exhibited hydrolytic enzymatic activity. Most of these species belonged to Bacillus and Brevibacillus. Overall, this study contributes to global knowledgebase on bacterial communities by comprehensively profiling culture-based bacterial diversity in the hot springs of Saudi Arabia. Further studies are required for investigating bacteria from hot springs by a metagenomic approach.}, }
@article {pmid30588764, year = {2019}, author = {Woyke, T and Schulz, F}, title = {Entities inside one another - a matryoshka doll in biology?.}, journal = {Environmental microbiology reports}, volume = {11}, number = {1}, pages = {26-28}, doi = {10.1111/1758-2229.12716}, pmid = {30588764}, issn = {1758-2229}, mesh = {*Biological Evolution ; Eukaryota/physiology ; Giant Viruses/physiology ; Metagenomics ; Microbial Consortia ; Organelles/physiology ; *Symbiosis ; Thiothrix/physiology ; }, }
@article {pmid30587114, year = {2018}, author = {Tyakht, AV and Manolov, AI and Kanygina, AV and Ischenko, DS and Kovarsky, BA and Popenko, AS and Pavlenko, AV and Elizarova, AV and Rakitina, DV and Baikova, JP and Ladygina, VG and Kostryukova, ES and Karpova, IY and Semashko, TA and Larin, AK and Grigoryeva, TV and Sinyagina, MN and Malanin, SY and Shcherbakov, PL and Kharitonova, AY and Khalif, IL and Shapina, MV and Maev, IV and Andreev, DN and Belousova, EA and Buzunova, YM and Alexeev, DG and Govorun, VM}, title = {Genetic diversity of Escherichia coli in gut microbiota of patients with Crohn's disease discovered using metagenomic and genomic analyses.}, journal = {BMC genomics}, volume = {19}, number = {1}, pages = {968}, doi = {10.1186/s12864-018-5306-5}, pmid = {30587114}, issn = {1471-2164}, support = {16-15-00258//Russian Science Foundation/ ; }, mesh = {Cluster Analysis ; Crohn Disease/microbiology/*pathology ; Escherichia coli/*genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Feces/microbiology ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; *Genetic Variation ; Genome, Bacterial ; Humans ; Intestinal Mucosa/microbiology ; Metagenomics/*methods ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: Crohn's disease is associated with gut dysbiosis. Independent studies have shown an increase in the abundance of certain bacterial species, particularly Escherichia coli with the adherent-invasive pathotype, in the gut. The role of these species in this disease needs to be elucidated.<br><br>METHODS: We performed a metagenomic study investigating the gut microbiota of patients with Crohn's disease. A metagenomic reconstruction of the consensus genome content of the species was used to assess the genetic variability.<br><br>RESULTS: The abnormal shifts in the microbial community structures in Crohn's disease were heterogeneous among the patients. The metagenomic data suggested the existence of multiple E. coli strains within individual patients. We discovered that the genetic diversity of the species was high and that only a few samples manifested similarity to the adherent-invasive varieties. The other species demonstrated genetic diversity comparable to that observed in the healthy subjects. Our results were supported by a comparison of the sequenced genomes of isolates from the same microbiota samples and a meta-analysis of published gut metagenomes.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: The genomic diversity of Crohn's disease-associated E. coli within and among the patients paves the way towards an understanding of the microbial mechanisms underlying the onset and progression of the Crohn's disease and the development of new strategies for the prevention and treatment of this disease.}, }
@article {pmid30584534, year = {2018}, author = {Ranjan, R and Rani, A and Finn, PW and Perkins, DL}, title = {Multiomic Strategies Reveal Diversity and Important Functional Aspects of Human Gut Microbiome.}, journal = {BioMed research international}, volume = {2018}, number = {}, pages = {6074918}, doi = {10.1155/2018/6074918}, pmid = {30584534}, issn = {2314-6141}, support = {R01 AI053878/AI/NIAID NIH HHS/United States ; R01 HL081663/HL/NHLBI NIH HHS/United States ; }, mesh = {Adult ; Bacteria/genetics ; Biodiversity ; Dysbiosis/genetics/microbiology ; Feces/microbiology ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/*genetics ; High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing/methods ; Humans ; Male ; Metagenome/genetics ; Metagenomics/methods ; Microbiota/*genetics ; Sequence Analysis, DNA/methods ; Transcriptome/genetics ; }, abstract = {It is well accepted that dysbiosis of microbiota is associated with disease; however, the biological mechanisms that promote susceptibility or resilience to disease remain elusive. One of the major limitations of previous microbiome studies has been the lack of complementary metatranscriptomic (functional) data to complement the interpretation of metagenomics (bacterial abundance). The purpose of this study was twofold, first to evaluate the bacterial diversity and differential gene expression of gut microbiota using complementary shotgun metagenomics (MG) and metatranscriptomics (MT) from same fecal sample. Second, to compare sequence data using different Illumina platforms and with different sequencing parameters as new sequencers are introduced, and to determine if the data are comparable on different platforms. In this study, we perform ultradeep metatranscriptomic shotgun sequencing for a sample that we previously analyzed with metagenomics shotgun sequencing. We performed sequencing analysis using different Illumina platforms, with different sequencing and analysis parameters. Our results suggest that use of different Illumina platform did not lead to detectable bias in the sequencing data. The analysis of the sample using MG and MT approach shows that some species genes are highly represented in the MT than in the MG, indicating that some species are highly metabolically active. Our analysis also shows that ~52% of the genes in the metagenome are in the metatranscriptome and therefore are robustly expressed. The functions of the low and rare abundance bacterial species remain poorly understood. Our observations indicate that among the low abundant species analyzed in this study some were found to be more metabolically active compared to others, and can contribute distinct profiles of biological functions that may modulate the host-microbiota and bacteria-bacteria interactions.}, }
@article {pmid30581850, year = {2018}, author = {Chen, WP and Chang, SH and Tang, CY and Liou, ML and Tsai, SJ and Lin, YL}, title = {Composition Analysis and Feature Selection of the Oral Microbiota Associated with Periodontal Disease.}, journal = {BioMed research international}, volume = {2018}, number = {}, pages = {3130607}, doi = {10.1155/2018/3130607}, pmid = {30581850}, issn = {2314-6141}, mesh = {Bacteria/*genetics ; Chronic Periodontitis/*microbiology ; Gingiva/*microbiology ; Humans ; Microbiota/*genetics ; Phylogeny ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Tooth/microbiology ; }, abstract = {Periodontitis is an inflammatory disease involving complex interactions between oral microorganisms and the host immune response. Understanding the structure of the microbiota community associated with periodontitis is essential for improving classifications and diagnoses of various types of periodontal diseases and will facilitate clinical decision-making. In this study, we used a 16S rRNA metagenomics approach to investigate and compare the compositions of the microbiota communities from 76 subgingival plagues samples, including 26 from healthy individuals and 50 from patients with periodontitis. Furthermore, we propose a novel feature selection algorithm for selecting features with more information from many variables with a combination of these features and machine learning methods were used to construct prediction models for predicting the health status of patients with periodontal disease. We identified a total of 12 phyla, 124 genera, and 355 species and observed differences between health- and periodontitis-associated bacterial communities at all phylogenetic levels. We discovered that the genera Porphyromonas, Treponema, Tannerella, Filifactor, and Aggregatibacter were more abundant in patients with periodontal disease, whereas Streptococcus, Haemophilus, Capnocytophaga, Gemella, Campylobacter, and Granulicatella were found at higher levels in healthy controls. Using our feature selection algorithm, random forests performed better in terms of predictive power than other methods and consumed the least amount of computational time.}, }
@article {pmid30581574, year = {2019}, author = {Angelakis, E and Bachar, D and Yasir, M and Musso, D and Djossou, F and Melenotte, C and Robert, C and Davoust, B and Gaborit, B and Azhar, EI and Bibi, F and Dutour, A and Raoult, D}, title = {Comparison of the gut microbiota of obese individuals from different geographic origins.}, journal = {New microbes and new infections}, volume = {27}, number = {}, pages = {40-47}, doi = {10.1016/j.nmni.2018.11.005}, pmid = {30581574}, issn = {2052-2975}, abstract = {Few studies have examined the interaction of human geography, microbial community structure and obesity. We tested obese adult volunteers from France, Saudi Arabia, French Polynesia and from a traditional population in the village of Trois-Sauts in French Guiana by sequencing the V3-V4 region. We also sequenced homemade fermented cachiri beers that were obtained from the traditional Amazonian population and are highly consumed by this population. We found that French and Saudis had significantly less richness and biodiversity in their gut microbiota than Amazonians and Polynesians (p <0.05). Principle coordinate analysis of the overall composition of the genera communities revealed that the microbiomes of Amazonians clustered independently from the other obese individuals. Moreover, we found that Amazonians presented significantly stricter anaerobic genera than the Saudis, French and Polynesians (p < 0.001). Polynesians presented significantly lower relative abundance of Lactobacillus sp. than French (p 0.01) and Saudis (p 0.05). Treponema berlinense and Treponema succinifaciens were only present in the gut microbiome of Amazonians. The cachiri beers presented significantly more bacterial species in common with the gut microbiome of Amazonians (p < 0.005). Obese individuals with different origins present modifications in their gut microbiota, and we provide evidence that the cachiri beers influenced the gut microbiome of Amazonians.}, }
@article {pmid30579193, year = {2019}, author = {Deng, Y and Wang, Y and Xia, Y and Zhang, AN and Zhao, Y and Zhang, T}, title = {Genomic resolution of bacterial populations in saccharin and cyclamate degradation.}, journal = {The Science of the total environment}, volume = {658}, number = {}, pages = {357-366}, doi = {10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.12.162}, pmid = {30579193}, issn = {1879-1026}, mesh = {Alphaproteobacteria/genetics/isolation &amp; purification/metabolism ; *Biodegradation, Environmental ; Biodiversity ; Cyclamates/*metabolism ; *Genome, Bacterial ; Metagenomics/methods ; Methylobacteriaceae/genetics/isolation &amp; purification/metabolism ; Rhodocyclaceae/genetics/isolation &amp; purification/metabolism ; Saccharin/*metabolism ; Sphingomonadaceae/genetics/isolation &amp; purification/metabolism ; Water Microbiology ; Water Pollutants, Chemical/*metabolism ; }, abstract = {The benefits of extensive artificial sweeteners use come at a cost of their ubiquitous occurrence in the aquatic environment. Biodegradation is crucial for the removal of artificial sweeteners in the environment, yet comprehensive characterizations of the degradation consortia that degrade these compounds have not been initiated. Here, we performed metagenomic analysis of microbial communities fulfilling complete mineralization of two typical artificial sweeteners, i.e. saccharin and cyclamate. Genome-resolved metagenomics enabled the recovery and metabolic characterization of total 23 population genomes from 8 phyla in the two consortia, most of which represented novel species. The saccharin-degrading consortia was notably dominated by a betaproteobacterial genome from the family Rhodocyclaceae, accounting for 15.5% of total sequences. For the cyclamate enrichment, 28.1% of the total sequences were assigned to three similarly abundant Alphaproteobacteria population genomes belonging to the family Sphingomonadaceae and Methylobacteriaceae. The metabolic potential of these population genomes were examined to potentially identify the roles of these populations in biodegradation of artificial sweeteners, and focusing on the energy and nutrient metabolisms.}, }
@article {pmid30578263, year = {2019}, author = {Wegner, CE and Gaspar, M and Geesink, P and Herrmann, M and Marz, M and Küsel, K}, title = {Biogeochemical Regimes in Shallow Aquifers Reflect the Metabolic Coupling of the Elements Nitrogen, Sulfur, and Carbon.}, journal = {Applied and environmental microbiology}, volume = {85}, number = {5}, pages = {}, doi = {10.1128/AEM.02346-18}, pmid = {30578263}, issn = {1098-5336}, abstract = {Near-surface groundwaters are prone to receive (in)organic matter input from their recharge areas and are known to harbor autotrophic microbial communities linked to nitrogen and sulfur metabolism. Here, we use multi-omic profiling to gain holistic insights into the turnover of inorganic nitrogen compounds, carbon fixation processes, and organic matter processing in groundwater. We sampled microbial biomass from two superimposed aquifers via monitoring wells that follow groundwater flow from its recharge area through differences in hydrogeochemical settings and land use. Functional profiling revealed that groundwater microbiomes are mainly driven by nitrogen (nitrification, denitrification, and ammonium oxidation [anammox]) and to a lesser extent sulfur cycling (sulfur oxidation and sulfate reduction), depending on local hydrochemical differences. Surprisingly, the differentiation potential of the groundwater microbiome surpasses that of hydrochemistry for individual monitoring wells. Being dominated by a few phyla (Bacteroidetes, Proteobacteria, Planctomycetes, and Thaumarchaeota), the taxonomic profiling of groundwater metagenomes and metatranscriptomes revealed pronounced differences between merely present microbiome members and those actively participating in community gene expression and biogeochemical cycling. Unexpectedly, we observed a constitutive expression of carbohydrate-active enzymes encoded by different microbiome members, along with the groundwater flow path. The turnover of organic carbon apparently complements for lithoautotrophic carbon assimilation pathways mainly used by the groundwater microbiome depending on the availability of oxygen and inorganic electron donors, like ammonium.IMPORTANCE Groundwater is a key resource for drinking water production and irrigation. The interplay between geological setting, hydrochemistry, carbon storage, and groundwater microbiome ecosystem functioning is crucial for our understanding of these important ecosystem services. We targeted the encoded and expressed metabolic potential of groundwater microbiomes along an aquifer transect that diversifies in terms of hydrochemistry and land use. Our results showed that the groundwater microbiome has a higher spatial differentiation potential than does hydrochemistry.}, }
@article {pmid30577803, year = {2018}, author = {Chappell, T and Geva, S and Hogan, JM and Huygens, F and Rathnayake, IU and Rudd, S and Kelly, W and Perrin, D}, title = {Rapid analysis of metagenomic data using signature-based clustering.}, journal = {BMC bioinformatics}, volume = {19}, number = {Suppl 20}, pages = {509}, doi = {10.1186/s12859-018-2540-4}, pmid = {30577803}, issn = {1471-2105}, mesh = {Algorithms ; Cluster Analysis ; *Data Analysis ; Humans ; Metagenomics/*methods ; Microbiota/genetics ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: Sequencing highly-variable 16S regions is a common and often effective approach to the study of microbial communities, and next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies provide abundant quantities of data for analysis. However, the speed of existing analysis pipelines may limit our ability to work with these quantities of data. Furthermore, the limited coverage of existing 16S databases may hamper our ability to characterise these communities, particularly in the context of complex or poorly studied environments.<br><br>RESULTS: In this article we present the SigClust algorithm, a novel clustering method involving the transformation of sequence reads into binary signatures. When compared to other published methods, SigClust yields superior cluster coherence and separation of metagenomic read data, while operating within substantially reduced timeframes. We demonstrate its utility on published Illumina datasets and on a large collection of labelled wound reads sourced from patients in a wound clinic. The temporal analysis is based on tracking the dominant clusters of wound samples over time. The analysis can identify markers of both healing and non-healing wounds in response to treatment. Prominent clusters are found, corresponding to bacterial species known to be associated with unfavourable healing outcomes, including a number of strains of Staphylococcus aureus.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: SigClust identifies clusters rapidly and supports an improved understanding of the wound microbiome without reliance on a reference database. The results indicate a promising use for a SigClust-based pipeline in wound analysis and prediction, and a possible novel method for wound management and treatment.}, }
@article {pmid30576077, year = {2019}, author = {Jeunen, GJ and Knapp, M and Spencer, HG and Lamare, MD and Taylor, HR and Stat, M and Bunce, M and Gemmell, NJ}, title = {Environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding reveals strong discrimination among diverse marine habitats connected by water movement.}, journal = {Molecular ecology resources}, volume = {19}, number = {2}, pages = {426-438}, doi = {10.1111/1755-0998.12982}, pmid = {30576077}, issn = {1755-0998}, mesh = {Aquatic Organisms/*classification/genetics/growth &amp; development ; *Biota ; Cluster Analysis ; *DNA Barcoding, Taxonomic ; DNA, Ribosomal/chemistry/genetics ; *Ecosystem ; Electron Transport Complex IV/genetics ; Eukaryota/*classification/genetics/growth &amp; development ; *Metagenomics ; Phylogeny ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Sequence Analysis, DNA ; *Water Movements ; }, abstract = {While in recent years environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding surveys have shown great promise as an alternative monitoring method, the integration into existing marine monitoring programs may be confounded by the dispersal of the eDNA signal. Currents and tidal influences could transport eDNA over great distances, inducing false-positive species detection, leading to inaccurate biodiversity assessments and, ultimately, mismanagement of marine environments. In this study, we determined the ability of eDNA metabarcoding surveys to distinguish localized signals obtained from four marine habitats within a small spatial scale (<5 km) subject to significant tidal and along-shore water flow. Our eDNA metabarcoding survey detected 86 genera, within 77 families and across 11 phyla using three established metabarcoding assays targeting fish (16S rRNA gene), crustacean (16S rRNA gene) and eukaryotic (cytochrome oxidase subunit 1) diversity. Ordination and cluster analyses for both taxonomic and OTU data sets show distinct eDNA signals between the sampled habitats, suggesting dispersal of eDNA among habitats was limited. Individual taxa with strong habitat preferences displayed localized eDNA signals in accordance with their respective habitat, whereas taxa known to be less habitat-specific generated more ubiquitous signals. Our data add to evidence that eDNA metabarcoding surveys in marine environments detect a broad range of taxa that are spatially discrete. Our work also highlights that refinement of assay choice is essential to realize the full potential of eDNA metabarcoding surveys in marine biodiversity monitoring programs.}, }
@article {pmid30565880, year = {2019}, author = {Thorn, CE and Bergesch, C and Joyce, A and Sambrano, G and McDonnell, K and Brennan, F and Heyer, R and Benndorf, D and Abram, F}, title = {A robust, cost-effective method for DNA, RNA and protein co-extraction from soil, other complex microbiomes and pure cultures.}, journal = {Molecular ecology resources}, volume = {19}, number = {2}, pages = {439-455}, doi = {10.1111/1755-0998.12979}, pmid = {30565880}, issn = {1755-0998}, support = {//NUI Galway/ ; }, mesh = {Cost-Benefit Analysis ; DNA/genetics/*isolation &amp; purification ; Metagenomics/economics/*methods ; *Microbiota ; Proteins/analysis/*isolation &amp; purification ; Proteomics/economics/*methods ; RNA/genetics/*isolation &amp; purification ; *Soil Microbiology ; }, abstract = {The soil microbiome is inherently complex with high biological diversity, and spatial heterogeneity typically occurring on the submillimetre scale. To study the microbial ecology of soils, and other microbiomes, biomolecules, that is, nucleic acids and proteins, must be efficiently and reliably co-recovered from the same biological samples. Commercial kits are currently available for the co-extraction of DNA, RNA and proteins but none has been developed for soil samples. We present a new protocol drawing on existing phenol-chloroform-based methods for nucleic acids co-extraction but incorporating targeted precipitation of proteins from the phenol phase. The protocol is cost-effective and robust, and easily implemented using reagents commonly available in laboratories. The method is estimated to be eight times cheaper than using disparate commercial kits for the isolation of DNA and/or RNA, and proteins, from soil. The method is effective, providing good quality biomolecules from a diverse range of soil types, with clay contents varying from 9.5% to 35.1%, which we successfully used for downstream, high-throughput gene sequencing and metaproteomics. Additionally, we demonstrate that the protocol can also be easily implemented for biomolecule co-extraction from other complex microbiome samples, including cattle slurry and microbial communities recovered from anaerobic bioreactors, as well as from Gram-positive and Gram-negative pure cultures.}, }
@article {pmid30562947, year = {2018}, author = {Ishii, C and Nakanishi, Y and Murakami, S and Nozu, R and Ueno, M and Hioki, K and Aw, W and Hirayama, A and Soga, T and Ito, M and Tomita, M and Fukuda, S}, title = {A Metabologenomic Approach Reveals Changes in the Intestinal Environment of Mice Fed on American Diet.}, journal = {International journal of molecular sciences}, volume = {19}, number = {12}, pages = {}, doi = {10.3390/ijms19124079}, pmid = {30562947}, issn = {1422-0067}, support = {15H01522//Japan Society for the Promotion of Science/ ; 16H04901//Japan Society for the Promotion of Science/ ; 17H05654//Japan Society for the Promotion of Science/ ; 18H04805//Japan Society for the Promotion of Science/ ; JPMJPR1537//Japan Science and Technology Agency/ ; }, mesh = {Animals ; *Diet ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; Humans ; Male ; *Metabolome ; *Metagenomics ; Mice ; *Ruminococcus/genetics/growth &amp; development ; }, abstract = {Intestinal microbiota and their metabolites are strongly associated with host physiology. Developments in DNA sequencing and mass spectrometry technologies have allowed us to obtain additional data that enhance our understanding of the interactions among microbiota, metabolites, and the host. However, the strategies used to analyze these datasets are not yet well developed. Here, we describe an original analytical strategy, metabologenomics, consisting of an integrated analysis of mass spectrometry-based metabolome data and high-throughput-sequencing-based microbiome data. Using this approach, we compared data obtained from C57BL/6J mice fed an American diet (AD), which contained higher amounts of fat and fiber, to those from mice fed control rodent diet. The feces of the AD mice contained higher amounts of butyrate and propionate, and higher relative abundances of Oscillospira and Ruminococcus. The amount of butyrate positively correlated with the abundance of these bacterial genera. Furthermore, integrated analysis of the metabolome data and the predicted metagenomic data from Phylogenetic Investigation of Communities by Reconstruction of Unobserved States (PICRUSt) indicated that the abundance of genes associated with butyrate metabolism positively correlated with butyrate amounts. Thus, our metabologenomic approach is expected to provide new insights and understanding of intestinal metabolic dynamics in complex microbial ecosystems.}, }
@article {pmid30559737, year = {2018}, author = {Gong, Z and Liang, Y and Wang, M and Jiang, Y and Yang, Q and Xia, J and Zhou, X and You, S and Gao, C and Wang, J and He, J and Shao, H and McMinn, A}, title = {Viral Diversity and Its Relationship With Environmental Factors at the Surface and Deep Sea of Prydz Bay, Antarctica.}, journal = {Frontiers in microbiology}, volume = {9}, number = {}, pages = {2981}, doi = {10.3389/fmicb.2018.02981}, pmid = {30559737}, issn = {1664-302X}, abstract = {A viral metagenomic analysis of five surface and two bottom water (878 meters below surface, mbs, and 3,357 mbs) samples from Prydz Bay, was conducted during February-March 2015. The results demonstrated that most of the DNA viruses were dsDNA viruses (79.73-94.06%, except at PBI1, 37.51%). Of these, Caudovirales (Siphoviridae, Myoviridae, and Podoviridae) phages were most abundant in surface seawater (67.67-71.99%), while nucleocytoplasmic large DNA viruses (NCLDVs) (Phycodnaviridae, Mimiviridae, and Pandoraviridae accounted for >30% of dsDNA viruses) were most abundant in the bottom water (3,357 mbs). Of the ssDNA viruses, Microviridae was the dominant family in PBI2, PBI3, PBOs, and PBI4b (57.09-87.55%), while Inoviridae (58.16%) was the dominant family in PBI1. Cellulophaga phages (phi38:1 and phi10:1) and Flavobacterium phage 11b, infecting the possible host strains affiliated with the family Flavobacteriaceae of the phylum Bacteroidetes, were abundant in surface water dsDNA viromes. The long contig (PBI2_1_C) from the viral metagenomes were most similar to the genome architectures of Cellulophaga phage phi10:1 and Flavobacterium phage 11b from the Arctic Ocean. Comparative analysis showed that the surface viral community of Prydz Bay could be clearly separated from other marine and freshwater environments. The deep sea viral community was similar to the deep sea viral metagenome at A Long-term Oligotrophic Habitat Assessment Station (ALOHA, at 22°45'N, 158°00'W). The multivariable analysis indicated that nutrients probably played an important role in shaping the local viral community structure. This study revealed the preliminary characteristics of the viral community in Prydz Bay, from both the surface and the deep sea. It provided evidence of the relationships between the virome and the environment in Prydz Bay and provided the first data from the deep sea viral community of the Southern Ocean.}, }
@article {pmid30558682, year = {2018}, author = {Sirová, D and Bárta, J and Šimek, K and Posch, T and Pech, J and Stone, J and Borovec, J and Adamec, L and Vrba, J}, title = {Hunters or farmers? Microbiome characteristics help elucidate the diet composition in an aquatic carnivorous plant.}, journal = {Microbiome}, volume = {6}, number = {1}, pages = {225}, doi = {10.1186/s40168-018-0600-7}, pmid = {30558682}, issn = {2049-2618}, mesh = {Aquatic Organisms/microbiology/physiology ; Bacteria/*classification/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; DNA, Algal/genetics ; DNA, Bacterial/genetics ; DNA, Fungal/genetics ; Fungi/*classification/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Gene Expression Profiling/methods ; Lamiales/*microbiology/physiology ; Metagenomics/*methods ; Microbial Consortia ; Phylogeny ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: Utricularia are rootless aquatic carnivorous plants which have recently attracted the attention of researchers due to the peculiarities of their miniaturized genomes. Here, we focus on a novel aspect of Utricularia ecophysiology-the interactions with and within the complex communities of microorganisms colonizing their traps and external surfaces.<br><br>RESULTS: Bacteria, fungi, algae, and protozoa inhabit the miniature ecosystem of the Utricularia trap lumen and are involved in the regeneration of nutrients from complex organic matter. By combining molecular methods, microscopy, and other approaches to assess the trap-associated microbial community structure, diversity, function, as well as the nutrient turn-over potential of bacterivory, we gained insight into the nutrient acquisition strategies of the Utricularia hosts.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: We conclude that Utricularia traps can, in terms of their ecophysiological function, be compared to microbial cultivators or farms, which center around complex microbial consortia acting synergistically to convert complex organic matter, often of algal origin, into a source of utilizable nutrients for the plants.}, }
@article {pmid30545401, year = {2018}, author = {Forbes, JD and Chen, CY and Knox, NC and Marrie, RA and El-Gabalawy, H and de Kievit, T and Alfa, M and Bernstein, CN and Van Domselaar, G}, title = {A comparative study of the gut microbiota in immune-mediated inflammatory diseases-does a common dysbiosis exist?.}, journal = {Microbiome}, volume = {6}, number = {1}, pages = {221}, doi = {10.1186/s40168-018-0603-4}, pmid = {30545401}, issn = {2049-2618}, mesh = {Adult ; Arthritis, Rheumatoid/microbiology ; Bacteria/*classification/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Case-Control Studies ; Colitis, Ulcerative/microbiology ; Crohn Disease/*microbiology ; DNA, Bacterial/genetics ; DNA, Ribosomal/genetics ; Dysbiosis/*diagnosis ; Female ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; Humans ; Inflammatory Bowel Diseases/*microbiology ; Machine Learning ; Male ; Metagenomics/*methods ; Middle Aged ; Multiple Sclerosis/*microbiology ; Phylogeny ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Sequence Analysis, DNA/methods ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: Immune-mediated inflammatory disease (IMID) represents a substantial health concern. It is widely recognized that IMID patients are at a higher risk for developing secondary inflammation-related conditions. While an ambiguous etiology is common to all IMIDs, in recent years, considerable knowledge has emerged regarding the plausible role of the gut microbiome in IMIDs. This study used 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing to compare the gut microbiota of patients with Crohn's disease (CD; N = 20), ulcerative colitis (UC; N = 19), multiple sclerosis (MS; N = 19), and rheumatoid arthritis (RA; N = 21) versus healthy controls (HC; N = 23). Biological replicates were collected from participants within a 2-month interval. This study aimed to identify common (or unique) taxonomic biomarkers of IMIDs using both differential abundance testing and a machine learning approach.<br><br>RESULTS: Significant microbial community differences between cohorts were observed (pseudo F = 4.56; p = 0.01). Richness and diversity were significantly different between cohorts (pFDR < 0.001) and were lowest in CD while highest in HC. Abundances of Actinomyces, Eggerthella, Clostridium III, Faecalicoccus, and Streptococcus (pFDR < 0.001) were significantly higher in all disease cohorts relative to HC, whereas significantly lower abundances were observed for Gemmiger, Lachnospira, and Sporobacter (pFDR < 0.001). Several taxa were found to be differentially abundant in IMIDs versus HC including significantly higher abundances of Intestinibacter in CD, Bifidobacterium in UC, and unclassified Erysipelotrichaceae in MS and significantly lower abundances of Coprococcus in CD, Dialister in MS, and Roseburia in RA. A machine learning approach to classify disease versus HC was highest for CD (AUC = 0.93 and AUC = 0.95 for OTU and genus features, respectively) followed by MS, RA, and UC. Gemmiger and Faecalicoccus were identified as important features for classification of subjects to CD and HC. In general, features identified by differential abundance testing were consistent with machine learning feature importance.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: This study identified several gut microbial taxa with differential abundance patterns common to IMIDs. We also found differentially abundant taxa between IMIDs. These taxa may serve as biomarkers for the detection and diagnosis of IMIDs and suggest there may be a common component to IMID etiology.}, }
@article {pmid30543873, year = {2019}, author = {Lima, DA and Cibulski, SP and Tochetto, C and Varela, APM and Finkler, F and Teixeira, TF and Loiko, MR and Cerva, C and Junqueira, DM and Mayer, FQ and Roehe, PM}, title = {The intestinal virome of malabsorption syndrome-affected and unaffected broilers through shotgun metagenomics.}, journal = {Virus research}, volume = {261}, number = {}, pages = {9-20}, doi = {10.1016/j.virusres.2018.12.005}, pmid = {30543873}, issn = {1872-7492}, mesh = {Animals ; Chickens ; Feces/*virology ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing ; Malabsorption Syndromes/*veterinary/virology ; Metagenomics ; Poultry Diseases/*virology ; Viruses/*classification/*genetics ; }, abstract = {Malabsorption syndrome (MAS) is an economically important disease of young, commercially reared broilers, characterized by growth retardation, defective feather development and diarrheic faeces. Several viruses have been tentatively associated to such syndrome. Here, in order to examine potential associations between enteric viruses and MAS, the faecal viromes of 70 stool samples collected from diseased (n = 35) and healthy (n = 35) chickens from seven flocks were characterized and compared. Following high-throughput sequencing, a total of 8,347,319 paired end reads, with an average of 231 nt, were generated. Through analysis of de novo assembled contigs, 144 contigs > 1000 nt were identified with hits to eukaryotic viral sequences, as determined by GenBank database. A number of known and unknown representatives of Adenoviridae, Anelloviridae, Astroviridae, Caliciviridae, Circoviridae, Parvoviridae, Picobirnaviridae, Picornaviridae and Reoviridae, as well as novel uncharacterized CRESS-DNA viruses, were identified. However, the distribution of sequence reads of viral genomes identified in diseased or healthy birds revealed no statistically significant differences. These findings indicate no association between the occurrence of MAS and enteric viruses. The viral genomes reported in the present study, including a variety of novel viruses, seem part of the normal intestinal microbiota of chickens.}, }
@article {pmid30522530, year = {2018}, author = {Edlund, A and Yang, Y and Yooseph, S and He, X and Shi, W and McLean, JS}, title = {Uncovering complex microbiome activities via metatranscriptomics during 24 hours of oral biofilm assembly and maturation.}, journal = {Microbiome}, volume = {6}, number = {1}, pages = {217}, pmid = {30522530}, issn = {2049-2618}, support = {R00 DE024543/DE/NIDCR NIH HHS/United States ; K99 DE024543/DE/NIDCR NIH HHS/United States ; R01 DE023810/DE/NIDCR NIH HHS/United States ; R01 DE020102/DE/NIDCR NIH HHS/United States ; R01 DE026186/DE/NIDCR NIH HHS/United States ; R01 GM095373/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/United States ; }, mesh = {Adult ; Bacteria/*classification/genetics/growth &amp; development ; Bacterial Proteins/genetics ; Biofilms ; DNA, Bacterial/genetics ; DNA, Ribosomal/genetics ; Dental Plaque/*microbiology ; Gene Expression Profiling/*methods ; Gene Expression Regulation, Bacterial ; Humans ; Hydrogen-Ion Concentration ; Metabolic Networks and Pathways ; Metagenomics/*methods ; Mouth/*microbiology ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Sequence Analysis, DNA/methods ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: Dental plaque is composed of hundreds of bacterial taxonomic units and represents one of the most diverse and stable microbial ecosystems associated with the human body. Taxonomic composition and functional capacity of mature plaque is gradually shaped during several stages of community assembly via processes such as co-aggregation, competition for space and resources, and by bacterially produced reactive agents. Knowledge on the dynamics of assembly within complex communities is very limited and derives mainly from studies composed of a limited number of bacterial species. To fill current knowledge gaps, we applied parallel metagenomic and metatranscriptomic analyses during assembly and maturation of an in vitro oral biofilm. This model system has previously demonstrated remarkable reproducibility in taxonomic composition across replicate samples during maturation.<br><br>RESULTS: Time course analysis of the biofilm maturation was performed by parallel sampling every 2-3 h for 24 h for both DNA and RNA. Metagenomic analyses revealed that community taxonomy changed most dramatically between three and six hours of growth when pH dropped from 6.5 to 5.5. By applying comparative metatranscriptome analysis we could identify major shifts in overall community activities between six and nine hours of growth when pH dropped below 5.5, as 29,015 genes were significantly up- or down- expressed. Several of the differentially expressed genes showed unique activities for individual bacterial genomes and were associated with pyruvate and lactate metabolism, two-component signaling pathways, production of antibacterial molecules, iron sequestration, pH neutralization, protein hydrolysis, and surface attachment. Our analysis also revealed several mechanisms responsible for the niche expansion of the cariogenic pathogen Lactobacillus fermentum.<br><br>CONCLUSION: It is highly regarded that acidic conditions in dental plaque cause a net loss of enamel from teeth. Here, as pH drops below 5.5 pH to 4.7, we observe blooms of cariogenic lactobacilli, and a transition point of many bacterial gene expression activities within the community. To our knowledge, this represents the first study of the assembly and maturation of a complex oral bacterial biofilm community that addresses gene level functional responses over time.}, }
@article {pmid30537931, year = {2018}, author = {Benavides, A and Isaza, JP and Niño-García, JP and Alzate, JF and Cabarcas, F}, title = {CLAME: a new alignment-based binning algorithm allows the genomic description of a novel Xanthomonadaceae from the Colombian Andes.}, journal = {BMC genomics}, volume = {19}, number = {Suppl 8}, pages = {858}, pmid = {30537931}, issn = {1471-2164}, mesh = {*Algorithms ; Colombia ; Genes, Bacterial ; Genetic Markers ; *Genome, Bacterial ; *Metagenomics ; Microbiota ; Phylogeny ; Sequence Analysis, DNA/*methods ; Xanthomonadaceae/*classification/*genetics ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: Hot spring bacteria have unique biological adaptations to survive the extreme conditions of these environments; these bacteria produce thermostable enzymes that can be used in biotechnological and industrial applications. However, sequencing these bacteria is complex, since it is not possible to culture them. As an alternative, genome shotgun sequencing of whole microbial communities can be used. The problem is that the classification of sequences within a metagenomic dataset is very challenging particularly when they include unknown microorganisms since they lack genomic reference. We failed to recover a bacterium genome from a hot spring metagenome using the available software tools, so we develop a new tool that allowed us to recover most of this genome.<br><br>RESULTS: We present a proteobacteria draft genome reconstructed from a Colombian's Andes hot spring metagenome. The genome seems to be from a new lineage within the family Rhodanobacteraceae of the class Gammaproteobacteria, closely related to the genus Dokdonella. We were able to generate this genome thanks to CLAME. CLAME, from Spanish &quot;CLAsificador MEtagenomico&quot;, is a tool to group reads in bins. We show that most reads from each bin belong to a single chromosome. CLAME is very effective recovering most of the reads belonging to the predominant species within a metagenome.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: We developed a tool that can be used to extract genomes (or parts of them) from a complex metagenome.}, }
@article {pmid30532085, year = {2018}, author = {Chen, B and Yu, T and Xie, S and Du, K and Liang, X and Lan, Y and Sun, C and Lu, X and Shao, Y}, title = {Comparative shotgun metagenomic data of the silkworm Bombyx mori gut microbiome.}, journal = {Scientific data}, volume = {5}, number = {}, pages = {180285}, pmid = {30532085}, issn = {2052-4463}, mesh = {Acinetobacter/genetics ; Animals ; Bombyx/*microbiology ; Enterobacter/genetics ; Enterococcus/genetics ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; Genome, Bacterial ; High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing ; *Metagenomics ; }, abstract = {Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) is a major insect order including important pollinators and agricultural pests, however their microbiomes are little studied. Here, using next-generation sequencing (NGS)-based shotgun metagenomics, we characterize both the biodiversity and functional potential of gut microbiota of a lepidopteran model insect, the silkworm Bombyx mori. Two metagenomes, including the standard inbred strain Dazao (P50) and an improved hybrid strain Qiufeng × Baiyu (QB) widely used in commercial silk production, were generated, containing 45,505,084 and 69,127,002 raw reads, respectively. Taxonomic analysis revealed that a total of 663 bacterial species were identified in P50 silkworms, while 322 unique species in QB silkworms. Notably, Enterobacter, Acinetobacter and Enterococcus were dominated in both strains. The further functional annotation was performed by both BlastP and MG-RAST against various databases including Nr, COG, KEGG, CAZy and SignalP, which revealed >5 × 106 protein-coding genes. These datasets not only provide first insights into all bacterial genes in silkworm guts, but also help to generate hypotheses for subsequently testing functional traits of gut microbiota in an important insect group.}, }
@article {pmid30528276, year = {2019}, author = {Ramos-Barbero, MD and Martin-Cuadrado, AB and Viver, T and Santos, F and Martinez-Garcia, M and Antón, J}, title = {Recovering microbial genomes from metagenomes in hypersaline environments: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.}, journal = {Systematic and applied microbiology}, volume = {42}, number = {1}, pages = {30-40}, doi = {10.1016/j.syapm.2018.11.001}, pmid = {30528276}, issn = {1618-0984}, mesh = {Archaea/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Bacteria/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; *Genome, Microbial ; High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing ; Metagenomics/*methods ; *Salinity ; Sequence Analysis, DNA ; *Water Microbiology ; }, abstract = {Current metagenomic tools allow the recovery of microbial genomes directly from the environment. This can be accomplished by binning metagenomic contigs according to their coverage and tetranucleotide frequency, followed by an estimation of the bin quality. The public availability of bioinformatics tools, together with the decreasing cost of next generation sequencing, are democratizing this powerful approach that is spreading from specialized research groups to the general public. Using metagenomes from hypersaline environments, as well as mock metagenomes composed of Archaea and Bacteria frequently found in these systems, we have analyzed the advantages and difficulties of the binning process in these extreme environments to tackle microbial population diversity. These extreme systems harbor relatively low species diversity but high intraspecific diversity, which can compromise metagenome assembly and therefore the whole binning process. The main goal is to compare the output of the binning process with what is previously known from the analyzed samples, based on years of study using different approaches. Several scenarios have been analyzed in detail: (i) a good quality bin from a species highly abundant in the environment; (ii) an intermediate quality bin with incongruences that can be solved by further analyses and manual curation, and (iii) a low-quality bin to investigate the failure to recover a very abundant microbial genome as well as some possible solutions. The latter can be considered the &quot;great metagenomics anomaly&quot; and is mainly due to assembly problems derived from the microdiversity of naturally co-existing populations in nature.}, }
@article {pmid30518415, year = {2018}, author = {Alonso, L and Creuzé-des-Châtelliers, C and Trabac, T and Dubost, A and Moënne-Loccoz, Y and Pommier, T}, title = {Rock substrate rather than black stain alterations drives microbial community structure in the passage of Lascaux Cave.}, journal = {Microbiome}, volume = {6}, number = {1}, pages = {216}, pmid = {30518415}, issn = {2049-2618}, mesh = {Bacteria/*classification/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Carbon Dioxide/analysis ; Caves/*microbiology ; DNA, Fungal/genetics ; France ; Fungi/*classification/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Geologic Sediments/microbiology ; High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing ; Human Activities ; Humans ; Metagenomics ; Microbiota ; Phylogeny ; Seasons ; Sequence Analysis, DNA/*methods ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: The World-famous UNESCO heritage from the Paleolithic human society, Lascaux Cave (France), has endeavored intense microclimatic perturbations, in part due to high touristic pressure. These perturbations have resulted in numerous disturbances of the cave ecosystem, including on its microbial compartment, which resulted in the formation of black stains especially on the rock faces of the passage. We investigated the cave microbiome in this part of Lascaux by sampling three mineral substrates (soil, banks, and inclined planes) on and outside stains to assess current cave microbial assemblage and explore the possibility that pigmented microorganisms involved in stain development occur as microbial consortia.<br><br>METHODS: Microbial abundance and diversity were assessed by means of quantitative PCR and high-throughput sequencing (Illumina MiSeq) of several DNA and cDNA taxonomic markers. Five sampling campaigns were carried out during winter and summer to embrace potential seasonal effect in this somewhat stable environment (based on measurements of temperature and CO2 concentration).<br><br>RESULTS: While the season or type of mineral substrate did not affect the abundances of bacteria and micro-eukaryotes on or outside stains, mineral substrate rather than stain presence appears to be the most significant factor determining microbial diversity and structuring microbial community, regardless of whether DNA or cDNA markers were considered. A phylogenetic signal was also detected in relation to substrate types, presence of stains but not with season among the OTUs common to the three substrates. Co-occurrence network analyses showed that most bacterial and fungal interactions were positive regardless of the factor tested (season, substrate, or stain), but these networks varied according to ecological conditions and time. Microorganisms known to harbor pigmentation ability were well established inside but also outside black stains, which may be prerequisite for subsequent stain formation.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: This first high throughput sequencing performed in Lascaux Cave showed that black stains were secondary to mineral substrate in determining microbiome community structure, regardless of whether total or transcriptionally active bacterial and micro-eukaryotic communities were considered. These results revealed the potential for new stain formation and highlight the need for careful microbiome management to avoid further cave wall degradation.}, }
@article {pmid30518356, year = {2018}, author = {Bin, P and Tang, Z and Liu, S and Chen, S and Xia, Y and Liu, J and Wu, H and Zhu, G}, title = {Intestinal microbiota mediates Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli-induced diarrhea in piglets.}, journal = {BMC veterinary research}, volume = {14}, number = {1}, pages = {385}, pmid = {30518356}, issn = {1746-6148}, mesh = {Animals ; Bacteria/classification/genetics ; Diarrhea/microbiology/*veterinary ; Dysbiosis/immunology/microbiology/*veterinary ; Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli/immunology/physiology ; Escherichia coli Infections/veterinary ; Fecal Microbiota Transplantation ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/*genetics/*immunology ; Intestinal Diseases/immunology/microbiology/*veterinary ; Metagenomics ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Swine ; Swine Diseases/immunology/*microbiology ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) causes diarrhea in humans, cows, and pigs. The gut microbiota underlies pathology of several infectious diseases yet the role of the gut microbiota in the pathogenesis of ETEC-induced diarrhea is unknown.<br><br>RESULTS: By using an ETEC induced diarrheal model in piglet, we profiled the jejunal and fecal microbiota using metagenomics and 16S rRNA sequencing. A jejunal microbiota transplantation experiment was conducted to determine the role of the gut microbiota in ETEC-induced diarrhea. ETEC-induced diarrhea influenced the structure and function of gut microbiota. Diarrheal piglets had lower Bacteroidetes: Firmicutes ratio and microbiota diversity in the jejunum and feces, and lower percentage of Prevotella in the feces, but higher Lactococcus in the jejunum and higher Escherichia-Shigella in the feces. The transplantation of the jejunal microbiota from diarrheal piglets to uninfected piglets leaded to diarrhea after transplantation. Microbiota transplantation experiments also supported the notion that dysbiosis of gut microbiota is involved in the immune responses in ETEC-induced diarrhea.<br><br>CONCLUSION: We conclude that ETEC infection influences the gut microbiota and the dysbiosis of gut microbiota after ETEC infection mediates the immune responses in ETEC infection.}, }
@article {pmid30518125, year = {2018}, author = {Raimundo, I and Silva, SG and Costa, R and Keller-Costa, T}, title = {Bioactive Secondary Metabolites from Octocoral-Associated Microbes-New Chances for Blue Growth.}, journal = {Marine drugs}, volume = {16}, number = {12}, pages = {}, doi = {10.3390/md16120485}, pmid = {30518125}, issn = {1660-3397}, support = {EXPL/MAR-EST/1664/2013//Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia/ ; PTDC/MAR-BIO/1547/2014//Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia/ ; }, mesh = {Animals ; Anthozoa/*microbiology ; Bacteria/genetics/*metabolism ; Biological Products/isolation &amp; purification/metabolism/*pharmacology ; Biosynthetic Pathways/*genetics ; Fungi/genetics/*metabolism ; Industrial Microbiology/methods ; Microbiota/physiology ; Multigene Family ; Symbiosis ; Technology, Pharmaceutical/methods ; }, abstract = {Octocorals (Cnidaria, Anthozoa Octocorallia) are magnificent repositories of natural products with fascinating and unusual chemical structures and bioactivities of interest to medicine and biotechnology. However, mechanistic understanding of the contribution of microbial symbionts to the chemical diversity of octocorals is yet to be achieved. This review inventories the natural products so-far described for octocoral-derived bacteria and fungi, uncovering a true chemical arsenal of terpenes, steroids, alkaloids, and polyketides with antibacterial, antifungal, antiviral, antifouling, anticancer, anti-inflammatory, and antimalarial activities of enormous potential for blue growth. Genome mining of 15 bacterial associates (spanning 12 genera) cultivated from Eunicella spp. resulted in the identification of 440 putative and classifiable secondary metabolite biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs), encompassing varied terpene-, polyketide-, bacteriocin-, and nonribosomal peptide-synthase BGCs. This points towards a widespread yet uncharted capacity of octocoral-associated bacteria to synthetize a broad range of natural products. However, to extend our knowledge and foster the near-future laboratory production of bioactive compounds from (cultivatable and currently uncultivatable) octocoral symbionts, optimal blending between targeted metagenomics, DNA recombinant technologies, improved symbiont cultivation, functional genomics, and analytical chemistry are required. Such a multidisciplinary undertaking is key to achieving a sustainable response to the urgent industrial demand for novel drugs and enzyme varieties.}, }
@article {pmid30507071, year = {2019}, author = {Alsammar, HF and Naseeb, S and Brancia, LB and Gilman, RT and Wang, P and Delneri, D}, title = {Targeted metagenomics approach to capture the biodiversity of Saccharomyces genus in wild environments.}, journal = {Environmental microbiology reports}, volume = {11}, number = {2}, pages = {206-214}, doi = {10.1111/1758-2229.12724}, pmid = {30507071}, issn = {1758-2229}, support = {BB/L021471/1//Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council/United Kingdom ; }, abstract = {The species of the genus Saccharomyces are commonly inhabiting tree bark and the surrounding soil, but their abundance have likely been underestimated due to biases in culturing methods. Metagenomic studies have so far been unable to detect Saccharomyces species in wild environments. Here, we sequenced the mycobiome of soils surrounding different trees at various altitudes in the Italian Alps. To survey for yeasts species belonging to Saccharomyces genus rather than other fungal species, we performed a selectivity step involving the isolation of the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region that is specific to this yeast group. Reads mapping to Saccharomyces species were detected in all soil samples, including reads for S. mikatae and for S. eubayanus. ITS1 alignment of the S. cerevisiae, S. paradoxus and S. kudriavzevii sequences showed up to three base pair polymorphisms with other known strains, indicating possible new lineages. Basidiomycetous fungi were still the dominant species, compared to the Ascomycota, but the selectivity step allowed for the first time the detection and study of the biodiversity of the Saccharomyces species in their natural environment.}, }
@article {pmid30504906, year = {2018}, author = {Wampach, L and Heintz-Buschart, A and Fritz, JV and Ramiro-Garcia, J and Habier, J and Herold, M and Narayanasamy, S and Kaysen, A and Hogan, AH and Bindl, L and Bottu, J and Halder, R and Sjöqvist, C and May, P and Andersson, AF and de Beaufort, C and Wilmes, P}, title = {Birth mode is associated with earliest strain-conferred gut microbiome functions and immunostimulatory potential.}, journal = {Nature communications}, volume = {9}, number = {1}, pages = {5091}, doi = {10.1038/s41467-018-07631-x}, pmid = {30504906}, issn = {2041-1723}, mesh = {Cesarean Section ; Delivery, Obstetric ; Female ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/genetics/*physiology ; Humans ; In Vitro Techniques ; Infant, Newborn ; Infectious Disease Transmission, Vertical ; Interleukin-18/metabolism ; Lipopolysaccharides/metabolism ; Metagenomics/methods ; Pregnancy ; Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha/metabolism ; }, abstract = {The rate of caesarean section delivery (CSD) is increasing worldwide. It remains unclear whether disruption of mother-to-neonate transmission of microbiota through CSD occurs and whether it affects human physiology. Here we perform metagenomic analysis of earliest gut microbial community structures and functions. We identify differences in encoded functions between microbiomes of vaginally delivered (VD) and CSD neonates. Several functional pathways are over-represented in VD neonates, including lipopolysaccharide (LPS) biosynthesis. We link these enriched functions to individual-specific strains, which are transmitted from mothers to neonates in case of VD. The stimulation of primary human immune cells with LPS isolated from early stool samples of VD neonates results in higher levels of tumour necrosis factor (TNF-α) and interleukin 18 (IL-18). Accordingly, the observed levels of TNF-α and IL-18 in neonatal blood plasma are higher after VD. Taken together, our results support that CSD disrupts mother-to-neonate transmission of specific microbial strains, linked functional repertoires and immune-stimulatory potential during a critical window for neonatal immune system priming.}, }
@article {pmid30504145, year = {2018}, author = {Tokuda, G and Mikaelyan, A and Fukui, C and Matsuura, Y and Watanabe, H and Fujishima, M and Brune, A}, title = {Fiber-associated spirochetes are major agents of hemicellulose degradation in the hindgut of wood-feeding higher termites.}, journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America}, volume = {115}, number = {51}, pages = {E11996-E12004}, doi = {10.1073/pnas.1810550115}, pmid = {30504145}, issn = {1091-6490}, mesh = {Animals ; Cellulases/genetics/metabolism ; Cellulose/metabolism ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/genetics ; Gastrointestinal Tract/microbiology ; Gene Expression Regulation, Bacterial/genetics ; Gene Transfer, Horizontal ; Genes, Bacterial/genetics ; Glycoside Hydrolases/genetics/metabolism ; Isoptera/*microbiology ; Metagenome/genetics ; Metagenomics ; Phylogeny ; Polysaccharides/*metabolism ; Sequence Analysis, DNA ; Spirochaetales/*enzymology/*genetics/*metabolism ; Symbiosis ; Wood/*metabolism ; Xylans/metabolism ; Xylosidases/classification/genetics/metabolism ; }, abstract = {Symbiotic digestion of lignocellulose in wood-feeding higher termites (family Termitidae) is a two-step process that involves endogenous host cellulases secreted in the midgut and a dense bacterial community in the hindgut compartment. The genomes of the bacterial gut microbiota encode diverse cellulolytic and hemicellulolytic enzymes, but the contributions of host and bacterial symbionts to lignocellulose degradation remain ambiguous. Our previous studies of Nasutitermes spp. documented that the wood fibers in the hindgut paunch are consistently colonized not only by uncultured members of Fibrobacteres, which have been implicated in cellulose degradation, but also by unique lineages of Spirochaetes. Here, we demonstrate that the degradation of xylan, the major component of hemicellulose, is restricted to the hindgut compartment, where it is preferentially hydrolyzed over cellulose. Metatranscriptomic analysis documented that the majority of glycoside hydrolase (GH) transcripts expressed by the fiber-associated bacterial community belong to family GH11, which consists exclusively of xylanases. The substrate specificity was further confirmed by heterologous expression of the gene encoding the predominant homolog. Although the most abundant transcripts of GH11 in Nasutitermes takasagoensis were phylogenetically placed among their homologs of Firmicutes, immunofluorescence microscopy, compositional binning of metagenomics contigs, and the genomic context of the homologs indicated that they are encoded by Spirochaetes and were most likely obtained by horizontal gene transfer among the intestinal microbiota. The major role of spirochetes in xylan degradation is unprecedented and assigns the fiber-associated Treponema clades in the hindgut of wood-feeding higher termites a prominent part in the breakdown of hemicelluloses.}, }
@article {pmid30503454, year = {2018}, author = {Hwang, J and Park, SY and Lee, S and Lee, TK}, title = {High diversity and potential translocation of DNA viruses in ballast water.}, journal = {Marine pollution bulletin}, volume = {137}, number = {}, pages = {449-455}, doi = {10.1016/j.marpolbul.2018.10.053}, pmid = {30503454}, issn = {1879-3363}, mesh = {Animals ; DNA Viruses/*genetics/*isolation &amp; purification ; Introduced Species ; Metagenomics ; Mexico ; New York ; Panama ; Republic of Korea ; Saudi Arabia ; *Ships ; Water/*analysis/chemistry ; Water Microbiology ; }, abstract = {Ballast water is a common vector for the transport of invasive species to new marine and aquatic environments. We used a metagenomics approach to examine the composition and diversity of viral communities in ballast water from ships originating in Mexico, Saudi Arabia, New York, and Panama, and in water from the port of their destination in Busan, Korea. Myoviridae was the most abundant virus family in ballast water, followed Podoviridae and Siphoviridae. We also identified viruses that infect invertebrates, amoebas, and algae in ballast water and in the Busan port water. Interestingly, there were several viruses that infect humans or other animals (Swinepox virus, Raccoonpox virus, Suid herpesvirus, and Human endogenous retrovirus) in the samples from New York and Panama. In addition, there were giant viruses in all the ballast water samples, especially, identified Megavirus chilensis in New York and Panama, and Pandoravirus salinus in Mexico and Saudi Arabia. These results provide detailed descriptions of the characteristics of the viruses present in ballast water, document significant viral diversity, and indicate the potential translocation of viruses via ballast water.}, }
@article {pmid30513942, year = {2018}, author = {Pinho, CJ and Santos, B and Mata, VA and Seguro, M and Romeiras, MM and Lopes, RJ and Vasconcelos, R}, title = {What Is the Giant Wall Gecko Having for Dinner? Conservation Genetics for Guiding Reserve Management in Cabo Verde.}, journal = {Genes}, volume = {9}, number = {12}, pages = {}, doi = {10.3390/genes9120599}, pmid = {30513942}, issn = {2073-4425}, support = {MP/EAM/2016/06//Fondation Ensemble/ ; NA//Club 300 Foundation for Bird Protection/ ; NA//Monaco Explorations/ ; Fellowships PD/BD/106055/2015 (to BS), PD/BD/113462/2015 (to VAM), SFRH/BPD/84141/2012 (to RJL), and SFRH/BPD/79913/2011 (to RV) were funded by FCT/MEC and POPH/QREN/FSE//Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia/ ; (NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-AGRIGEN)//NORTE2020/PORTUGAL/ ; VAM by ERA Chair in Environmental Metagenomics (EU Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme Grant agreement No 668981)//Horizon 2020/ ; MACDIV-FCT-PTDC/BIABIC/0054/2014, and CVAgrobiodiversity/333111699 (to MMR)//Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) and FCT/ ; }, abstract = {Knowledge on diet composition of a species is an important step to unveil its ecology and guide conservation actions. This is especially important for species that inhabit remote areas within biodiversity hotspots, with little information about their ecological roles. The emblematic giant wall gecko of Cabo Verde, Tarentola gigas, is restricted to the uninhabited Branco and Raso islets, and presents two subspecies. It is classified as Endangered, and locally Extinct on Santa Luzia Island; however, little information is known about its diet and behaviour. In this study, we identified the main plant, arthropods, and vertebrates consumed by both gecko subspecies using next generation sequencing (NGS) (metabarcoding of faecal pellets), and compared them with the species known to occur on Santa Luzia. Results showed that plants have a significant role as diet items and identified vertebrate and invertebrate taxa with higher taxonomic resolution than traditional methods. With this study, we now have data on the diet of both subspecies for evaluating the reintroduction of this threatened gecko on Santa Luzia as potentially successful, considering the generalist character of both populations. The information revealed by these ecological networks is important for the development of conservation plans by governmental authorities, and reinforces the essential and commonly neglected role of reptiles on island systems.}, }
@article {pmid30509257, year = {2018}, author = {He, F and Liu, D and Zhang, L and Zhai, J and Ma, Y and Xu, Y and Jiang, G and Rong, K and Ma, J}, title = {Metagenomic analysis of captive Amur tiger faecal microbiome.}, journal = {BMC veterinary research}, volume = {14}, number = {1}, pages = {379}, pmid = {30509257}, issn = {1746-6148}, support = {31372209//National Natural Science Foundation of China/ ; 2572017AA20//The Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities/ ; }, mesh = {Animals ; Animals, Zoo/*microbiology ; Bacteria/*classification/genetics/metabolism ; Endangered Species ; Feces/*microbiology ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; *Metagenome ; Tigers/*microbiology ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: The gastrointestinal tracts of animals are home to large, complex communities of microbes. The compositions of these communities ultimately reflect the coevolution of microorganisms with their animal host and are influenced by the living environment, diet and immune status of the host. Gut microbes have been shown to be important for human disease and health, but little research exists in the gut microbiome of the Amur tiger, which is one of the most endangered species in the world.<br><br>RESULTS: In this study, we present the use of whole-metagenome shotgun sequencing to analyze the composition and functional structures of the gut microbiota in captive Amur tigers. Our results showed a high abundance of four major phyla in captive Amur tigers, including Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, Actinobacteria and Fusobacteria. Moreover, at the genus level, Escherichia, Collinsella and Fusobacterium were most abundant in the captive Amur tiger fecal metagenome. At the species level, Escherichia coli, Fusobacterium ulcerans and Fusobacterium varium were the species with highest abundances in the captive Amur tiger gut microbiota. The primary functional categories of the Amur tiger faecal metagenome were associated mainly with Carbohydrate metabolism, Membrane transport and Amino acid metabolism based on the KEGG pathway database. The comparative metagenomic analyses showed that the captive Amur tiger fecal metagenome had a lower abundance of Spirochaetes, Cyanobacteria and Ascomycota than other animals, and the primary functional categories were primarily associated with carbohydrate metabolism subsystems, clustering-based subsystems and protein metabolism.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: We presented here for the first time the use of the shotgun metagenomic sequencing approach to study the composition and functional structures of the gut microbiota in captive Amur tiger.}, }
@article {pmid30489678, year = {2019}, author = {Vieira, FR and Pecchia, JA and Segato, F and Polikarpov, I}, title = {Exploring oyster mushroom (Pleurotus ostreatus) substrate preparation by varying phase I composting time: changes in bacterial communities and physicochemical composition of biomass impacting mushroom yields.}, journal = {Journal of applied microbiology}, volume = {126}, number = {3}, pages = {931-944}, doi = {10.1111/jam.14168}, pmid = {30489678}, issn = {1365-2672}, support = {005707/2012-05//Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel/ ; 403090/2012-1//Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)/ ; 490022/2009-0//Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)/ ; 443916/2014-4//Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)/ ; //University of São Paulo (USP) via NAP/ ; 2009/52840-7//Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)/ ; 2013/21545-5//Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)/ ; 2014/18714-2//Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)/ ; 2015/13684-0//Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)/ ; }, mesh = {*Bacteria/chemistry/metabolism ; Biodegradation, Environmental ; *Biomass ; *Composting ; *Microbial Consortia ; *Pleurotus/chemistry/metabolism ; }, abstract = {AIMS: To investigate characterization of the bacterial community composition and functionality and their impact on substrate biodegradation as well as mushroom yield.<br><br>METHODS AND RESULTS: Bacterial diversity, composition and functionality were accessed by DNA-derived analysis for a sugarcane straw-based substrate composted for either 5, 10 or 15 days. In addition, carbon and nitrogen losses, carbohydrate conversion and mushroom yields were measured for the different treatments. Changes were observed in the bacterial community diversity and composition after the process started, but not during the composting process itself. Following phase I, Acinetobacter sequences were recovered in high numbers, and selected genes associated with nitrogen metabolism and lignocellulose deconstruction were mapped. Substrate physicochemical composition showed elevated carbon and nitrogen losses after 10 and 15 days of phase I with reductions in mushroom yield.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: Acinetobacter species appear to play an important role in substrate degradation processes, and a 5-day phase I period showed a significant higher mushroom yield compared to composting for either 10 or 15 days.<br><br>This study confers a better understanding of the bacterial community manipulation during the substrate preparation and their influence in substrate selectivity for the Pleurotus ostreatus cultivation.}, }
@article {pmid30489677, year = {2019}, author = {Sánchez-González, M and Álvarez-Uribe, H and Rivera-Solís, R and González-Burgos, A and Escalante-Réndiz, D and Rojas-Herrera, R}, title = {Analysis of a phenol-adapted microbial community: degradation capacity, taxonomy and metabolic description.}, journal = {Journal of applied microbiology}, volume = {126}, number = {3}, pages = {771-779}, doi = {10.1111/jam.14166}, pmid = {30489677}, issn = {1365-2672}, mesh = {Bacteria/classification/enzymology/genetics/*metabolism ; Bacterial Proteins/genetics/metabolism ; Biodegradation, Environmental ; Metagenomics ; *Microbiota ; Mixed Function Oxygenases/genetics/metabolism ; Phenol/*metabolism ; Phylogeny ; }, abstract = {AIMS: In this study, the ability of the consortium MR-01 to degrade phenol was determined. The effects of this chemical on the taxonomy and the metabolic behaviour were analysed through metagenomics.<br><br>METHODS AND RESULTS: Consortium MR-01 was acclimated in a sublethal concentration of phenol. After this process, the capacity to degrade this molecule was analysed. Results showed that degradation increased with the increment of the initial phenol concentration. Metagenomic analysis indicates that the consortium metabolized phenol under aerobic conditions using phenol 2-monooxygenase and the meta-cleavage pathway. Sequence of the enzymes involved in the phenol degradation was ascribed to the Actinomycetales and Chloroflexales orders, with relative abundances <1%. The most abundant genera were part of the Sphingomonadales order; however, the role of these species in the consortium is not clear.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: Consortium MR-01 degrades efficiently high concentrations of phenol. The participation of extremophiles in the degradation process and the emergence of beneficial metabolic dependencies between the community members are some of the strategies used by the consortium to survive and develop under harsh environmental conditions.<br><br>This is one of the few studies describing the taxonomy and metabolic profile of a phenol degrading consortium.}, }
@article {pmid30486439, year = {2018}, author = {Yi, X and Yuan, J and Zhu, Y and Yi, X and Zhao, Q and Fang, K and Cao, L}, title = {Comparison of the Abundance and Community Structure of N-Cycling Bacteria in Paddy Rhizosphere Soil under Different Rice Cultivation Patterns.}, journal = {International journal of molecular sciences}, volume = {19}, number = {12}, pages = {}, doi = {10.3390/ijms19123772}, pmid = {30486439}, issn = {1422-0067}, mesh = {Bacteria/*classification/genetics/metabolism ; *Biodiversity ; Enzymes/genetics/metabolism ; Metagenome ; Metagenomics/methods ; Nitrogen ; Oryza/*microbiology ; Phylogeny ; *Rhizosphere ; Soil/chemistry ; *Soil Microbiology ; }, abstract = {Eco-agricultural systems aim to reduce the use of chemical fertilizers in order to improve sustainable production and maintain a healthy ecosystem. The aim of this study was to explore the effects of rice-frog farming on the bacterial community and N-cycling microbes in paddy rhizosphere soil. This experiment involved three rice cultivation patterns: Conventionally cultivated rice (CR), green rice-frog farming (GR), and organic rice-frog farming (OR). The rice yield, paddy soil enzyme activities, physicochemical variables and bacterial and N-cycling bacterial abundances were quantitatively analyzed. Rice-frog cultivations significantly increased soil protease, nitrate and reductase activity. Additionally, the nirS gene copy number and the relative abundance of denitrifying bacteria also increased, however urease activity and the relative abundance of nitrifying bacteria significantly decreased. The bacterial community richness and diversity of OR soil was significantly higher than that of the GR or CR soil. Nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) of GR was highest. The N-cycling bacterial community was positively correlated with the total carbon (TC), total nitrogren (TN) and carbon to nitrogen (C:N) ratio. The present work strengthens our current understanding of the soil bacterial community structure and its functions under rice-frog farming. The present work also provides certain theoretical support for the selection of rational rice cultivation patterns.}, }
@article {pmid30486388, year = {2018}, author = {Labbé, M and Raymond, F and Lévesque, A and Thaler, M and Mohit, V and Audet, M and Corbeil, J and Culley, A}, title = {Communities of Phytoplankton Viruses across the Transition Zone of the St. Lawrence Estuary.}, journal = {Viruses}, volume = {10}, number = {12}, pages = {}, doi = {10.3390/v10120672}, pmid = {30486388}, issn = {1999-4915}, mesh = {Biodiversity ; Ecosystem ; Environment ; *Estuaries ; Evolution, Molecular ; Geography ; Metagenome ; Metagenomics/methods ; Phycodnaviridae/classification/genetics ; Phylogeny ; Phytoplankton/*virology ; RNA, Ribosomal, 18S ; *Water Microbiology ; }, abstract = {The St. Lawrence hydrographic system includes freshwater, brackish, and marine habitats, and is the largest waterway in North America by volume. The food-webs in these habitats are ultimately dependent on phytoplankton. Viral lysis is believed to be responsible for a major part of phytoplankton mortality. To better understand their role, we characterized the diversity and distribution of two viral taxa infecting phytoplankton: the picornaviruses and phycodnaviruses. Our study focused on the estuary transition zone, which is an important nursery for invertebrates and fishes. Both viral taxa were investigated by PCR amplification of conserved molecular markers and next-generation sequencing at six sites, ranging from freshwater to marine. Our results revealed few shared viral phylotypes between saltwater and freshwater sites. Salinity appeared to be the primary determinant of viral community composition. Moreover, our analysis indicated that the viruses identified in this region of the St. Lawrence diverge from classified viruses and homologous published environmental virotypes. These results suggest that DNA and RNA viruses infecting phytoplankton are likely active in the estuary transition zone, and that this region harbors its own unique viral assemblages.}, }
@article {pmid30486338, year = {2018}, author = {Amedei, A and Boem, F}, title = {I've Gut A Feeling: Microbiota Impacting the Conceptual and Experimental Perspectives of Personalized Medicine.}, journal = {International journal of molecular sciences}, volume = {19}, number = {12}, pages = {}, doi = {10.3390/ijms19123756}, pmid = {30486338}, issn = {1422-0067}, support = {FAS SALUTE 2014//Regione Toscana/ ; P2016.0808//Ente Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze/ ; }, mesh = {Animals ; Biodiversity ; Biological Therapy ; Disease Susceptibility ; Fecal Microbiota Transplantation ; Feces/microbiology ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; Genomics/methods ; Humans ; Metagenomics/methods ; Microbiota ; Organ Specificity ; *Precision Medicine/methods ; Research ; Symbiosis ; }, abstract = {In recent years, the human microbiota has gained increasing relevance both in research and clinical fields. Increasing studies seem to suggest the centrality of the microbiota and its composition both in the development and maintenance of what we call &quot;health&quot; and in generating and/or favoring (those cases in which the microbiota's complex relational architecture is dysregulated) the onset of pathological conditions. The complex relationships between the microbiota and human beings, which invest core notions of biomedicine such as &quot;health&quot; and &quot;individual,&quot; do concern not only problems of an empirical nature but seem to require the need to adopt new concepts and new perspectives in order to be properly analysed and utilized, especially for their therapeutic implementation. In this contribution we report and discuss some of the theoretical proposals and innovations (from the ecological component to the notion of polygenomic organism) aimed at producing this change of perspective. In conclusion, we summarily analyze what impact and what new challenges these new approaches might have on personalized/person centred/precision medicine.}, }
@article {pmid30485662, year = {2019}, author = {Koziol, A and Stat, M and Simpson, T and Jarman, S and DiBattista, JD and Harvey, ES and Marnane, M and McDonald, J and Bunce, M}, title = {Environmental DNA metabarcoding studies are critically affected by substrate selection.}, journal = {Molecular ecology resources}, volume = {19}, number = {2}, pages = {366-376}, doi = {10.1111/1755-0998.12971}, pmid = {30485662}, issn = {1755-0998}, support = {LP160100839//Australian Research Council/ ; }, mesh = {Aquatic Organisms/*classification/*genetics ; Australia ; *Biodiversity ; DNA/chemistry/genetics/*isolation &amp; purification ; DNA Barcoding, Taxonomic/*methods ; Kazakhstan ; Metagenomics/*methods ; Seawater ; }, abstract = {Effective biomonitoring is critical for driving management outcomes that ensure long-term sustainability of the marine environment. In recent years, environmental DNA (eDNA), coupled with metabarcoding methodologies, has emerged as a promising tool for generating biotic surveys of marine ecosystems, including those under anthropogenic pressure. However, more empirical data are needed on how to best implement eDNA field sampling approaches to maximize their utility for each specific application. The effect of the substrate chosen for eDNA sampling on the diversity of marine taxa detected by DNA metabarcoding has not yet been systematically analysed, despite aquatic systems being those most commonly targeted for eDNA studies. We investigated the effect of four commonly used eDNA substrates to explore taxonomic diversity: (a) surface water, (b) marine sediment, (c) settlement plates and (d) planktonic tows. With a focus on coastal ports, 332 eDNA samples from Australia (Indian and Southern oceans) and Kazakhstan (Caspian Sea) were collected and analysed by multi-assay DNA metabarcoding. Across study locations, between 30% and 52% of eukaryotic families detected were unique to a particular substrate and <6% of families were found in all four substrates. Taxonomic composition varied significantly depending on the substrate sampled implying that the suitability (and bias) of an eDNA substrate will depend on the focal taxa. These findings demonstrate that single substrate eDNA metabarcoding likely underestimates the total eukaryotic diversity. Future eDNA experimental design should consider incorporating multiple substrates or select substrate(s) best suited to the specific detection of target taxa.}, }
@article {pmid30482830, year = {2018}, author = {Espinoza, JL and Harkins, DM and Torralba, M and Gomez, A and Highlander, SK and Jones, MB and Leong, P and Saffery, R and Bockmann, M and Kuelbs, C and Inman, JM and Hughes, T and Craig, JM and Nelson, KE and Dupont, CL}, title = {Supragingival Plaque Microbiome Ecology and Functional Potential in the Context of Health and Disease.}, journal = {mBio}, volume = {9}, number = {6}, pages = {}, pmid = {30482830}, issn = {2150-7511}, support = {R01 DE019665/DE/NIDCR NIH HHS/United States ; R01 GM120624/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/United States ; }, mesh = {Australia ; Bacteria/*classification/*genetics ; Child ; Child, Preschool ; Dental Caries/*microbiology ; Dental Plaque/*microbiology ; Humans ; Metabolic Networks and Pathways/genetics ; Metagenomics ; *Microbiota ; Sequence Analysis, DNA ; }, abstract = {To address the question of how microbial diversity and function in the oral cavities of children relates to caries diagnosis, we surveyed the supragingival plaque biofilm microbiome in 44 juvenile twin pairs. Using shotgun sequencing, we constructed a genome encyclopedia describing the core supragingival plaque microbiome. Caries phenotypes contained statistically significant enrichments in specific genome abundances and distinct community composition profiles, including strain-level changes. Metabolic pathways that are statistically associated with caries include several sugar-associated phosphotransferase systems, antimicrobial resistance, and metal transport. Numerous closely related previously uncharacterized microbes had substantial variation in central metabolism, including the loss of biosynthetic pathways resulting in auxotrophy, changing the ecological role. We also describe the first complete Gracilibacteria genomes from the human microbiome. Caries is a microbial community metabolic disorder that cannot be described by a single etiology, and our results provide the information needed for next-generation diagnostic tools and therapeutics for caries.IMPORTANCE Oral health has substantial economic importance, with over $100 billion spent on dental care in the United States annually. The microbiome plays a critical role in oral health, yet remains poorly classified. To address the question of how microbial diversity and function in the oral cavities of children relate to caries diagnosis, we surveyed the supragingival plaque biofilm microbiome in 44 juvenile twin pairs. Using shotgun sequencing, we constructed a genome encyclopedia describing the core supragingival plaque microbiome. This unveiled several new previously uncharacterized but ubiquitous microbial lineages in the oral microbiome. Caries is a microbial community metabolic disorder that cannot be described by a single etiology, and our results provide the information needed for next-generation diagnostic tools and therapeutics for caries.}, }
@article {pmid30482513, year = {2019}, author = {Díaz-Sánchez, S and Hernández-Jarguín, A and Torina, A and de Mera, IGF and Blanda, V and Caracappa, S and Gortazar, C and de la Fuente, J}, title = {Characterization of the bacterial microbiota in wild-caught Ixodes ventalloi.}, journal = {Ticks and tick-borne diseases}, volume = {10}, number = {2}, pages = {336-343}, doi = {10.1016/j.ttbdis.2018.11.014}, pmid = {30482513}, issn = {1877-9603}, mesh = {Anaplasma/genetics ; Animals ; Borrelia/genetics ; DNA, Bacterial/genetics ; Female ; High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing ; Ixodes/*microbiology ; Metagenomics ; *Microbiota ; Phylogeny ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Sicily ; Symbiosis ; }, abstract = {Exploring the microbial diversity of ticks is crucial to understand geographical dispersion and pathogen transmission. Tick microbes participate in many biological processes implicated in the acquisition, maintenance, and transmission of pathogens, and actively promote host phenotypic changes, and adaptation to new environments. The microbial community of Ixodes ventalloi still remains unexplored. In this study, the bacterial microbiota of wild-caught I. ventalloi was characterized using shotgun-metagenomic sequencing in samples from unfed adults collected during December 2013-January 2014 in two locations from Sicily, Italy. The microbiota identified in I. ventalloi was mainly composed of symbiotic, commensal, and environmental bacteria. Interestingly, we identified the genera Anaplasma and Borrelia as members of the microbiota of I. ventalloi. These results advance our information on I. ventalloi microbiota composition, with potential implications in tick-host adaptation, geographic expansion, and vector competence.}, }
@article {pmid30479342, year = {2018}, author = {Ramani, S and Stewart, CJ and Laucirica, DR and Ajami, NJ and Robertson, B and Autran, CA and Shinge, D and Rani, S and Anandan, S and Hu, L and Ferreon, JC and Kuruvilla, KA and Petrosino, JF and Venkataram Prasad, BV and Bode, L and Kang, G and Estes, MK}, title = {Human milk oligosaccharides, milk microbiome and infant gut microbiome modulate neonatal rotavirus infection.}, journal = {Nature communications}, volume = {9}, number = {1}, pages = {5010}, pmid = {30479342}, issn = {2041-1723}, support = {R01 AI036040/AI/NIAID NIH HHS/United States ; R01 AI105101/AI/NIAID NIH HHS/United States ; R37 AI036040/AI/NIAID NIH HHS/United States ; }, mesh = {Feces/microbiology ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; Humans ; Infant, Newborn ; Milk, Human/*chemistry/*microbiology ; Oligosaccharides/*metabolism ; Rotavirus/pathogenicity ; Rotavirus Infections/immunology/*microbiology ; Rotavirus Vaccines/immunology ; }, abstract = {Neonatal rotavirus infections are predominantly asymptomatic. While an association with gastrointestinal symptoms has been described in some settings, factors influencing differences in clinical presentation are not well understood. Using multidisciplinary approaches, we show that a complex interplay between human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs), milk microbiome, and infant gut microbiome impacts neonatal rotavirus infections. Validating in vitro studies where HMOs are not decoy receptors for neonatal strain G10P[11], population studies show significantly higher levels of Lacto-N-tetraose (LNT), 2'-fucosyllactose (2'FL), and 6'-siallylactose (6'SL) in milk from mothers of rotavirus-positive neonates with gastrointestinal symptoms. Further, these HMOs correlate with abundance of Enterobacter/Klebsiella in maternal milk and infant stool. Specific HMOs also improve the infectivity of a neonatal strain-derived rotavirus vaccine. This study provides molecular and translational insight into host factors influencing neonatal rotavirus infections and identifies maternal components that could promote the performance of live, attenuated rotavirus vaccines.}, }
@article {pmid30479272, year = {2018}, author = {Glover, AG and Wiklund, H and Chen, C and Dahlgren, TG}, title = {Managing a sustainable deep-sea 'blue economy' requires knowledge of what actually lives there.}, journal = {eLife}, volume = {7}, number = {}, pages = {}, pmid = {30479272}, issn = {2050-084X}, mesh = {*Biodiversity ; Conservation of Energy Resources/*methods ; *Ecosystem ; Metagenomics/*methods ; *Oceans and Seas ; }, abstract = {Ensuring that the wealth of resources contained in our oceans are managed and developed in a sustainable manner is a priority for the emerging 'blue economy'. However, modern ecosystem-based management approaches do not translate well to regions where we know almost nothing about the individual species found in the ecosystem. Here, we propose a new taxon-focused approach to deep-sea conservation that includes regulatory oversight to set targets for the delivery of taxonomic data. For example, a five-year plan to deliver taxonomic and genomic knowledge on a thousand species in regions of the ocean earmarked for industrial activity is an achievable target. High-throughput, integrative taxonomy can, therefore, provide the data that is needed to monitor various ecosystem services (such as the natural history, connectivity, value and function of species) and to help break the regulatory deadlock of high-seas conservation.}, }
@article {pmid30478343, year = {2018}, author = {Regan, T and Barnett, MW and Laetsch, DR and Bush, SJ and Wragg, D and Budge, GE and Highet, F and Dainat, B and de Miranda, JR and Watson, M and Blaxter, M and Freeman, TC}, title = {Characterisation of the British honey bee metagenome.}, journal = {Nature communications}, volume = {9}, number = {1}, pages = {4995}, pmid = {30478343}, issn = {2041-1723}, support = {BB/I001107/1//Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council/United Kingdom ; }, mesh = {Animals ; Bees/*genetics/microbiology ; Contig Mapping ; Genetic Variation ; *Metagenome ; Metagenomics ; Microbiota/genetics ; Sequence Analysis, DNA ; Symbiosis/genetics ; United Kingdom ; }, abstract = {The European honey bee (Apis mellifera) plays a major role in pollination and food production. Honey bee health is a complex product of the environment, host genetics and associated microbes (commensal, opportunistic and pathogenic). Improved understanding of these factors will help manage modern challenges to bee health. Here we used DNA sequencing to characterise the genomes and metagenomes of 19 honey bee colonies from across Britain. Low heterozygosity was observed in many Scottish colonies which had high similarity to the native dark bee. Colonies exhibited high diversity in composition and relative abundance of individual microbiome taxa. Most non-bee sequences were derived from known honey bee commensal bacteria or pathogens. However, DNA was also detected from additional fungal, protozoan and metazoan species. To classify cobionts lacking genomic information, we developed a novel network analysis approach for clustering orphan DNA contigs. Our analyses shed light on microbial communities associated with honey bees and demonstrate the power of high-throughput, directed metagenomics for identifying novel biological threats in agroecosystems.}, }
@article {pmid30478001, year = {2018}, author = {Wei, S and Mortensen, MS and Stokholm, J and Brejnrod, AD and Thorsen, J and Rasmussen, MA and Trivedi, U and Bisgaard, H and Sørensen, SJ}, title = {Short- and long-term impacts of azithromycin treatment on the gut microbiota in children: A double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial.}, journal = {EBioMedicine}, volume = {38}, number = {}, pages = {265-272}, doi = {10.1016/j.ebiom.2018.11.035}, pmid = {30478001}, issn = {2352-3964}, mesh = {Anti-Bacterial Agents/*pharmacology/therapeutic use ; Azithromycin/*pharmacology/therapeutic use ; Biodiversity ; Child, Preschool ; Female ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/*drug effects ; Humans ; Infant ; Male ; Metagenome ; Metagenomics ; Time Factors ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: Macrolides are commonly prescribed for respiratory infections and asthma-like episodes in children. While their clinical benefits have been proved, concerns regarding the side-effects of their therapeutic use have been raised. Here we assess the short- and long-term impacts of azithromycin on the gut microbiota of young children.<br><br>METHODS: We performed a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial in a group of children aged 12-36 months, diagnosed with recurrent asthma-like symptoms from the COPSAC2010 cohort. Each acute asthma-like episode was randomized to a 3-day course of azithromycin oral solution of 10 mg/kg per day or placebo. Azithromycin reduced episode duration by half, which was the primary end-point and reported previously. The assessment of gut microbiota after treatment was the secondary end-point and reported in this study. Fecal samples were collected 14 days after randomization (N = 59, short-term) and again at age 4 years (N = 49, long-term, of whom N = 18 were placebo treated) and investigated by 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing.<br><br>FINDINGS: Short-term, azithromycin caused a 23% reduction in observed richness and 13% reduction in Shannon diversity. Microbiota composition was shifted primarily in the Actinobacteria phylum, especially a reduction of abundance in the genus Bifidobacterium. Long-term (13-39 months after treatment), we did not observe any differences between the azithromycin and placebo recipients in their gut microbiota composition.<br><br>INTERPRETATION: Azithromycin treatment induced a perturbation in the gut microbiota 14 days after randomization but did not have long-lasting effects on the gut microbiota composition. However, it should be noted that our analyses included a limited number of fecal samples for the placebo treated group at age 4 years. FUND: Lundbeck Foundation, Danish Ministry of Health, Danish Council for Strategic Research, Capital Region Research Foundation, China Scholarship Council.}, }
@article {pmid30477563, year = {2018}, author = {Sinha, R and Ahsan, H and Blaser, M and Caporaso, JG and Carmical, JR and Chan, AT and Fodor, A and Gail, MH and Harris, CC and Helzlsouer, K and Huttenhower, C and Knight, R and Kong, HH and Lai, GY and Hutchinson, DLS and Le Marchand, L and Li, H and Orlich, MJ and Shi, J and Truelove, A and Verma, M and Vogtmann, E and White, O and Willett, W and Zheng, W and Mahabir, S and Abnet, C}, title = {Next steps in studying the human microbiome and health in prospective studies, Bethesda, MD, May 16-17, 2017.}, journal = {Microbiome}, volume = {6}, number = {1}, pages = {210}, pmid = {30477563}, issn = {2049-2618}, mesh = {Computational Biology/*methods ; Humans ; Microbiota/*physiology ; Neoplasms/*etiology ; Prospective Studies ; Reproducibility of Results ; *Research Design ; }, abstract = {The National Cancer Institute (NCI) sponsored a 2-day workshop, &quot;Next Steps in Studying the Human Microbiome and Health in Prospective Studies,&quot; in Bethesda, Maryland, May 16-17, 2017. The workshop brought together researchers in the field to discuss the challenges of conducting microbiome studies, including study design, collection and processing of samples, bioinformatics and statistical methods, publishing results, and ensuring reproducibility of published results. The presenters emphasized the great potential of microbiome research in understanding the etiology of cancer. This report summarizes the workshop and presents practical suggestions for conducting microbiome studies, from workshop presenters, moderators, and participants.}, }
@article {pmid30474920, year = {2019}, author = {Bell, T}, title = {Next-generation experiments linking community structure and ecosystem functioning.}, journal = {Environmental microbiology reports}, volume = {11}, number = {1}, pages = {20-22}, doi = {10.1111/1758-2229.12711}, pmid = {30474920}, issn = {1758-2229}, mesh = {Bacteria/classification/genetics/metabolism ; Biodiversity ; *Ecosystem ; Metagenomics ; Microbiota ; Population Dynamics ; Reproducibility of Results ; }, }
@article {pmid30463925, year = {2018}, author = {Bulow, C and Langdon, A and Hink, T and Wallace, M and Reske, KA and Patel, S and Sun, X and Seiler, S and Jones, S and Kwon, JH and Burnham, CA and Dantas, G and Dubberke, ER}, title = {Impact of Amoxicillin-Clavulanate followed by Autologous Fecal Microbiota Transplantation on Fecal Microbiome Structure and Metabolic Potential.}, journal = {mSphere}, volume = {3}, number = {6}, pages = {}, pmid = {30463925}, issn = {2379-5042}, support = {KL2 TR002346/TR/NCATS NIH HHS/United States ; T32 HG000045/HG/NHGRI NIH HHS/United States ; TL1 TR000449/TR/NCATS NIH HHS/United States ; TL1 TR002344/TR/NCATS NIH HHS/United States ; }, mesh = {Adult ; Amoxicillin-Potassium Clavulanate Combination/*administration &amp; dosage ; Anti-Bacterial Agents/*administration &amp; dosage ; Enema ; Fecal Microbiota Transplantation/*methods ; Female ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; Healthy Volunteers ; Humans ; Male ; *Metabolism ; *Microbiota ; Middle Aged ; Treatment Outcome ; Young Adult ; beta-Lactamase Inhibitors/*administration &amp; dosage ; }, abstract = {Strategies to prevent multidrug-resistant organism (MDRO) infections are scarce, but autologous fecal microbiota transplantation (autoFMT) may limit gastrointestinal MDRO expansion. AutoFMT involves banking one's feces during a healthy state for later use in restoring gut microbiota following perturbation. This pilot study evaluated the effect of autoFMT on gastrointestinal microbiome taxonomic composition, resistance gene content, and metabolic capacity after exposure to amoxicillin-clavulanic acid (Amox-Clav). Ten healthy participants were enrolled. All received 5 days of Amox-Clav. Half were randomized to autoFMT, derived from stool collected pre-antimicrobial exposure, by enema, and half to saline enema. Participants submitted stool samples pre- and post-Amox-Clav and enema and during a 90-day follow-up period. Shotgun metagenomic sequencing revealed taxonomic composition, resistance gene content, and metabolic capacity. Amox-Clav significantly altered gut taxonomic composition in all participants (n = 10, P < 0.01); however, only three participants exhibited major changes at the phylum level following exposure. In the cohort as a whole, beta-lactamase genes were enriched following Amox-Clav (P < 0.05), and predicted metabolic capacity was significantly altered (P < 0.01). Species composition, metabolic capacity, and beta-lactamase abundance returned to pre-antimicrobial exposure state 7 days after either autoFMT or saline enema (P > 0.05, compared to enrollment). Alterations to microbial metabolic capacity occurred following antimicrobial exposure even in participants without substantial taxonomic disruption, potentially creating open niches for pathogen colonization. Our findings suggest that metabolic potential is an important consideration for complete assessment of antimicrobial impact on the microbiome. AutoFMT was well tolerated and may have contributed to phylogenetic recovery. (This study has been registered at ClinicalTrials.gov under identifier NCT02046525.)IMPORTANCE The spread of multidrug resistance among pathogenic organisms threatens the efficacy of antimicrobial treatment options. The human gut serves as a reservoir for many drug-resistant organisms and their resistance genes, and perturbation of the gut microbiome by antimicrobial exposure can open metabolic niches to resistant pathogens. Once established in the gut, antimicrobial-resistant bacteria can persist even after antimicrobial exposure ceases. Strategies to prevent multidrug-resistant organism (MDRO) infections are scarce, but autologous fecal microbiota transplantation (autoFMT) may limit gastrointestinal MDRO expansion. AutoFMT involves banking one's feces during a healthy state for later use in restoring gut microbiota following perturbation. This pilot study evaluated the effect of amoxicillin-clavulanic acid (Amox-Clav) exposure and autoFMT on gastrointestinal microbiome taxonomic composition, resistance gene content, and metabolic capacity. Importantly, we found that metabolic capacity was perturbed even in cases where gross phylogeny remained unchanged and that autoFMT was safe and well tolerated.}, }
@article {pmid30459421, year = {2018}, author = {Xu, J and Zhang, Y and Zhang, P and Trivedi, P and Riera, N and Wang, Y and Liu, X and Fan, G and Tang, J and Coletta-Filho, HD and Cubero, J and Deng, X and Ancona, V and Lu, Z and Zhong, B and Roper, MC and Capote, N and Catara, V and Pietersen, G and Vernière, C and Al-Sadi, AM and Li, L and Yang, F and Xu, X and Wang, J and Yang, H and Jin, T and Wang, N}, title = {The structure and function of the global citrus rhizosphere microbiome.}, journal = {Nature communications}, volume = {9}, number = {1}, pages = {4894}, pmid = {30459421}, issn = {2041-1723}, mesh = {Bacteria/classification/genetics ; Citrus/*microbiology ; DNA, Ribosomal Spacer/genetics ; Fungi/classification/genetics ; Metagenome/genetics ; Metagenomics/classification/methods ; Microbiota/*genetics ; Phylogeny ; Plant Roots/*microbiology ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; *Rhizosphere ; *Soil Microbiology ; }, abstract = {Citrus is a globally important, perennial fruit crop whose rhizosphere microbiome is thought to play an important role in promoting citrus growth and health. Here, we report a comprehensive analysis of the structural and functional composition of the citrus rhizosphere microbiome. We use both amplicon and deep shotgun metagenomic sequencing of bulk soil and rhizosphere samples collected across distinct biogeographical regions from six continents. Predominant taxa include Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, Acidobacteria and Bacteroidetes. The core citrus rhizosphere microbiome comprises Pseudomonas, Agrobacterium, Cupriavidus, Bradyrhizobium, Rhizobium, Mesorhizobium, Burkholderia, Cellvibrio, Sphingomonas, Variovorax and Paraburkholderia, some of which are potential plant beneficial microbes. We also identify over-represented microbial functional traits mediating plant-microbe and microbe-microbe interactions, nutrition acquisition and plant growth promotion in citrus rhizosphere. The results provide valuable information to guide microbial isolation and culturing and, potentially, to harness the power of the microbiome to improve plant production and health.}, }
@article {pmid30459334, year = {2018}, author = {Jersie-Christensen, RR and Lanigan, LT and Lyon, D and Mackie, M and Belstrøm, D and Kelstrup, CD and Fotakis, AK and Willerslev, E and Lynnerup, N and Jensen, LJ and Cappellini, E and Olsen, JV}, title = {Quantitative metaproteomics of medieval dental calculus reveals individual oral health status.}, journal = {Nature communications}, volume = {9}, number = {1}, pages = {4744}, pmid = {30459334}, issn = {2041-1723}, mesh = {Adult ; Archaeology/methods ; Bacteria/classification ; Bacterial Proteins/analysis ; DNA, Ancient/analysis ; DNA, Bacterial/analysis ; Denmark ; Dental Calculus/*microbiology ; Dental Plaque/microbiology ; Dietary Proteins ; Female ; *Health Status ; Humans ; Male ; Metagenomics/methods ; Microbiota/genetics ; Middle Aged ; *Oral Health ; Proteomics/*methods ; }, abstract = {The composition of ancient oral microbiomes has recently become accessible owing to advanced biomolecular methods such as metagenomics and metaproteomics, but the utility of metaproteomics for such analyses is less explored. Here, we use quantitative metaproteomics to characterize the dental calculus associated with the remains of 21 humans retrieved during the archeological excavation of the medieval (ca. 1100-1450 CE) cemetery of Tjærby, Denmark. We identify 3671 protein groups, covering 220 bacterial species and 81 genera across all medieval samples. The metaproteome profiles of bacterial and human proteins suggest two distinct groups of archeological remains corresponding to health-predisposed and oral disease-susceptible individuals, which is supported by comparison to the calculus metaproteomes of healthy living individuals. Notably, the groupings identified by metaproteomics are not apparent from the bioarchaeological analysis, illustrating that quantitative metaproteomics has the potential to provide additional levels of molecular information about the oral health status of individuals from archeological contexts.}, }
@article {pmid30458701, year = {2018}, author = {Banos, S and Lentendu, G and Kopf, A and Wubet, T and Glöckner, FO and Reich, M}, title = {A comprehensive fungi-specific 18S rRNA gene sequence primer toolkit suited for diverse research issues and sequencing platforms.}, journal = {BMC microbiology}, volume = {18}, number = {1}, pages = {190}, pmid = {30458701}, issn = {1471-2180}, abstract = {BACKGROUND: Several fungi-specific primers target the 18S rRNA gene sequence, one of the prominent markers for fungal classification. The design of most primers goes back to the last decades. Since then, the number of sequences in public databases increased leading to the discovery of new fungal groups and changes in fungal taxonomy. However, no reevaluation of primers was carried out and relevant information on most primers is missing. With this study, we aimed to develop an 18S rRNA gene sequence primer toolkit allowing an easy selection of the best primer pair appropriate for different sequencing platforms, research aims (biodiversity assessment versus isolate classification) and target groups.<br><br>RESULTS: We performed an intensive literature research, reshuffled existing primers into new pairs, designed new Illumina-primers, and annealing blocking oligonucleotides. A final number of 439 primer pairs were subjected to in silico PCRs. Best primer pairs were selected and experimentally tested. The most promising primer pair with a small amplicon size, nu-SSU-1333-5'/nu-SSU-1647-3' (FF390/FR-1), was successful in describing fungal communities by Illumina sequencing. Results were confirmed by a simultaneous metagenomics and eukaryote-specific primer approach. Co-amplification occurred in all sample types but was effectively reduced by blocking oligonucleotides.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: The compiled data revealed the presence of an enormous diversity of fungal 18S rRNA gene primer pairs in terms of fungal coverage, phylum spectrum and co-amplification. Therefore, the primer pair has to be carefully selected to fulfill the requirements of the individual research projects. The presented primer toolkit offers comprehensive lists of 164 primers, 439 primer combinations, 4 blocking oligonucleotides, and top primer pairs holding all relevant information including primer's characteristics and performance to facilitate primer pair selection.}, }
@article {pmid30447983, year = {2019}, author = {Vasquez, AK and Ganda, EK and Capel, MB and Eicker, S and Virkler, PD and Bicalho, RC and Nydam, DV}, title = {The microbiome of Escherichia coli and culture-negative nonsevere clinical mastitis: Characterization and associations with linear score and milk production.}, journal = {Journal of dairy science}, volume = {102}, number = {1}, pages = {578-594}, doi = {10.3168/jds.2018-15062}, pmid = {30447983}, issn = {1525-3198}, mesh = {Animals ; Anti-Infective Agents/therapeutic use ; Bacteria/classification/genetics ; Biodiversity ; Cattle ; Escherichia coli/*isolation &amp; purification ; Female ; Lactation/*physiology ; Mastitis, Bovine/*microbiology ; Metagenomics ; Microbiota/*physiology ; Milk/microbiology ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/analysis ; }, abstract = {Culture-negative and Escherichia coli cases are uncommonly treated in pathogen-based protocols for nonsevere mastitis. High-throughput 16S rRNA sequencing might reveal the presence of other pathogens and can provide information on microbial diversity. The objective was to explore the milk microbiome at the time of the mastitis event (enrollment) and its association with survival in the herd, milk production, and postevent linear score (LS) for cows with clinical mastitis characterized as negative or E. coli by culture. Fifty E. coli-positive and 35 culture-negative samples from cases were enrolled. No cases were treated with antimicrobials. All E. coli-positive quarters were characterized as transient; microbiological culture of samples taken 15 d postmastitis were negative for this organism. However, a difference in α-diversity (Shannon index) was present between enrollment and follow-up samples (3.8 vs. 5.1). When α-diversity was explored for enrollment E. coli samples, no relationship was observed between the Shannon indices of these samples and postmastitis LS. Alpha-diversity of the enrollment samples was lower for E. coli-positive cows that subsequently had greater losses in milk production. This difference was explained by a greater relative abundance of the family Enterobacteriaceae (67.8 vs. 38.4%) for cows that dropped in production. Analysis of composition of the microbiome identified one phylum, Proteobacteria, that differed between E. coli-positive cows that dropped in production and those that did not. Evaluation of β -diversity found no statistical relationship between postmastitis LS and the microbiome. When evaluating α- and β-diversities and composition of the microbiomes for culture-negative quarters, no associations were found for milk production changes and postmastitis LS. Three cows did not remain in the herd, limiting the ability to analyze survival. The findings suggest that a contributing factor to negative outcomes in E. coli-positive cows is relative abundance of this pathogen, and that no single or collective group of bacterial families is associated with milk production changes or postmastitis LS in culture-negative quarters. Although additional studies should be performed, the absence of associations between outcomes explored and microbial profiles in this study suggests that we are not missing opportunities by not treating nonsevere E. coli or culture-negative mastitis cases.}, }
@article {pmid30446434, year = {2018}, author = {Lucking, EF and O'Connor, KM and Strain, CR and Fouhy, F and Bastiaanssen, TFS and Burns, DP and Golubeva, AV and Stanton, C and Clarke, G and Cryan, JF and O'Halloran, KD}, title = {Chronic intermittent hypoxia disrupts cardiorespiratory homeostasis and gut microbiota composition in adult male guinea-pigs.}, journal = {EBioMedicine}, volume = {38}, number = {}, pages = {191-205}, doi = {10.1016/j.ebiom.2018.11.010}, pmid = {30446434}, issn = {2352-3964}, mesh = {Age Factors ; Animals ; Apnea/metabolism/physiopathology ; Basal Metabolism ; Biomarkers ; Brain Stem/metabolism ; Carotid Body ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; Guinea Pigs ; Heart/*physiology/*physiopathology ; Homeostasis ; Hypoxia/*metabolism ; Male ; Metagenome ; Metagenomics ; Models, Animal ; Morbidity ; *Respiratory Physiological Phenomena ; Respiratory System/*physiopathology ; Sex Factors ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: Carotid body (peripheral oxygen sensor) sensitisation is pivotal in the development of chronic intermittent hypoxia (CIH)-induced hypertension. We sought to determine if exposure to CIH, modelling human sleep apnoea, adversely affects cardiorespiratory control in guinea-pigs, a species with hypoxia-insensitive carotid bodies. We reasoned that CIH-induced disruption of gut microbiota would evoke cardiorespiratory morbidity.<br><br>METHODS: Adult male guinea-pigs were exposed to CIH (6.5% O2 at nadir, 6 cycles.hour-1) for 8 h.day-1 for 12 consecutive days.<br><br>FINDINGS: CIH-exposed animals established reduced faecal microbiota species richness, with increased relative abundance of Bacteroidetes and reduced relative abundance of Firmicutes bacteria. Urinary corticosterone and noradrenaline levels were unchanged in CIH-exposed animals, but brainstem noradrenaline concentrations were lower compared with sham. Baseline ventilation was equivalent in CIH-exposed and sham animals; however, respiratory timing variability, sigh frequency and ventilation during hypoxic breathing were all lower in CIH-exposed animals. Baseline arterial blood pressure was unaffected by exposure to CIH, but β-adrenoceptor-dependent tachycardia and blunted bradycardia during phenylephrine-induced pressor responses was evident compared with sham controls.<br><br>INTERPRETATION: Increased carotid body chemo-afferent signalling appears obligatory for the development of CIH-induced hypertension and elevated chemoreflex control of breathing commonly reported in mammals, with hypoxia-sensitive carotid bodies. However, we reveal that exposure to modest CIH alters gut microbiota richness and composition, brainstem neurochemistry, and autonomic control of heart rate, independent of carotid body sensitisation, suggesting modulation of breathing and autonomic homeostasis via the microbiota-gut-brainstem axis. The findings have relevance to human sleep-disordered breathing.<br><br>FUNDING: The Department of Physiology, and APC Microbiome Ireland, UCC.}, }
@article {pmid30446169, year = {2019}, author = {Kosek, K and Kozioł, K and Luczkiewicz, A and Jankowska, K and Chmiel, S and Polkowska, Ż}, title = {Environmental characteristics of a tundra river system in Svalbard. Part 2: Chemical stress factors.}, journal = {The Science of the total environment}, volume = {653}, number = {}, pages = {1585-1596}, doi = {10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.11.012}, pmid = {30446169}, issn = {1879-1026}, mesh = {Bacteria/classification/*drug effects ; *Environmental Monitoring ; Formaldehyde/analysis ; Metagenomics ; Metals/analysis ; Microbiota/*drug effects ; Phenols/analysis ; Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons/analysis ; Rivers/*chemistry/*microbiology ; Svalbard ; Tundra ; Water Pollutants, Chemical/*analysis ; }, abstract = {Bacterial communities in the Arctic environment are subject to multiple stress factors, including contaminants, although typically their concentrations are small. The Arctic contamination research has focused on persistent organic pollutants (POPs) because they are bioaccumulative, resistant to degradation and toxic for all organisms. Pollutants have entered the Arctic predominantly by atmospheric and oceanic long-range transport, and this was facilitated by their volatile or semi-volatile properties, while their chemical stability extended their lifetimes following emission. Chemicals present in the Arctic at detectable and quantifiable concentrations testify to their global impact. Chemical contamination may induce serious disorders in the integrity of polar ecosystems influencing the growth of bacterial communities. In this study, the abundance and the types of bacteria in the Arctic freshwater were examined and the microbial characteristics were compared to the amount of potentially harmful chemical compounds in particular elements of the Arctic catchment. The highest concentrations of all determined PAHs were observed in two samples in the vicinity of the estuary both in June and September 2016 and were 1964 ng L-1 (R12) and 3901 ng L-1 (R13) in June, and 2179 ng L-1 (R12) and 1349 ng L-1 (R13) in September. Remarkable concentrations of the sum of phenols and formaldehyde were detected also at the outflow of the Revelva river into the sea (R12) and were 0.24 mg L-1 in June and 0.35 mg L-1 in September 2016. The elevated concentrations of chemical compounds near the estuary suggest a potential impact of the water from the lower tributaries (including the glacier-fed stream measured at R13) or the sea currents and the sea aerosol as pollutant sources. The POPs' degradation at low temperature is not well understood but bacteria capable to degrading such compounds were noted in each sampling point.}, }
@article {pmid30431224, year = {2019}, author = {Koskella, B}, title = {New approaches to characterizing bacteria-phage interactions in microbial communities and microbiomes.}, journal = {Environmental microbiology reports}, volume = {11}, number = {1}, pages = {15-16}, doi = {10.1111/1758-2229.12706}, pmid = {30431224}, issn = {1758-2229}, mesh = {Bacteria/classification/*virology ; Bacteriophages/classification/genetics/*physiology ; Biodiversity ; Genetic Variation ; Genome, Viral/genetics ; Metagenomics ; *Microbiota ; Single-Cell Analysis ; }, }
@article {pmid30427852, year = {2018}, author = {Brito, TL and Campos, AB and Bastiaan von Meijenfeldt, FA and Daniel, JP and Ribeiro, GB and Silva, GGZ and Wilke, DV and de Moraes, DT and Dutilh, BE and Meirelles, PM and Trindade-Silva, AE}, title = {The gill-associated microbiome is the main source of wood plant polysaccharide hydrolases and secondary metabolite gene clusters in the mangrove shipworm Neoteredo reynei.}, journal = {PloS one}, volume = {13}, number = {11}, pages = {e0200437}, pmid = {30427852}, issn = {1932-6203}, mesh = {Animals ; Bivalvia/*microbiology/physiology ; Gammaproteobacteria/*enzymology/genetics/*physiology ; Genomics ; Gills/microbiology ; Glycoside Hydrolases/genetics/*metabolism ; Metagenome ; Microbiota ; Multigene Family ; Phylogeny ; Polysaccharides/*metabolism ; Secondary Metabolism ; *Symbiosis ; Wood/metabolism/parasitology ; }, abstract = {Teredinidae are a family of highly adapted wood-feeding and wood-boring bivalves, commonly known as shipworms, whose evolution is linked to the acquisition of cellulolytic gammaproteobacterial symbionts harbored in bacteriocytes within the gills. In the present work we applied metagenomics to characterize microbiomes of the gills and digestive tract of Neoteredo reynei, a mangrove-adapted shipworm species found over a large range of the Brazilian coast. Comparative metagenomics grouped the gill symbiont community of different N. reynei specimens, indicating closely related bacterial types are shared. Similarly, the intestine and digestive gland communities were related, yet were more diverse than and showed no overlap with the gill community. Annotation of assembled metagenomic contigs revealed that the gill symbiotic community of N. reynei encodes a plethora of plant cell wall polysaccharides degrading glycoside hydrolase encoding genes, and Biosynthetic Gene Clusters (BGCs). In contrast, the digestive tract microbiomes seem to play little role in wood digestion and secondary metabolites biosynthesis. Metagenome binning recovered the nearly complete genome sequences of two symbiotic Teredinibacter strains from the gills, a representative of Teredinibacter turnerae &quot;clade I&quot; strain, and a yet to be cultivated Teredinibacter sp. type. These Teredinibacter genomes, as well as un-binned gill-derived gammaproteobacteria contigs, also include an endo-β-1,4-xylanase/acetylxylan esterase multi-catalytic carbohydrate-active enzyme, and a trans-acyltransferase polyketide synthase (trans-AT PKS) gene cluster with the gene cassette for generating β-branching on complex polyketides. Finally, we use multivariate analyses to show that the secondary metabolome from the genomes of Teredinibacter representatives, including genomes binned from N. reynei gills' metagenomes presented herein, stands out within the Cellvibrionaceae family by size, and enrichments for polyketide, nonribosomal peptide and hybrid BGCs. Results presented here add to the growing characterization of shipworm symbiotic microbiomes and indicate that the N. reynei gill gammaproteobacterial community is a prolific source of biotechnologically relevant enzymes for wood-digestion and bioactive compounds production.}, }
@article {pmid30425247, year = {2018}, author = {Hansen, LBS and Roager, HM and Søndertoft, NB and Gøbel, RJ and Kristensen, M and Vallès-Colomer, M and Vieira-Silva, S and Ibrügger, S and Lind, MV and Mærkedahl, RB and Bahl, MI and Madsen, ML and Havelund, J and Falony, G and Tetens, I and Nielsen, T and Allin, KH and Frandsen, HL and Hartmann, B and Holst, JJ and Sparholt, MH and Holck, J and Blennow, A and Moll, JM and Meyer, AS and Hoppe, C and Poulsen, JH and Carvalho, V and Sagnelli, D and Dalgaard, MD and Christensen, AF and Lydolph, MC and Ross, AB and Villas-Bôas, S and Brix, S and Sicheritz-Pontén, T and Buschard, K and Linneberg, A and Rumessen, JJ and Ekstrøm, CT and Ritz, C and Kristiansen, K and Nielsen, HB and Vestergaard, H and Færgeman, NJ and Raes, J and Frøkiær, H and Hansen, T and Lauritzen, L and Gupta, R and Licht, TR and Pedersen, O}, title = {A low-gluten diet induces changes in the intestinal microbiome of healthy Danish adults.}, journal = {Nature communications}, volume = {9}, number = {1}, pages = {4630}, pmid = {30425247}, issn = {2041-1723}, mesh = {Adult ; Aged ; Body Mass Index ; Creatinine/urine ; Cross-Over Studies ; Cytokines/blood ; DNA, Bacterial/analysis ; Denmark ; *Diet ; Fasting ; Feces/microbiology ; Female ; Fermentation ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome/genetics ; Glutens/*administration &amp; dosage/*adverse effects ; Humans ; Hydrogen ; Intestines/microbiology ; Male ; Metabolomics ; Metagenomics ; Middle Aged ; Postprandial Period ; Self Report ; Young Adult ; }, abstract = {Adherence to a low-gluten diet has become increasingly common in parts of the general population. However, the effects of reducing gluten-rich food items including wheat, barley and rye cereals in healthy adults are unclear. Here, we undertook a randomised, controlled, cross-over trial involving 60 middle-aged Danish adults without known disorders with two 8-week interventions comparing a low-gluten diet (2 g gluten per day) and a high-gluten diet (18 g gluten per day), separated by a washout period of at least six weeks with habitual diet (12 g gluten per day). We find that, in comparison with a high-gluten diet, a low-gluten diet induces moderate changes in the intestinal microbiome, reduces fasting and postprandial hydrogen exhalation, and leads to improvements in self-reported bloating. These observations suggest that most of the effects of a low-gluten diet in non-coeliac adults may be driven by qualitative changes in dietary fibres.}, }
@article {pmid30424821, year = {2018}, author = {Singh, NK and Wood, JM and Karouia, F and Venkateswaran, K}, title = {Succession and persistence of microbial communities and antimicrobial resistance genes associated with International Space Station environmental surfaces.}, journal = {Microbiome}, volume = {6}, number = {1}, pages = {204}, pmid = {30424821}, issn = {2049-2618}, mesh = {Archaea/drug effects/genetics/*isolation &amp; purification ; Azides/pharmacology ; Bacteria/drug effects/genetics/*isolation &amp; purification ; Drug Resistance, Bacterial/*genetics ; Fungi/drug effects/genetics/*isolation &amp; purification ; Humans ; Metagenome/genetics ; Microbiota/drug effects/genetics ; Propidium/analogs &amp; derivatives/pharmacology ; *Space Flight ; *Spacecraft ; Virulence/genetics ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: The International Space Station (ISS) is an ideal test bed for studying the effects of microbial persistence and succession on a closed system during long space flight. Culture-based analyses, targeted gene-based amplicon sequencing (bacteriome, mycobiome, and resistome), and shotgun metagenomics approaches have previously been performed on ISS environmental sample sets using whole genome amplification (WGA). However, this is the first study reporting on the metagenomes sampled from ISS environmental surfaces without the use of WGA. Metagenome sequences generated from eight defined ISS environmental locations in three consecutive flights were analyzed to assess the succession and persistence of microbial communities, their antimicrobial resistance (AMR) profiles, and virulence properties. Metagenomic sequences were produced from the samples treated with propidium monoazide (PMA) to measure intact microorganisms.<br><br>RESULTS: The intact microbial communities detected in Flight 1 and Flight 2 samples were significantly more similar to each other than to Flight 3 samples. Among 318 microbial species detected, 46 species constituting 18 genera were common in all flight samples. Risk group or biosafety level 2 microorganisms that persisted among all three flights were Acinetobacter baumannii, Haemophilus influenzae, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Salmonella enterica, Shigella sonnei, Staphylococcus aureus, Yersinia frederiksenii, and Aspergillus lentulus. Even though Rhodotorula and Pantoea dominated the ISS microbiome, Pantoea exhibited succession and persistence. K. pneumoniae persisted in one location (US Node 1) of all three flights and might have spread to six out of the eight locations sampled on Flight 3. The AMR signatures associated with β-lactam, cationic antimicrobial peptide, and vancomycin were detected. Prominent virulence factors were cobalt-zinc-cadmium resistance and multidrug-resistance efflux pumps.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: There was an increase in AMR and virulence gene factors detected over the period sampled, and metagenome sequences of human pathogens persisted over time. Comparative analysis of the microbial compositions of ISS with Earth analogs revealed that the ISS environmental surfaces were different in microbial composition. Metagenomics coupled with PMA treatment would help future space missions to estimate problematic risk group microbial pathogens. Cataloging AMR/virulence characteristics, succession, accumulation, and persistence of microorganisms would facilitate the development of suitable countermeasures to reduce their presence in the closed built environment.}, }
@article {pmid30420843, year = {2018}, author = {Alves, LF and Meleiro, LP and Silva, RN and Westmann, CA and Guazzaroni, ME}, title = {Novel Ethanol- and 5-Hydroxymethyl Furfural-Stimulated β-Glucosidase Retrieved From a Brazilian Secondary Atlantic Forest Soil Metagenome.}, journal = {Frontiers in microbiology}, volume = {9}, number = {}, pages = {2556}, pmid = {30420843}, issn = {1664-302X}, abstract = {Beta-glucosidases are key enzymes involved in lignocellulosic biomass degradation for bioethanol production, which complete the final step during cellulose hydrolysis by converting cellobiose into glucose. Currently, industry requires enzymes with improved catalytic performance or tolerance to process-specific parameters. In this sense, metagenomics has become a powerful tool for accessing and exploring the biochemical biodiversity present in different natural environments. Here, we report the identification of a novel β-glucosidase from metagenomic DNA isolated from soil samples enriched with decaying plant matter from a Secondary Atlantic Forest region. For this, we employed a functional screening approach using an optimized and synthetic broad host-range vector for library production. The novel β-glucosidase - named Lfa2 - displays three GH3-family conserved domains and conserved catalytic amino acids D283 and E487. The purified enzyme was most active in pH 5.5 and at 50°C, and showed hydrolytic activity toward several pNP synthetic substrates containing β-glucose, β-galactose, β-xylose, β-fucose, and α-arabinopyranose, as well as toward cellobiose. Lfa2 showed considerable glucose tolerance, exhibiting an IC50 of 300 mM glucose and 30% of remaining activity in 600 mM glucose. In addition, Lfa2 retained full or slightly enhanced activity in the presence of several metal ions. Further, β-glucosidase activity was increased by 1.7-fold in the presence of 10% (v/v) ethanol, a concentration that can be reached in conventional fermentation processes. Similarly, Lfa2 showed 1.7-fold enhanced activity at high concentrations of 5-hydroxymethyl furfural, one of the most important cellulase inhibitors in pretreated sugarcane bagasse hydrolysates. Moreover, the synergistic effect of Lfa2 on Bacillus subtilis GH5-CBM3 endoglucanase activity was demonstrated by the increased production of glucose (1.6-fold). Together, these results indicate that β-glucosidase Lfa2 is a promissory enzyme candidate for utilization in diverse industrial applications, such as cellulosic biomass degradation or flavor enhancement in winemaking and grape processing.}, }
@article {pmid30419949, year = {2018}, author = {Silverman, JD and Durand, HK and Bloom, RJ and Mukherjee, S and David, LA}, title = {Dynamic linear models guide design and analysis of microbiota studies within artificial human guts.}, journal = {Microbiome}, volume = {6}, number = {1}, pages = {202}, pmid = {30419949}, issn = {2049-2618}, support = {R01 DK116187/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States ; }, mesh = {Artificial Organs/*microbiology ; Bacteroides/*growth &amp; development ; Enterobacteriaceae/*growth &amp; development ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; Gastrointestinal Tract/*microbiology ; Humans ; Linear Models ; *Models, Anatomic ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: Artificial gut models provide unique opportunities to study human-associated microbiota. Outstanding questions for these models' fundamental biology include the timescales on which microbiota vary and the factors that drive such change. Answering these questions though requires overcoming analytical obstacles like estimating the effects of technical variation on observed microbiota dynamics, as well as the lack of appropriate benchmark datasets.<br><br>RESULTS: To address these obstacles, we created a modeling framework based on multinomial logistic-normal dynamic linear models (MALLARDs) and performed dense longitudinal sampling of four replicate artificial human guts over the course of 1 month. The resulting analyses revealed how the ratio of biological variation to technical variation from sample processing depends on sampling frequency. In particular, we find that at hourly sampling frequencies, 76% of observed variation could be ascribed to technical sources, which could also skew the observed covariation between taxa. We also found that the artificial guts demonstrated replicable trajectories even after a recovery from a transient feed disruption. Additionally, we observed irregular sub-daily oscillatory dynamics associated with the bacterial family Enterobacteriaceae within all four replicate vessels.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: Our analyses suggest that, beyond variation due to sequence counting, technical variation from sample processing can obscure temporal variation from biological sources in artificial gut studies. Our analyses also supported hypotheses that human gut microbiota fluctuates on sub-daily timescales in the absence of a host and that microbiota can follow replicable trajectories in the presence of environmental driving forces. Finally, multiple aspects of our approach are generalizable and could ultimately be used to facilitate the design and analysis of longitudinal microbiota studies in vivo.}, }
@article {pmid30417889, year = {2018}, author = {Hyeon, JY and Mann, DA and Townsend, AM and Deng, X}, title = {Quasi-metagenomic Analysis of Salmonella from Food and Environmental Samples.}, journal = {Journal of visualized experiments : JoVE}, volume = {}, number = {140}, pages = {}, pmid = {30417889}, issn = {1940-087X}, mesh = {Animals ; Cattle ; Environmental Monitoring ; Food Microbiology/*methods ; High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing ; Immunomagnetic Separation/*methods ; Metagenomics/*methods ; Microbiota ; Polymerase Chain Reaction ; *Salmonella enterica ; }, abstract = {Quasi-metagenomics sequencing refers to the sequencing-based analysis of modified microbiomes of food and environmental samples. In this protocol, microbiome modification is designed to concentrate genomic DNA of a target foodborne pathogen contaminant to facilitate the detection and subtyping of the pathogen in a single workflow. Here, we explain and demonstrate the sample preparation steps for the quasi-metagenomics analysis of Salmonella enterica from representative food and environmental samples including alfalfa sprouts, ground black pepper, ground beef, chicken breast and environmental swabs. Samples are first subjected to the culture enrichment of Salmonella for a shortened and adjustable duration (4-24 h). Salmonella cells are then selectively captured from the enrichment culture by immunomagnetic separation (IMS). Finally, multiple displacement amplification (MDA) is performed to amplify DNA from IMS-captured cells. The DNA output of this protocol can be sequenced by high throughput sequencing platforms. An optional quantitative PCR analysis can be performed to replace sequencing for Salmonella detection or assess the concentration of Salmonella DNA before sequencing.}, }
@article {pmid30413473, year = {2019}, author = {Coscolín, C and Katzke, N and García-Moyano, A and Navarro-Fernández, J and Almendral, D and Martínez-Martínez, M and Bollinger, A and Bargiela, R and Gertler, C and Chernikova, TN and Rojo, D and Barbas, C and Tran, H and Golyshina, OV and Koch, R and Yakimov, MM and Bjerga, GEK and Golyshin, PN and Jaeger, KE and Ferrer, M}, title = {Bioprospecting Reveals Class III ω-Transaminases Converting Bulky Ketones and Environmentally Relevant Polyamines.}, journal = {Applied and environmental microbiology}, volume = {85}, number = {2}, pages = {}, doi = {10.1128/AEM.02404-18}, pmid = {30413473}, issn = {1098-5336}, abstract = {Amination of bulky ketones, particularly in (R) configuration, is an attractive chemical conversion; however, known ω-transaminases (ω-TAs) show insufficient levels of performance. By applying two screening methods, we discovered 10 amine transaminases from the class III ω-TA family that were 38% to 76% identical to homologues. We present examples of such enzymes preferring bulky ketones over keto acids and aldehydes with stringent (S) selectivity. We also report representatives from the class III ω-TAs capable of converting (R) and (S) amines and bulky ketones and one that can convert amines with longer alkyl substituents. The preference for bulky ketones was associated with the presence of a hairpin region proximal to the conserved Arg414 and residues conforming and close to it. The outward orientation of Arg414 additionally favored the conversion of (R) amines. This configuration was also found to favor the utilization of putrescine as an amine donor, so that class III ω-TAs with Arg414 in outward orientation may participate in vivo in the catabolism of putrescine. The positioning of the conserved Ser231 also contributes to the preference for amines with longer alkyl substituents. Optimal temperatures for activity ranged from 45 to 65°C, and a few enzymes retained ≥50% of their activity in water-soluble solvents (up to 50% [vol/vol]). Hence, our results will pave the way to design, in the future, new class III ω-TAs converting bulky ketones and (R) amines for the production of high-value products and to screen for those converting putrescine.IMPORTANCE Amine transaminases of the class III ω-TAs are key enzymes for modification of chemical building blocks, but finding those capable of converting bulky ketones and (R) amines is still challenging. Here, by an extensive analysis of the substrate spectra of 10 class III ω-TAs, we identified a number of residues playing a role in determining the access and positioning of bulky ketones, bulky amines, and (R)- and (S) amines, as well as of environmentally relevant polyamines, particularly putrescine. The results presented can significantly expand future opportunities for designing (R)-specific class III ω-TAs to convert valuable bulky ketones and amines, as well as for deepening the knowledge into the polyamine catabolic pathways.}, }
@article {pmid30412889, year = {2019}, author = {Nathani, NM and Mootapally, C and Dave, BP}, title = {Antibiotic resistance genes allied to the pelagic sediment microbiome in the Gulf of Khambhat and Arabian Sea.}, journal = {The Science of the total environment}, volume = {653}, number = {}, pages = {446-454}, doi = {10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.10.409}, pmid = {30412889}, issn = {1879-1026}, mesh = {Bacteria/classification/drug effects/*genetics/*isolation &amp; purification ; *Drug Resistance, Microbial ; Genes, Bacterial/*drug effects ; Geologic Sediments/*microbiology ; Indian Ocean ; *Microbiota ; }, abstract = {Antibiotics have been widely spread in the environments, imposing profound stress on the resistome of the residing microbes. Marine microbiomes are well established large reservoirs of novel antibiotics and corresponding resistance genes. The Gulf of Khambhat is known for its extreme tides and complex sedimentation process. We performed high throughput sequencing and applied bioinformatics techniques on pelagic sediment microbiome across four coordinates of the Gulf of Khambhat to assess the marine resistome, its corresponding bacterial community and compared with the open Arabian Sea sample. We identified a total of 2354 unique types of resistance genes, with most abundant and diverse gene profile in the area that had anthropogenic activities being carried out on-shore. The genes with >1% abundance in all samples included carA, macB, sav1866, tlrC, srmB, taeA, tetA, oleC and bcrA which belonged to the macrolides, glycopeptides and peptide drug classes. ARG enriched phyla distribution was quite varying between all the sites, with Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, Actinobacteria and Bacteroidetes among the dominant phyla. Based on the outcomes, we also propose potential biomarker candidates Desulfovibrio, Thermotaga and Pelobacter for antibiotic monitoring in the two of the Gulf samples probable contamination prone environments, and genera Nitrosocccus, Marinobacter and Streptomyces in the rest of the three studied samples. Outcomes support the concept that ARGs naturally originate in environments and human activities contribute to the dissemination of antibiotic resistance.}, }
@article {pmid30405577, year = {2018}, author = {Bertelli, C and Courtois, S and Rosikiewicz, M and Piriou, P and Aeby, S and Robert, S and Loret, JF and Greub, G}, title = {Reduced Chlorine in Drinking Water Distribution Systems Impacts Bacterial Biodiversity in Biofilms.}, journal = {Frontiers in microbiology}, volume = {9}, number = {}, pages = {2520}, pmid = {30405577}, issn = {1664-302X}, abstract = {In drinking water distribution systems (DWDS), a disinfectant residual is usually applied to limit bacterial regrowth. However, delivering water with no or reduced chlorine residual could potentially decrease the selection for antimicrobial resistant microorganisms, favor bacterial regrowth and result in changes in bacterial populations. To evaluate the feasibility of water reduction in local DWDS while ensuring water safety, water quality was measured over 2 months in two different networks, each of them harboring sub-areas with normal and reduced chlorine. Water quality remained good in chlorine reduced samples, with limited development of total flora and absence of coliforms. Furthermore, 16S rRNA amplicon-based metagenomics was used to investigate the diversity and the composition of microbial communities in the sub-networks. Taxonomic classification of sequence reads showed a reduced bacterial diversity in sampling points with higher chlorine residuals. Chlorine disinfection created more homogeneous bacterial population, dominated by Pseudomonas, a genus that contains some major opportunistic pathogens such as P. aeruginosa. In the absence of chlorine, a larger and unknown biodiversity was unveiled, also highlighted by a decreased rate of taxonomic classification to the genus and species level. Overall, this experiment in a functional DWDS will facilitate the move toward potable water delivery systems without residual disinfectants and will improve water taste for consumers.}, }
@article {pmid30400812, year = {2018}, author = {Kumar, MS and Slud, EV and Okrah, K and Hicks, SC and Hannenhalli, S and Corrada Bravo, H}, title = {Analysis and correction of compositional bias in sparse sequencing count data.}, journal = {BMC genomics}, volume = {19}, number = {1}, pages = {799}, pmid = {30400812}, issn = {1471-2164}, support = {K99 HG009007/HG/NHGRI NIH HHS/United States ; R01 RR021967/RR/NCRR NIH HHS/United States ; GM114267//National Institutes of Health/ ; R01 GM083084/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/United States ; HG005220//National Institutes of Health/ ; R01 HG005220/HG/NHGRI NIH HHS/United States ; R21 GM107683/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/United States ; 1564785//National Science Foundation (US)/ ; R01 GM114267/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/United States ; GM083084//National Institutes of Health/ ; R01 GM103552/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/United States ; }, mesh = {*Algorithms ; Bayes Theorem ; Computational Biology/*methods ; High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing/*methods ; Metagenomics/*methods ; *Microbiota ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/*genetics ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: Count data derived from high-throughput deoxy-ribonucliec acid (DNA) sequencing is frequently used in quantitative molecular assays. Due to properties inherent to the sequencing process, unnormalized count data is compositional, measuring relative and not absolute abundances of the assayed features. This compositional bias confounds inference of absolute abundances. Commonly used count data normalization approaches like library size scaling/rarefaction/subsampling cannot correct for compositional or any other relevant technical bias that is uncorrelated with library size.<br><br>RESULTS: We demonstrate that existing techniques for estimating compositional bias fail with sparse metagenomic 16S count data and propose an empirical Bayes normalization approach to overcome this problem. In addition, we clarify the assumptions underlying frequently used scaling normalization methods in light of compositional bias, including scaling methods that were not designed directly to address it.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: Compositional bias, induced by the sequencing machine, confounds inferences of absolute abundances. We present a normalization technique for compositional bias correction in sparse sequencing count data, and demonstrate its improved performance in metagenomic 16s survey data. Based on the distribution of technical bias estimates arising from several publicly available large scale 16s count datasets, we argue that detailed experiments specifically addressing the influence of compositional bias in metagenomics are needed.}, }
@article {pmid30396371, year = {2018}, author = {Meisel, JS and Nasko, DJ and Brubach, B and Cepeda-Espinoza, V and Chopyk, J and Corrada-Bravo, H and Fedarko, M and Ghurye, J and Javkar, K and Olson, ND and Shah, N and Allard, SM and Bazinet, AL and Bergman, NH and Brown, A and Caporaso, JG and Conlan, S and DiRuggiero, J and Forry, SP and Hasan, NA and Kralj, J and Luethy, PM and Milton, DK and Ondov, BD and Preheim, S and Ratnayake, S and Rogers, SM and Rosovitz, MJ and Sakowski, EG and Schliebs, NO and Sommer, DD and Ternus, KL and Uritskiy, G and Zhang, SX and Pop, M and Treangen, TJ}, title = {Current progress and future opportunities in applications of bioinformatics for biodefense and pathogen detection: report from the Winter Mid-Atlantic Microbiome Meet-up, College Park, MD, January 10, 2018.}, journal = {Microbiome}, volume = {6}, number = {1}, pages = {197}, pmid = {30396371}, issn = {2049-2618}, support = {R01 AI100947/AI/NIAID NIH HHS/United States ; U54 CA143924/CA/NCI NIH HHS/United States ; U54 CA143925/CA/NCI NIH HHS/United States ; R01 GM114267/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/United States ; }, mesh = {*Biological Warfare Agents ; Computational Biology/*methods ; High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing/*methods ; Humans ; Metagenomics/*methods ; Microbiota/physiology ; Sequence Analysis, DNA/methods ; }, abstract = {The Mid-Atlantic Microbiome Meet-up (M3) organization brings together academic, government, and industry groups to share ideas and develop best practices for microbiome research. In January of 2018, M3 held its fourth meeting, which focused on recent advances in biodefense, specifically those relating to infectious disease, and the use of metagenomic methods for pathogen detection. Presentations highlighted the utility of next-generation sequencing technologies for identifying and tracking microbial community members across space and time. However, they also stressed the current limitations of genomic approaches for biodefense, including insufficient sensitivity to detect low-abundance pathogens and the inability to quantify viable organisms. Participants discussed ways in which the community can improve software usability and shared new computational tools for metagenomic processing, assembly, annotation, and visualization. Looking to the future, they identified the need for better bioinformatics toolkits for longitudinal analyses, improved sample processing approaches for characterizing viruses and fungi, and more consistent maintenance of database resources. Finally, they addressed the necessity of improving data standards to incentivize data sharing. Here, we summarize the presentations and discussions from the meeting, identifying the areas where microbiome analyses have improved our ability to detect and manage biological threats and infectious disease, as well as gaps of knowledge in the field that require future funding and focus.}, }
@article {pmid30394664, year = {2019}, author = {Spang, A and Offre, P}, title = {Towards a systematic understanding of differences between archaeal and bacterial diversity.}, journal = {Environmental microbiology reports}, volume = {11}, number = {1}, pages = {9-12}, doi = {10.1111/1758-2229.12701}, pmid = {30394664}, issn = {1758-2229}, mesh = {Archaea/*classification/*genetics ; Bacteria/*classification/*genetics ; *Biodiversity ; Biological Evolution ; Genome, Archaeal/genetics ; Genome, Bacterial/genetics ; Metagenomics ; Phylogeny ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Single-Cell Analysis ; }, abstract = {In this crystal ball, we discuss emerging methodologies that can help reaching a synthesis on the biodiversity of Archaea and Bacteria and thereby inform a central enigma in microbiology, i.e. the fundamental split between these primary domains of life and the apparent lower diversity of the Archaea.}, }
@article {pmid30394652, year = {2018}, author = {Borton, MA and Daly, RA and O'Banion, B and Hoyt, DW and Marcus, DN and Welch, S and Hastings, SS and Meulia, T and Wolfe, RA and Booker, AE and Sharma, S and Cole, DR and Wunch, K and Moore, JD and Darrah, TH and Wilkins, MJ and Wrighton, KC}, title = {Comparative genomics and physiology of the genus Methanohalophilus, a prevalent methanogen in hydraulically fractured shale.}, journal = {Environmental microbiology}, volume = {20}, number = {12}, pages = {4596-4611}, doi = {10.1111/1462-2920.14467}, pmid = {30394652}, issn = {1462-2920}, support = {1342701//National Science Foundation Dimensions of Biodiversity/ ; FE0024297//Department of Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory/ ; //U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute/ ; DE-AC02-05CH11231//Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy/ ; }, abstract = {About 60% of natural gas production in the United States comes from hydraulic fracturing of unconventional reservoirs, such as shales or organic-rich micrites. This process inoculates and enriches for halotolerant microorganisms in these reservoirs over time, resulting in a saline ecosystem that includes methane producing archaea. Here, we survey the biogeography of methanogens across unconventional reservoirs, and report that members of genus Methanohalophilus are recovered from every hydraulically fractured unconventional reservoir sampled by metagenomics. We provide the first genomic sequencing of three isolate genomes, as well as two metagenome assembled genomes (MAGs). Utilizing six other previously sequenced isolate genomes and MAGs, we perform comparative analysis of the 11 genomes representing this genus. This genomic investigation revealed distinctions between surface and subsurface derived genomes that are consistent with constraints encountered in each environment. Genotypic differences were also uncovered between isolate genomes recovered from the same well, suggesting niche partitioning among closely related strains. These genomic substrate utilization predictions were then confirmed by physiological investigation. Fine-scale microdiversity was observed in CRISPR-Cas systems of Methanohalophilus, with genomes from geographically distinct unconventional reservoirs sharing spacers targeting the same viral population. These findings have implications for augmentation strategies resulting in enhanced biogenic methane production in hydraulically fractured unconventional reservoirs.}, }
@article {pmid30384903, year = {2018}, author = {Huang, X and Zhu, J and Cai, Z and Lao, Y and Jin, H and Yu, K and Zhang, B and Zhou, J}, title = {Profiles of quorum sensing (QS)-related sequences in phycospheric microorganisms during a marine dinoflagellate bloom, as determined by a metagenomic approach.}, journal = {Microbiological research}, volume = {217}, number = {}, pages = {1-13}, doi = {10.1016/j.micres.2018.08.015}, pmid = {30384903}, issn = {1618-0623}, mesh = {Acyltransferases/genetics/metabolism ; Bacteria/classification/*genetics/*metabolism ; Bacterial Physiological Phenomena ; Bacterial Proteins/genetics/metabolism ; Carbon-Sulfur Lyases/genetics/metabolism ; China ; Dinoflagellida/growth &amp; development/*microbiology ; Eutrophication/physiology ; Marine Biology ; Metagenomics/*methods ; Microbiota/*genetics/*physiology ; Phylogeny ; Proteobacteria/genetics/metabolism ; Quorum Sensing/*genetics/*physiology ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Seawater/microbiology ; Sequence Analysis ; Sequence Analysis, Protein ; Sequence Homology ; Symbiosis ; Transcription Factors/genetics/metabolism ; }, abstract = {The complicated relationships among environmental microorganisms are regulated by quorum sensing (QS). Understanding QS-based signals could shed light on the interactions between microbial communities in certain environments. Although QS characteristics have been widely discussed, few studies have been conducted on the role of QS in phycospheric microorganisms. Here, we used metagenomics to examine the profile of AI-1 (AinS, HdtS, LuxI) and AI-2 (LuxS) autoinducers from a deeply sequenced microbial database, obtained from a complete dinoflagellate bloom. A total of 3001 putative AI-1 homologs and 130 AI-2 homologs were identified. The predominant member among the AI groups was HdtS. The abundance of HdtS, AinS, and LuxS increased as the bloom developed, whereas the abundance of LuxI showed the opposite trend. Phylogenetic analysis suggested that HdtS and LuxI synthase originated mainly from alpha-, beta-, and gamma-Proteobacteria, whereas AinS synthase originated solely from Vibrionales. In comparison to AI-1, the sequences related to AI-2 (LuxS) demonstrated a much wider taxonomic coverage. Some significant correlations were found between dominant species and QS signals. In addition to the QS, we also performed parallel analysis of the quorum quenching (QQ) sequences. In comparison to QS, the relative abundance of QQ signals was lower; however, an obvious frequency correlation was observed. These results suggested that QS and QQ signals co-participate in regulating microbial communities during an algal bloom. These data helped to reveal the characteristic behavior of algal symbiotic bacteria, and facilitated a better understanding of microbial dynamics during an algal bloom event from a chemical ecological perspective.}, }
@article {pmid30382616, year = {2019}, author = {Ganuza, M and Pastor, N and Boccolini, M and Erazo, J and Palacios, S and Oddino, C and Reynoso, MM and Rovera, M and Torres, AM}, title = {Evaluating the impact of the biocontrol agent Trichoderma harzianum ITEM 3636 on indigenous microbial communities from field soils.}, journal = {Journal of applied microbiology}, volume = {126}, number = {2}, pages = {608-623}, doi = {10.1111/jam.14147}, pmid = {30382616}, issn = {1365-2672}, support = {//Agencia Nacional de Promoción Científica y Tecnológica (MINCyT)/ ; }, mesh = {Agriculture ; Arachis ; Argentina ; Bacteria/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; *Biological Control Agents ; Denaturing Gradient Gel Electrophoresis ; Fungi/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing ; Microbiota ; Polymerase Chain Reaction ; Seeds ; Soil/chemistry ; *Soil Microbiology ; *Trichoderma ; }, abstract = {AIM: To investigate the impact of inoculating peanut seeds with the biocontrol agent Trichoderma harzianum ITEM 3636 on the structure of bacterial and fungal communities from agricultural soils.<br><br>METHODS AND RESULTS: Polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (PCR-DGGE) and next-generation sequencing (NGS) of amplicons (or marker gene amplification metagenomics) were performed to investigate potential changes in the structure of microbial communities from fields located in a peanut-producing area in the province of Córdoba, Argentina. Fields had history of peanut smut (caused by Thecaphora frezii) incidence. The Shannon indexes (H'), which estimate diversity, obtained from the PCR-DGGE assays did not show significant differences neither for bacterial nor for fungal communities between control and inoculation treatments. On the other hand, the number of operational taxonomic units obtained after NGS was similar between all the analysed samples. Moreover, results of alpha and beta diversity showed that there were no significant variations between the relative abundances of the most representative bacterial and fungal phyla and genera, in both fields.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: Trichoderma harzianum ITEM 3636 decreases the incidence and severity of agriculturally relevant diseases without causing significant changes in the microbial communities of agricultural soils.<br><br>Our investigations provide information on the structure of bacterial and fungal communities in peanut-producing fields after inoculation of seeds with a biocontrol agent.}, }
@article {pmid30376898, year = {2018}, author = {Leiby, JS and McCormick, K and Sherrill-Mix, S and Clarke, EL and Kessler, LR and Taylor, LJ and Hofstaedter, CE and Roche, AM and Mattei, LM and Bittinger, K and Elovitz, MA and Leite, R and Parry, S and Bushman, FD}, title = {Lack of detection of a human placenta microbiome in samples from preterm and term deliveries.}, journal = {Microbiome}, volume = {6}, number = {1}, pages = {196}, pmid = {30376898}, issn = {2049-2618}, support = {P30 AI045008/AI/NIAID NIH HHS/United States ; T32 AI007632/AI/NIAID NIH HHS/United States ; T32 AI007324/AI/NIAID NIH HHS/United States ; }, mesh = {Adult ; Bacteria/genetics/*isolation &amp; purification ; DNA, Bacterial/genetics ; Female ; Humans ; Microbiota/*genetics ; Placenta/*microbiology ; Pregnancy ; Premature Birth ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Sequence Analysis, DNA ; Term Birth ; Uterus/*microbiology ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: Historically, the human womb has been thought to be sterile in healthy pregnancies, but this idea has been challenged by recent studies using DNA sequence-based methods, which have suggested that the womb is colonized with bacteria. For example, analysis of DNA from placenta samples yielded small proportions of microbial sequences which were proposed to represent normal bacterial colonization. However, an analysis by our group showed no distinction between background negative controls and placenta samples. Also supporting the idea that the womb is sterile is the observation that germ-free mammals can be generated by sterile delivery of neonates into a sterile isolator, after which neonates remain germ-free, which would seem to provide strong data in support of sterility of the womb.<br><br>RESULTS: To probe this further and to investigate possible placental colonization associated with spontaneous preterm birth, we carried out another study comparing microbiota in placenta samples from 20 term and 20 spontaneous preterm deliveries. Both 16S rRNA marker gene sequencing and shotgun metagenomic sequencing were used to characterize placenta and control samples. We first quantified absolute amounts of bacterial 16S rRNA gene sequences using 16S rRNA gene quantitative PCR (qPCR). As in our previous study, levels were found to be low in the placenta samples and indistinguishable from negative controls. Analysis by DNA sequencing did not yield a placenta microbiome distinct from negative controls, either using marker gene sequencing as in our previous work, or with shotgun metagenomic sequencing. Several types of artifacts, including erroneous read classifications and barcode misattribution, needed to be identified and removed from the data to clarify this point.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: Our findings do not support the existence of a consistent placental microbiome, in either placenta from term deliveries or spontaneous preterm births.}, }
@article {pmid30372979, year = {2019}, author = {Park, SE and Seo, SH and Kim, EJ and Byun, S and Na, CS and Son, HS}, title = {Changes of microbial community and metabolite in kimchi inoculated with different microbial community starters.}, journal = {Food chemistry}, volume = {274}, number = {}, pages = {558-565}, doi = {10.1016/j.foodchem.2018.09.032}, pmid = {30372979}, issn = {1873-7072}, mesh = {Bacteria/metabolism ; Brassica/metabolism/*microbiology ; *Fermentation ; Fermented Foods/*microbiology ; *Food Microbiology ; *Microbiota ; }, abstract = {Gas chromatography mass spectrometry-based metabolomics and next generation sequencing-based metagenomics were applied to investigate the effect of different microbial community starters (MCSs) on kimchi fermentation. Profiles of metabolites and microbial community in kimchi were remarkably different from those on the first day of fermentation according to MCS used. Kimchi inoculated with MCS5 or MCS10 had relatively higher levels of lactic acid, leucine, propanedioic acid, serine, glycerol, erythritol, and sorbitol but lower levels of butanedioic acid, glyceric acid, myo-inositol, xylose, fructose, and talose compared to control kimchi or kimchi inoculated with MCS1. Microbial communities of kimchi inoculated with MCS1, MCS5, and MCS10 were characterized by high ratios of Leuconostoc, Lactobacillus plantarum, and Lactobacillus brevis, respectively. The microbial community of kimchi formed on the first day of fermentation was stable for 50 days, suggesting that microbial communities containing multiple microorganisms can be used as starters to obtain desired quality of kimchi.}, }
@article {pmid30362648, year = {2019}, author = {Larivière-Gauthier, G and Thibodeau, A and Letellier, A and Yergeau, É and Fravalo, P}, title = {Salmonella shedding status of the sow affects the microbiota of their piglets at weaning.}, journal = {Journal of applied microbiology}, volume = {126}, number = {2}, pages = {411-423}, doi = {10.1111/jam.14139}, pmid = {30362648}, issn = {1365-2672}, support = {//Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada/ ; }, mesh = {Animals ; *Bacterial Shedding ; Female ; *Microbiota ; Pregnancy ; Salmonella/*isolation &amp; purification ; Swine/growth &amp; development/*microbiology ; Weaning ; }, abstract = {AIM: To observe the transfer of the digestive microbiota from sow to piglet, describe the impact of the sow's Salmonella shedding on this transfer and identify transferred populations that could be associated with the future Salmonella status of the piglets.<br><br>METHODS AND RESULTS: Salmonella shedding status of 19 sows was determined at the beginning and end of gestation. Four piglets were randomly selected from each sow. Using MiSeq, the microbiotas of the sows at the end of gestation and of their piglets 1 day before weaning were described. Results showed that the Salmonella shedding of the sows, the birth mother, the lairage room, the parity and the contamination of the lairage environment were associated to the microbiota of the piglets (permanova P < 0·05). Several genera were associated with piglets born from negative or positive sows.<br><br>CONCLUSION: There is a link between the microbiota of the sows at the end of gestation and the microbiota of their piglets at weaning, and the Salmonella shedding of the sow is associated with the microbiota of the piglets.<br><br>Salmonella status of the sows affects the microbiota of their piglets and could affect the long-term Salmonella colonization resistance of these animals and their health.}, }
@article {pmid30359379, year = {2018}, author = {Bidot, WA and Ericsson, AC and Franklin, CL}, title = {Effects of water decontamination methods and bedding material on the gut microbiota.}, journal = {PloS one}, volume = {13}, number = {10}, pages = {e0198305}, pmid = {30359379}, issn = {1932-6203}, support = {K01 OD019924/OD/NIH HHS/United States ; U42 OD010918/OD/NIH HHS/United States ; }, mesh = {Animals ; Bacteria/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Cecum/microbiology ; Feces/microbiology ; Female ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; Housing, Animal ; Mice, Inbred ICR ; *Water Microbiology ; Water Purification/*methods ; }, abstract = {Rodent models are invaluable to understanding health and disease in many areas of biomedical research. Unfortunately, many models suffer from lack of phenotype reproducibility. Our laboratory has shown that differences in gut microbiota (GM) can modulate phenotypes of models of colon cancer and inflammatory bowel disease. We and others have also shown that a number of factors associated with rodent research, including vendor, cage system, and bedding can alter GM. The objective of this study was to expand these studies to examine the effect of additional bedding materials and methods of water decontamination on GM diversity and composition. To this end, Crl:CD1 (ICR) mice were housed on corn cob or compressed paper chip bedding and provided water that was decontaminated by four different methods: autoclaving with reverse osmosis, autoclaving with hydrochloric acid, autoclaving with sulfuric acid, and autoclaving alone. Feces was collected at day 0, and at day 28 (endpoint), fecal and cecal samples were collected. DNA was extracted from samples, amplified by PCR using conserved bacterial primer sets and subjected to next generation sequencing. Sequence data were analyzed using Qiime and groups were compared using principal coordinate analysis (PCoA) and permutational multivariate analysis of variance (PERMANOVA). Two factor PERMANOVA of cecal GM data revealed significant changes when comparing bedding and water decontamination methods, while no significant effects were noted in the fecal GM data. Subsequent PERMANOVA and PCoA of cecal data revealed that several combinations of bedding and water decontamination methods resulted in differing GM, highlighting the complexity by which environmental factors interact to modulate GM.}, }
@article {pmid30358106, year = {2019}, author = {Siegenthaler, A and Wangensteen, OS and Soto, AZ and Benvenuto, C and Corrigan, L and Mariani, S}, title = {Metabarcoding of shrimp stomach content: Harnessing a natural sampler for fish biodiversity monitoring.}, journal = {Molecular ecology resources}, volume = {19}, number = {1}, pages = {206-220}, doi = {10.1111/1755-0998.12956}, pmid = {30358106}, issn = {1755-0998}, support = {//Santander Advantage Fund/ ; //University of Salford Manchester/ ; NE/N005759/1//Natural Environment Research Council/ ; //Mersey Gateway Environmental Trust/ ; }, mesh = {Animals ; *Biodiversity ; Crangonidae/*physiology ; DNA Barcoding, Taxonomic/*methods ; Electron Transport Complex IV ; Estuaries ; Europe ; Feeding Behavior ; Fishes/*classification/*genetics ; *Gastrointestinal Contents ; High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing/methods ; Metagenomics/*methods ; RNA, Ribosomal/genetics ; }, abstract = {Given their positioning and biological productivity, estuaries have long represented key providers of ecosystem services and consequently remain under remarkable pressure from numerous forms of anthropogenic impact. The monitoring of fish communities in space and time is one of the most widespread and established approaches to assess the ecological status of estuaries and other coastal habitats, but traditional fish surveys are invasive, costly, labour intensive and highly selective. Recently, the application of metabarcoding techniques, on either sediment or aqueous environmental DNA, has rapidly gained popularity. Here, we evaluate the application of a novel, high-throughput DNA-based monitoring tool to assess fish diversity, based on the analysis of the gut contents of a generalist predator/scavenger, the European brown shrimp, Crangon crangon. Sediment and shrimp samples were collected from eight European estuaries, and DNA metabarcoding (using both 12S and COI markers) was carried out to infer fish assemblage composition. We detected 32 teleost species (16 and 20, for 12S and COI, respectively). Twice as many species were recovered using metabarcoding than by traditional net surveys. By comparing and interweaving trophic, environmental DNA and traditional survey-based techniques, we show that the DNA-assisted gut content analysis of a ubiquitous, easily accessible, generalist species may serve as a powerful, rapid and cost-effective tool for large-scale, routine estuarine biodiversity monitoring.}, }
@article {pmid30356699, year = {2018}, author = {Weißbecker, C and Wubet, T and Lentendu, G and Kühn, P and Scholten, T and Bruelheide, H and Buscot, F}, title = {Experimental Evidence of Functional Group-Dependent Effects of Tree Diversity on Soil Fungi in Subtropical Forests.}, journal = {Frontiers in microbiology}, volume = {9}, number = {}, pages = {2312}, pmid = {30356699}, issn = {1664-302X}, abstract = {Deconvoluting the relative contributions made by specific biotic and abiotic drivers to soil fungal community compositions facilitates predictions about the functional responses of ecosystems to environmental changes, such as losses of plant diversity, but it is hindered by the complex interactions involved. Experimental assembly of tree species allows separation of the respective effects of plant community composition (biotic components) and soil properties (abiotic components), enabling much greater statistical power than can be achieved in observational studies. We therefore analyzed these contributions by assessing, via pyrotag sequencing of the internal transcribed spacer (ITS2) rDNA region, fungal communities in young subtropical forest plots included in a large experiment on the effects of tree species richness. Spatial variables and soil properties were the main drivers of soil fungal alpha and beta-diversity, implying strong early-stage environmental filtering and dispersal limitation. Tree related variables, such as tree community composition, significantly affected arbuscular mycorrhizal and pathogen fungal community structure, while differences in tree host species and host abundance affected ectomycorrhizal fungal community composition. At this early stage of the experiment, only a limited amount of carbon inputs (rhizodeposits and leaf litter) was being provided to the ecosystem due to the size of the tree saplings, and persisting legacy effects were observed. We thus expect to find increasing tree related effects on fungal community composition as forest development proceeds.}, }
@article {pmid30356187, year = {2018}, author = {Stewart, CJ and Ajami, NJ and O'Brien, JL and Hutchinson, DS and Smith, DP and Wong, MC and Ross, MC and Lloyd, RE and Doddapaneni, H and Metcalf, GA and Muzny, D and Gibbs, RA and Vatanen, T and Huttenhower, C and Xavier, RJ and Rewers, M and Hagopian, W and Toppari, J and Ziegler, AG and She, JX and Akolkar, B and Lernmark, A and Hyoty, H and Vehik, K and Krischer, JP and Petrosino, JF}, title = {Temporal development of the gut microbiome in early childhood from the TEDDY study.}, journal = {Nature}, volume = {562}, number = {7728}, pages = {583-588}, doi = {10.1038/s41586-018-0617-x}, pmid = {30356187}, issn = {1476-4687}, support = {U01 DK063821/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States ; UC4 DK063863/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States ; UL1 TR000064/TR/NCATS NIH HHS/United States ; U01 DK063836/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States ; U01 DK063829/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States ; U01 DK063865/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States ; UC4 DK095300/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States ; UC4 DK063861/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States ; UC4 DK063829/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States ; HHSN267200700014C/LM/NLM NIH HHS/United States ; UC4 DK063821/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States ; UC4 DK117483/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States ; UC4 DK063836/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States ; UC4 DK112243/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States ; HHSN267200700014C/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States ; U01 DK063861/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States ; UC4 DK063865/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States ; U01 DK063863/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States ; U01 DK063790/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States ; UC4 DK106955/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States ; UC4 DK100238/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States ; UL1 TR001082/TR/NCATS NIH HHS/United States ; }, mesh = {Adolescent ; Animals ; Bifidobacterium/classification/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Breast Feeding/statistics &amp; numerical data ; Case-Control Studies ; Child ; Child, Preschool ; Cluster Analysis ; Datasets as Topic ; Diabetes Mellitus, Type 1/immunology/microbiology ; Female ; Firmicutes/classification/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/genetics/*immunology/*physiology ; Humans ; Infant ; Male ; Milk, Human/immunology/microbiology ; Pets ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Siblings ; *Surveys and Questionnaires ; Time Factors ; }, abstract = {The development of the microbiome from infancy to childhood is dependent on a range of factors, with microbial-immune crosstalk during this time thought to be involved in the pathobiology of later life diseases1-9 such as persistent islet autoimmunity and type 1 diabetes10-12. However, to our knowledge, no studies have performed extensive characterization of the microbiome in early life in a large, multi-centre population. Here we analyse longitudinal stool samples from 903 children between 3 and 46 months of age by 16S rRNA gene sequencing (n = 12,005) and metagenomic sequencing (n = 10,867), as part of the The Environmental Determinants of Diabetes in the Young (TEDDY) study. We show that the developing gut microbiome undergoes three distinct phases of microbiome progression: a developmental phase (months 3-14), a transitional phase (months 15-30), and a stable phase (months 31-46). Receipt of breast milk, either exclusive or partial, was the most significant factor associated with the microbiome structure. Breastfeeding was associated with higher levels of Bifidobacterium species (B. breve and B. bifidum), and the cessation of breast milk resulted in faster maturation of the gut microbiome, as marked by the phylum Firmicutes. Birth mode was also significantly associated with the microbiome during the developmental phase, driven by higher levels of Bacteroides species (particularly B. fragilis) in infants delivered vaginally. Bacteroides was also associated with increased gut diversity and faster maturation, regardless of the birth mode. Environmental factors including geographical location and household exposures (such as siblings and furry pets) also represented important covariates. A nested case-control analysis revealed subtle associations between microbial taxonomy and the development of islet autoimmunity or type 1 diabetes. These data determine the structural and functional assembly of the microbiome in early life and provide a foundation for targeted mechanistic investigation into the consequences of microbial-immune crosstalk for long-term health.}, }
@article {pmid30356183, year = {2018}, author = {Vatanen, T and Franzosa, EA and Schwager, R and Tripathi, S and Arthur, TD and Vehik, K and Lernmark, Å and Hagopian, WA and Rewers, MJ and She, JX and Toppari, J and Ziegler, AG and Akolkar, B and Krischer, JP and Stewart, CJ and Ajami, NJ and Petrosino, JF and Gevers, D and Lähdesmäki, H and Vlamakis, H and Huttenhower, C and Xavier, RJ}, title = {The human gut microbiome in early-onset type 1 diabetes from the TEDDY study.}, journal = {Nature}, volume = {562}, number = {7728}, pages = {589-594}, doi = {10.1038/s41586-018-0620-2}, pmid = {30356183}, issn = {1476-4687}, support = {U01 DK063821/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States ; UC4 DK063863/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States ; UL1 TR000064/TR/NCATS NIH HHS/United States ; U01 DK063836/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States ; U01 DK063829/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States ; U01 DK063865/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States ; UC4 DK095300/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States ; UC4 DK063861/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States ; UC4 DK063829/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States ; UL1 TR002535/TR/NCATS NIH HHS/United States ; UC4 DK063821/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States ; UC4 DK117483/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States ; UC4 DK063836/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States ; UC4 DK112243/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States ; HHSN267200700014C/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States ; U54 DE023798/DE/NIDCR NIH HHS/United States ; U01 DK063861/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States ; UC4 DK063865/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States ; U01 DK063863/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States ; U01 DK063790/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States ; UC4 DK106955/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States ; UC4 DK100238/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States ; UL1 TR001082/TR/NCATS NIH HHS/United States ; R24 DK110499/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States ; }, mesh = {Age of Onset ; Animals ; Bifidobacterium/enzymology/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Breast Feeding ; Child, Preschool ; Diabetes Mellitus, Type 1/*epidemiology/genetics/*microbiology/prevention &amp; control ; Disease Models, Animal ; European Continental Ancestry Group ; Fatty Acids, Volatile/pharmacology ; Feces/microbiology ; Female ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/genetics/immunology/*physiology ; *Health Surveys ; Humans ; Infant ; Islets of Langerhans/immunology ; Longitudinal Studies ; Male ; Mice ; Milk, Human/immunology/microbiology ; Proteobacteria/enzymology/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; }, abstract = {Type 1 diabetes (T1D) is an autoimmune disease that targets pancreatic islet beta cells and incorporates genetic and environmental factors1, including complex genetic elements2, patient exposures3 and the gut microbiome4. Viral infections5 and broader gut dysbioses6 have been identified as potential causes or contributing factors; however, human studies have not yet identified microbial compositional or functional triggers that are predictive of islet autoimmunity or T1D. Here we analyse 10,913 metagenomes in stool samples from 783 mostly white, non-Hispanic children. The samples were collected monthly from three months of age until the clinical end point (islet autoimmunity or T1D) in the The Environmental Determinants of Diabetes in the Young (TEDDY) study, to characterize the natural history of the early gut microbiome in connection to islet autoimmunity, T1D diagnosis, and other common early life events such as antibiotic treatments and probiotics. The microbiomes of control children contained more genes that were related to fermentation and the biosynthesis of short-chain fatty acids, but these were not consistently associated with particular taxa across geographically diverse clinical centres, suggesting that microbial factors associated with T1D are taxonomically diffuse but functionally more coherent. When we investigated the broader establishment and development of the infant microbiome, both taxonomic and functional profiles were dynamic and highly individualized, and dominated in the first year of life by one of three largely exclusive Bifidobacterium species (B. bifidum, B. breve or B. longum) or by the phylum Proteobacteria. In particular, the strain-specific carriage of genes for the utilization of human milk oligosaccharide within a subset of B. longum was present specifically in breast-fed infants. These analyses of TEDDY gut metagenomes provide, to our knowledge, the largest and most detailed longitudinal functional profile of the developing gut microbiome in relation to islet autoimmunity, T1D and other early childhood events. Together with existing evidence from human cohorts7,8 and a T1D mouse model9, these data support the protective effects of short-chain fatty acids in early-onset human T1D.}, }
@article {pmid30353943, year = {2018}, author = {Sonoda, A and Kamiyama, N and Ozaka, S and Gendo, Y and Ozaki, T and Hirose, H and Noguchi, K and Saechue, B and Sachi, N and Sakai, K and Mizukami, K and Hidano, S and Murakami, K and Kobayashi, T}, title = {Oral administration of antibiotics results in fecal occult bleeding due to metabolic disorders and defective proliferation of the gut epithelial cell in mice.}, journal = {Genes to cells : devoted to molecular &amp; cellular mechanisms}, volume = {23}, number = {12}, pages = {1043-1055}, doi = {10.1111/gtc.12649}, pmid = {30353943}, issn = {1365-2443}, support = {//Suzuken Memorial Foundation/ ; 15K08953//Japan Society for the Promotion of Science/ ; 15K19577//Japan Society for the Promotion of Science/ ; 16K01872//Japan Society for the Promotion of Science/ ; 17H04649//Japan Society for the Promotion of Science/ ; 17H17104//Japan Society for the Promotion of Science/ ; 17K08695//Japan Society for the Promotion of Science/ ; 17K08889//Japan Society for the Promotion of Science/ ; 17K15954//Japan Society for the Promotion of Science/ ; 17K16346//Japan Society for the Promotion of Science/ ; //GlaxoSmithKline/ ; }, mesh = {Administration, Oral ; Ampicillin/administration &amp; dosage/pharmacology ; Animals ; Anti-Bacterial Agents/*administration &amp; dosage/*adverse effects ; Antimicrobial Cationic Peptides/metabolism ; Butyric Acid/pharmacology ; Carbohydrate Metabolism/drug effects ; Cecum/microbiology ; Cell Line, Tumor ; Cell Proliferation/drug effects ; Colon/*pathology ; Colonic Neoplasms/pathology ; Cytokines/metabolism ; Epithelial Cells/*pathology ; Glutamine/administration &amp; dosage ; Lipid Metabolism/drug effects ; Macrophages/drug effects/metabolism ; Metabolic Diseases/*complications ; Metabolome/drug effects ; Metagenomics ; Mice ; Microbiota/drug effects/genetics ; *Occult Blood ; RAW 264.7 Cells ; Regeneration/drug effects ; Sodium Glutamate/administration &amp; dosage ; Species Specificity ; Vancomycin/administration &amp; dosage/pharmacology ; }, abstract = {Antibiotics sometimes exert adverse effects on the pathogenesis of colitis due to the dysbiosis resulting from the disruption of gut homeostasis. However, the precise mechanisms underlying colitogenic effects of antibiotic-induced colitis are largely unknown. Here, we show a novel murine fecal occult bleeding model induced by the combinatorial treatment of ampicillin and vancomycin, which is accompanied by an enlarged cecum, upregulation of pro-inflammatory cytokines IL-6 and IL-12, a reduction in Ki-67-positive epithelial cell number and an increase in the apoptotic cell number in the colon. Moreover, gas chromatography-tandem mass analysis showed that various kinds of metabolites, including glutamic acid and butyric acid, were significantly decreased in the cecal contents. In addition, abundance of butyric acid producer Clostridiales was dramatically reduced in the enlarged cecum. Interestingly, supplementation of monosodium glutamate or its precursor glutamine suppressed colonic IL-6 and IL-12, protected from cell apoptosis and prevented fecal occult blood indicating that the reduced level of glutamic acid is a possible mechanism of antibiotic-induced fecal occult bleeding. Our data showed a novel mechanism of antibiotic-induced fecal occult bleeding providing a new insight into the clinical application of glutamic acid for the treatment of antibiotic-induced colitis.}, }
@article {pmid30346155, year = {2018}, author = {Pérez-Burillo, S and Pastoriza, S and Jiménez-Hernández, N and D'Auria, G and Francino, MP and Rufián-Henares, JA}, title = {Effect of Food Thermal Processing on the Composition of the Gut Microbiota.}, journal = {Journal of agricultural and food chemistry}, volume = {66}, number = {43}, pages = {11500-11509}, doi = {10.1021/acs.jafc.8b04077}, pmid = {30346155}, issn = {1520-5118}, mesh = {Bacteria/classification ; *Cooking ; Edible Grain ; Fabaceae ; Fatty Acids, Volatile/analysis ; Fermentation ; Fruit ; Furaldehyde/analogs &amp; derivatives/analysis ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; *Hot Temperature ; Humans ; Lysine/analogs &amp; derivatives/analysis ; Maillard Reaction ; Meat ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Vegetables ; }, abstract = {Cooking modifies food composition due to chemical reactions. Additionally, food composition shapes the human gut microbiota. Thus, the objective of this research was to unravel the effect of different food cooking methods on the structure and functionality of the gut microbiota. Common culinary techniques were applied to five foods, which were submitted to in vitro digestion-fermentation. Furosine, 5-(hydroxymethyl)furfural, and furfural were used as Maillard reaction indicators to control the heat treatment. Short-chain fatty acids production was quantified as indicator of healthy metabolic output. Gut microbial community structure was analyzed through 16S rRNA. Both food composition and cooking methods modified the microbiota composition and released short-chain fatty acids. In general, intense cooking technologies (roasting and grilling) increased the abundance of beneficial bacteria like Ruminococcus spp. or Bifidobacterium spp. compared to milder treatments (boiling). However, for some foods (banana or bread), intense cooking decreased the levels of healthy bacteria.}, }
@article {pmid30342053, year = {2018}, author = {Vallianou, NG and Stratigou, T and Tsagarakis, S}, title = {Microbiome and diabetes: Where are we now?.}, journal = {Diabetes research and clinical practice}, volume = {146}, number = {}, pages = {111-118}, doi = {10.1016/j.diabres.2018.10.008}, pmid = {30342053}, issn = {1872-8227}, mesh = {Animals ; Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2/*microbiology ; Dysbiosis/*microbiology ; Fecal Microbiota Transplantation/*methods ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/*genetics ; Humans ; Mice ; Prebiotics/*microbiology ; Probiotics/*metabolism ; }, abstract = {Alterations in the diversity or structure of gut microbiota known as dysbiosis, may affect metabolic activities, resulting in metabolic disorders, such as obesity and diabetes. The development of more sophisticated methods, such as metagenomics sequencing, PCR-denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis, microarrays and fluorescence in situ hybridization, has expanded our knowledge on gut microbiome. Dysbiosis has been related to increased plasma concentrations of gut microbiota-derived lipopolysaccharide (LPS), which triggers the production of a variety of cytokines and the recruitment of inflammatory cells. Metabolomics have demonstrated that butyrate and propionate suppress weight gain in mice with high fat diet-induced obesity, and acetate has been proven to reduce food intake in healthy mice. The role of prebiotics, probiotics, genetically modified bacteria and fecal microbiota transplantation, as potential therapeutic challenges for type 2 diabetes will be discussed in this review.}, }
@article {pmid30338752, year = {2018}, author = {Abranches, J and Zeng, L and Kajfasz, JK and Palmer, SR and Chakraborty, B and Wen, ZT and Richards, VP and Brady, LJ and Lemos, JA}, title = {Biology of Oral Streptococci.}, journal = {Microbiology spectrum}, volume = {6}, number = {5}, pages = {}, pmid = {30338752}, issn = {2165-0497}, support = {R01 DE022559/DE/NIDCR NIH HHS/United States ; HHSN272200900007C/AI/NIAID NIH HHS/United States ; }, mesh = {Carbohydrate Metabolism ; Dental Caries/microbiology ; Endocarditis/microbiology ; Fermentation ; Humans ; Hydrogen Peroxide/metabolism ; Metagenomics ; Microbiota/physiology ; Mouth/*microbiology ; Phylogeny ; Streptococcus/classification/genetics/pathogenicity/*physiology ; Streptococcus gordonii/metabolism ; Streptococcus mutans ; Streptococcus salivarius/metabolism ; }, abstract = {Bacteria belonging to the genus Streptococcus are the first inhabitants of the oral cavity, which can be acquired right after birth and thus play an important role in the assembly of the oral microbiota. In this article, we discuss the different oral environments inhabited by streptococci and the species that occupy each niche. Special attention is given to the taxonomy of Streptococcus, because this genus is now divided into eight distinct groups, and oral species are found in six of them. Oral streptococci produce an arsenal of adhesive molecules that allow them to efficiently colonize different tissues in the mouth. Also, they have a remarkable ability to metabolize carbohydrates via fermentation, thereby generating acids as byproducts. Excessive acidification of the oral environment by aciduric species such as Streptococcus mutans is directly associated with the development of dental caries. However, less acid-tolerant species such as Streptococcus salivarius and Streptococcus gordonii produce large amounts of alkali, displaying an important role in the acid-base physiology of the oral cavity. Another important characteristic of certain oral streptococci is their ability to generate hydrogen peroxide that can inhibit the growth of S. mutans. Thus, oral streptococci can also be beneficial to the host by producing molecules that are inhibitory to pathogenic species. Lastly, commensal and pathogenic streptococci residing in the oral cavity can eventually gain access to the bloodstream and cause systemic infections such as infective endocarditis.}, }
@article {pmid30336790, year = {2018}, author = {Liu, YR and Delgado-Baquerizo, M and Bi, L and Zhu, J and He, JZ}, title = {Consistent responses of soil microbial taxonomic and functional attributes to mercury pollution across China.}, journal = {Microbiome}, volume = {6}, number = {1}, pages = {183}, pmid = {30336790}, issn = {2049-2618}, mesh = {Bacteroidetes/classification/genetics/*growth &amp; development ; Biodiversity ; China ; Environmental Monitoring ; Environmental Pollution/*analysis ; Firmicutes/classification/genetics/*growth &amp; development ; Mercury/*analysis ; Metagenome/genetics ; Methylmercury Compounds/*analysis ; Microbiota/genetics ; Soil/chemistry ; Soil Microbiology ; Soil Pollutants/*analysis ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: The ecological consequences of mercury (Hg) pollution-one of the major pollutants worldwide-on microbial taxonomic and functional attributes remain poorly understood and largely unexplored. Using soils from two typical Hg-impacted regions across China, here, we evaluated the role of Hg pollution in regulating bacterial abundance, diversity, and co-occurrence network. We also investigated the associations between Hg contents and the relative abundance of microbial functional genes by analyzing the soil metagenomes from a subset of those sites.<br><br>RESULTS: We found that soil Hg largely influenced the taxonomic and functional attributes of microbial communities in the two studied regions. In general, Hg pollution was negatively related to bacterial abundance, but positively related to the diversity of bacteria in two separate regions. We also found some consistent associations between soil Hg contents and the community composition of bacteria. For example, soil total Hg content was positively related to the relative abundance of Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes in both paddy and upland soils. In contrast, the methylmercury (MeHg) concentration was negatively correlated to the relative abundance of Nitrospirae in the two types of soils. Increases in soil Hg pollution correlated with drastic changes in the relative abundance of ecological clusters within the co-occurrence network of bacterial communities for the two regions. Using metagenomic data, we were also able to detect the effect of Hg pollution on multiple functional genes relevant to key soil processes such as element cycles and Hg transformations (e.g., methylation and reduction).<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: Together, our study provides solid evidence that Hg pollution has predictable and significant effects on multiple taxonomic and functional attributes including bacterial abundance, diversity, and the relative abundance of ecological clusters and functional genes. Our results suggest an increase in soil Hg pollution linked to human activities will lead to predictable shifts in the taxonomic and functional attributes in the Hg-impacted areas, with potential implications for sustainable management of agricultural ecosystems and elsewhere.}, }
@article {pmid30332487, year = {2018}, author = {Wyman, SK and Avila-Herrera, A and Nayfach, S and Pollard, KS}, title = {A most wanted list of conserved microbial protein families with no known domains.}, journal = {PloS one}, volume = {13}, number = {10}, pages = {e0205749}, pmid = {30332487}, issn = {1932-6203}, mesh = {Bacterial Proteins/*chemistry/genetics ; Computational Biology ; *Databases, Nucleic Acid ; Humans ; Metagenome/*genetics ; Metagenomics ; Microbiota/*genetics ; Phylogeny ; Protein Domains/*genetics ; Sequence Homology, Nucleic Acid ; }, abstract = {The number and proportion of genes with no known function are growing rapidly. To quantify this phenomenon and provide criteria for prioritizing genes for functional characterization, we developed a bioinformatics pipeline that identifies robustly defined protein families with no annotated domains, ranks these with respect to phylogenetic breadth, and identifies them in metagenomics data. We applied this approach to 271 965 protein families from the SFams database and discovered many with no functional annotation, including >118 000 families lacking any known protein domain. From these, we prioritized 6 668 conserved protein families with at least three sequences from organisms in at least two distinct classes. These Function Unknown Families (FUnkFams) are present in Tara Oceans Expedition and Human Microbiome Project metagenomes, with distributions associated with sampling environment. Our findings highlight the extent of functional novelty in sequence databases and establish an approach for creating a &quot;most wanted&quot; list of genes to prioritize for further characterization.}, }
@article {pmid30326954, year = {2018}, author = {Korpela, K and Salonen, A and Vepsäläinen, O and Suomalainen, M and Kolmeder, C and Varjosalo, M and Miettinen, S and Kukkonen, K and Savilahti, E and Kuitunen, M and de Vos, WM}, title = {Probiotic supplementation restores normal microbiota composition and function in antibiotic-treated and in caesarean-born infants.}, journal = {Microbiome}, volume = {6}, number = {1}, pages = {182}, pmid = {30326954}, issn = {2049-2618}, mesh = {Anti-Bacterial Agents/*administration &amp; dosage ; Bifidobacterium/*classification ; Breast Feeding ; Cesarean Section ; Clostridium/isolation &amp; purification ; Dietary Supplements ; Double-Blind Method ; Feces/microbiology ; Female ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/*drug effects/physiology ; Humans ; Infant ; Lactobacillus rhamnosus/*classification ; Male ; Pregnancy ; Probiotics/*administration &amp; dosage ; Propionibacterium/*classification ; Proteobacteria/isolation &amp; purification ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: Infants born by caesarean section or receiving antibiotics are at increased risk of developing metabolic, inflammatory and immunological diseases, potentially due to disruption of normal gut microbiota at a critical developmental time window. We investigated whether probiotic supplementation could ameliorate the effects of antibiotic use or caesarean birth on infant microbiota in a double blind, placebo-controlled randomized clinical trial. Mothers were given a multispecies probiotic, consisting of Bifidobacterium breve Bb99 (Bp99 2 × 108 cfu) Propionibacterium freundenreichii subsp. shermanii JS (2 × 109cfu), Lactobacillus rhamnosus Lc705 (5 × 109 cfu) and Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG (5 × 109 cfu) (N = 168 breastfed and 31 formula-fed), or placebo supplement (N = 201 breastfed and 22 formula-fed) during pregnancy, and the infants were given the same supplement. Faecal samples of the infants were collected at 3 months and analyzed using taxonomic, metagenomic and metaproteomic approaches.<br><br>RESULTS: The probiotic supplement had a strong overall impact on the microbiota composition, but the effect depended on the infant's diet. Only breastfed infants showed the expected increase in bifidobacteria and reduction in Proteobacteria and Clostridia. In the placebo group, both birth mode and antibiotic use were significantly associated with altered microbiota composition and function, particularly reduced Bifidobacterium abundance. In the probiotic group, the effects of antibiotics and birth mode were either completely eliminated or reduced.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: The results indicate that it is possible to correct undesired changes in microbiota composition and function caused by antibiotic treatments or caesarean birth by supplementing infants with a probiotic mixture together with at least partial breastfeeding.<br><br>TRIAL REGISTRATION: clinicaltrials.gov NCT00298337 . Registered March 2, 2006.}, }
@article {pmid30325092, year = {2019}, author = {Zhang, SY and Tsementzi, D and Hatt, JK and Bivins, A and Khelurkar, N and Brown, J and Tripathi, SN and Konstantinidis, KT}, title = {Intensive allochthonous inputs along the Ganges River and their effect on microbial community composition and dynamics.}, journal = {Environmental microbiology}, volume = {21}, number = {1}, pages = {182-196}, doi = {10.1111/1462-2920.14439}, pmid = {30325092}, issn = {1462-2920}, support = {//Georgia Institute of Technology/ ; DEB 1241046//National Science Foundation/ ; }, abstract = {Little is known about microbial communities in the Ganges River, India and how they respond to intensive anthropogenic inputs. Here we applied shotgun metagenomics sequencing to study microbial community dynamics and function in planktonic samples collected along an approximately 700 km river transect, including urban cities and rural settings in upstream waters, before and after the monsoon rainy season. Our results showed that 11%-32% of the microbes represented terrestrial, sewage and human inputs (allochthonous). Sewage inputs significantly contributed to the higher abundance, by 13-fold of human gut microbiome (HG) associated sequences and 2-fold of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in the Ganges relative to other riverine ecosystems in Europe, North and South America. Metagenome-assembled genome sequences (MAGs) representing allochthonous populations were detectable and tractable across the river after 1-2 days of (downstream) transport (> 200 km apart). Only approximately 8% of these MAGs were abundant in U.S. freshwater ecosystems, revealing distinct biodiversity for the Ganges. Microbial communities in the rainy season exhibited increased alpha-diversity and spatial heterogeneity and showed significantly weaker distance-decay patterns compared with the dry season. These results advance our understanding of the Ganges microbial communities and how they respond to anthropogenic pollution.}, }
@article {pmid30309375, year = {2018}, author = {Zepeda Mendoza, ML and Roggenbuck, M and Manzano Vargas, K and Hansen, LH and Brunak, S and Gilbert, MTP and Sicheritz-Pontén, T}, title = {Protective role of the vulture facial skin and gut microbiomes aid adaptation to scavenging.}, journal = {Acta veterinaria Scandinavica}, volume = {60}, number = {1}, pages = {61}, pmid = {30309375}, issn = {1751-0147}, support = {R52-A5062//Lundbeckfonden/ ; }, mesh = {Adaptation, Biological ; Animals ; Animals, Wild/microbiology ; Bacteria/classification/genetics/*isolation &amp; purification ; Falconiformes/*microbiology/physiology ; *Feeding Behavior ; Gastrointestinal Tract/*microbiology ; *Microbiota ; Skin/*microbiology ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: Vultures have adapted the remarkable ability to feed on carcasses that may contain microorganisms that would be pathogenic to most other animals. The holobiont concept suggests that the genetic basis of such adaptation may not only lie within their genomes, but additionally in their associated microbes. To explore this, we generated shotgun DNA sequencing datasets of the facial skin and large intestine microbiomes of the black vulture (Coragyps atratus) and the turkey vulture (Cathartes aura). We characterized the functional potential and taxonomic diversity of their microbiomes, the potential pathogenic challenges confronted by vultures, and the microbial taxa and genes that could play a protective role on the facial skin and in the gut.<br><br>RESULTS: We found microbial taxa and genes involved in diseases, such as dermatitis and pneumonia (more abundant on the facial skin), and gas gangrene and food poisoning (more abundant in the gut). Interestingly, we found taxa and functions with potential for playing beneficial roles, such as antilisterial bacteria in the gut, and genes for the production of antiparasitics and insecticides on the facial skin. Based on the identified phages, we suggest that phages aid in the control and possibly elimination, as in phage therapy, of microbes reported as pathogenic to a variety of species. Interestingly, we identified Adineta vaga in the gut, an invertebrate that feeds on dead bacteria and protozoans, suggesting a defensive predatory mechanism. Finally, we suggest a colonization resistance role through biofilm formation played by Fusobacteria and Clostridia in the gut.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: Our results highlight the importance of complementing genomic analyses with metagenomics in order to obtain a clearer understanding of the host-microbial alliance and show the importance of microbiome-mediated health protection for adaptation to extreme diets, such as scavenging.}, }
@article {pmid30308944, year = {2018}, author = {Fehlbaum, S and Prudence, K and Kieboom, J and Heerikhuisen, M and van den Broek, T and Schuren, FHJ and Steinert, RE and Raederstorff, D}, title = {In Vitro Fermentation of Selected Prebiotics and Their Effects on the Composition and Activity of the Adult Gut Microbiota.}, journal = {International journal of molecular sciences}, volume = {19}, number = {10}, pages = {}, pmid = {30308944}, issn = {1422-0067}, mesh = {*Biodiversity ; Dietary Fiber ; Fatty Acids, Volatile/metabolism ; Feces/microbiology ; Fermentation ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; Humans ; Metagenome ; Metagenomics/methods ; *Prebiotics ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; }, abstract = {Recently, the concept of prebiotics has been revisited to expand beyond non-digestible oligosaccharides, and the requirements for selective stimulation were extended to include microbial groups other than, and additional to, bifidobacteria and lactobacilli. Here, the gut microbiota-modulating effects of well-known and novel prebiotics were studied. An in vitro fermentation screening platform (i-screen) was inoculated with adult fecal microbiota, exposed to different dietary fibers that had a range of concentrations (inulin, alpha-linked galacto-oligosaccharides (alpha-GOS), beta-linked GOS, xylo-oligosaccharides (XOS) from corn cobs and high-fiber sugar cane, and beta-glucan from oats), and compared to a positive fructo-oligosaccharide (FOS) control and a negative control (no fiber addition). All dietary fibers displayed prebiotic activity, with beta-glucan showing more distinct effects on the microbial composition and metabolism compared to the other fibers. Beta-glucan induced the growth of Prevotella and Roseburia with a concomitant increase in propionate production. Inulin and both forms of GOS and XOS had a strong bifidogenic effect on the microbial composition. A dose-response effect was observed for butyrate when exposed to beta-glucan and inulin. The findings of this study support the potential for alpha-GOS, XOS, and oat beta-glucan to serve as novel prebiotics, due to their association with the positive shifts in microbiome composition and short-chain fatty acid production that point to potential health benefits.}, }
@article {pmid30308887, year = {2019}, author = {Coble, AA and Flinders, CA and Homyack, JA and Penaluna, BE and Cronn, RC and Weitemier, K}, title = {eDNA as a tool for identifying freshwater species in sustainable forestry: A critical review and potential future applications.}, journal = {The Science of the total environment}, volume = {649}, number = {}, pages = {1157-1170}, doi = {10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.08.370}, pmid = {30308887}, issn = {1879-1026}, mesh = {Aquatic Organisms/*chemistry ; DNA/*analysis ; *Environment ; Environmental Monitoring/*methods ; *Forestry ; Fresh Water ; Hydrobiology/*methods ; }, abstract = {Environmental DNA (eDNA) is an emerging biological monitoring tool that can aid in assessing the effects of forestry and forest manufacturing activities on biota. Monitoring taxa across broad spatial and temporal scales is necessary to ensure forest management and forest manufacturing activities meet their environmental goals of maintaining biodiversity. Our objectives are to describe potential applications of eDNA across the wood products supply chain extending from regenerating forests, harvesting, and wood transport, to manufacturing facilities, and to review the current state of the science in this context. To meet our second objective, we summarize the taxa examined with targeted (PCR, qPCR or ddPCR) or metagenomic eDNA methods (eDNA metabarcoding), evaluate how estimated species richness compares between traditional field sampling and eDNA metabarcoding approaches, and compare the geographical representation of prior eDNA studies in freshwater ecosystems to global wood baskets. Potential applications of eDNA include evaluating the effects of forestry and forest manufacturing activities on aquatic biota, delineating fish-bearing versus non fish-bearing reaches, evaluating effectiveness of constructed road crossings for freshwater organism passage, and determining the presence of at-risk species. Studies using targeted eDNA approaches focused on fish, amphibians, and invertebrates, while metagenomic studies focused on fish, invertebrates, and microorganisms. Rare, threatened, or endangered species received the least attention in targeted eDNA research, but are arguably of greatest interest to sustainable forestry and forest manufacturing that seek to preserve freshwater biodiversity. Ultimately, using eDNA methods will enable forestry and forest manufacturing managers to have data-driven prioritization for conservation actions for all freshwater species.}, }
@article {pmid30308248, year = {2018}, author = {Hessler, T and Harrison, STL and Huddy, RJ}, title = {Stratification of microbial communities throughout a biological sulphate reducing up-flow anaerobic packed bed reactor, revealed through 16S metagenomics.}, journal = {Research in microbiology}, volume = {169}, number = {10}, pages = {543-551}, doi = {10.1016/j.resmic.2018.09.003}, pmid = {30308248}, issn = {1769-7123}, mesh = {Anaerobiosis ; Bacteria/classification/*genetics/isolation &amp; purification/*metabolism ; Biodegradation, Environmental ; Biodiversity ; Bioreactors/*microbiology ; DNA, Bacterial/genetics ; Genome, Bacterial ; Metagenomics ; Oxidation-Reduction ; Phylogeny ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/*genetics ; Sulfur Compounds/*metabolism ; }, abstract = {Biological sulphate reduction (BSR) is a promising low-cost treatment of acid rock drainage effluents. In this paper, the system performance and microbial ecology of a lactate supplemented BSR up-flow anaerobic packed bed reactor (UAPBR) are evaluated across reactor height and compared to a continuous stirred tank reactor (CSTR). The biomass concentrations of planktonic and biofilm communities were quantified and subsequently characterised by 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing. The defined microbial communities were shown to correlate with differing availability of lactate, volatile fatty acids produced from lactate degradation and sulphate concentration. The UAPBR was able to achieve near complete sulphate conversion at a 4-day hydraulic residence time (HRT) at a sulphate feed concentration of 10.41 mM (1 g/L). The high volumetric sulphate reduction rate of 0.184 mM/L.h achieved in the first third of the reactor was attributed to OTUs present in the planktonic and biofilm communities. While the scavenging of sulphate within the final third of the UAPBR was attributed to an acetate oxidising genus of SRB which was not detected in the lactate-fed CSTR. The detailed analyses of the microbial communities throughout the UAPBR and CSTR contribute to the growing understanding of the impact of the microbial communities of BSR reactors on system performance.}, }
@article {pmid30305166, year = {2018}, author = {Guyomar, C and Legeai, F and Jousselin, E and Mougel, C and Lemaitre, C and Simon, JC}, title = {Multi-scale characterization of symbiont diversity in the pea aphid complex through metagenomic approaches.}, journal = {Microbiome}, volume = {6}, number = {1}, pages = {181}, pmid = {30305166}, issn = {2049-2618}, mesh = {Animals ; Aphids/*microbiology ; Buchnera/classification/genetics/*isolation &amp; purification ; Genome, Bacterial/genetics ; Metagenome/genetics ; Metagenomics ; Microbiota/*genetics ; Phylogeny ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Rickettsia/classification/genetics/*isolation &amp; purification ; Symbiosis/*physiology ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: Most metazoans are involved in durable relationships with microbes which can take several forms, from mutualism to parasitism. The advances of NGS technologies and bioinformatics tools have opened opportunities to shed light on the diversity of microbial communities and to give some insights into the functions they perform in a broad array of hosts. The pea aphid is a model system for the study of insect-bacteria symbiosis. It is organized in a complex of biotypes, each adapted to specific host plants. It harbors both an obligatory symbiont supplying key nutrients and several facultative symbionts bringing additional functions to the host, such as protection against biotic and abiotic stresses. However, little is known on how the symbiont genomic diversity is structured at different scales: across host biotypes, among individuals of the same biotype, or within individual aphids, which limits our understanding on how these multi-partner symbioses evolve and interact.<br><br>RESULTS: We present a framework well adapted to the study of genomic diversity and evolutionary dynamics of the pea aphid holobiont from metagenomic read sets, based on mapping to reference genomes and whole genome variant calling. Our results revealed that the pea aphid microbiota is dominated by a few heritable bacterial symbionts reported in earlier works, with no discovery of new microbial associates. However, we detected a large and heterogeneous genotypic diversity associated with the different symbionts of the pea aphid. Partitioning analysis showed that this fine resolution diversity is distributed across the three considered scales. Phylogenetic analyses highlighted frequent horizontal transfers of facultative symbionts between host lineages, indicative of flexible associations between the pea aphid and its microbiota. However, the evolutionary dynamics of symbiotic associations strongly varied depending on the symbiont, reflecting different histories and possible constraints. In addition, at the intra-host scale, we showed that different symbiont strains may coexist inside the same aphid host.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: We present a methodological framework for the detailed analysis of NGS data from microbial communities of moderate complexity and gave major insights into the extent of diversity in pea aphid-symbiont associations and the range of evolutionary trajectories they could take.}, }
@article {pmid30301312, year = {2018}, author = {Yu, YC and Yum, SJ and Jeon, DY and Jeong, HG}, title = {Analysis of the Microbiota on Lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.) Cultivated in South Korea to Identify Foodborne Pathogens.}, journal = {Journal of microbiology and biotechnology}, volume = {28}, number = {8}, pages = {1318-1331}, doi = {10.4014/jmb.1803.03007}, pmid = {30301312}, issn = {1738-8872}, mesh = {Bacteria/classification/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Biodiversity ; DNA, Bacterial/genetics ; *Food Microbiology ; Foodborne Diseases/*microbiology ; Geography ; Lettuce/*microbiology ; Metagenomics ; Microbial Interactions ; Microbiota/genetics/*physiology ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Seasons ; Sequence Analysis, DNA ; }, abstract = {Lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.) is a major ingredient used in many food recipes in South Korea. Lettuce samples were collected during their maximum production period between April and July in order to investigate the microbiota of lettuce during different seasons. 16S rRNA gene-based sequencing was conducted using Illumina MiSeq, and real-time PCR was performed for quantification. The number of total bacterial was greater in lettuce collected in July than in that collected in April, albeit with reduced diversity. The bacterial compositions varied according to the site and season of sample collection. Potential pathogenic species such as Bacillus spp., Enterococcus casseliflavus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa showed season-specific differences. Results of the network co-occurrence analysis with core genera correlations showed characteristics of bacterial species in lettuce, and provided clues regarding the role of different microbes, including potential pathogens, in this microbiota. Although further studies are needed to determine the specific effects of regional and seasonal characteristics on the lettuce microbiota, our results imply that the 16S rRNA gene-based sequencing approach can be used to detect pathogenic bacteria in lettuce.}, }
@article {pmid30291903, year = {2018}, author = {Matsumoto, A and Yamagishi, Y and Miyamoto, K and Oka, K and Takahashi, M and Mikamo, H}, title = {Characterization of the vaginal microbiota of Japanese women.}, journal = {Anaerobe}, volume = {54}, number = {}, pages = {172-177}, doi = {10.1016/j.anaerobe.2018.10.001}, pmid = {30291903}, issn = {1095-8274}, mesh = {Adult ; Bacteria/classification/genetics/*isolation &amp; purification ; Female ; Humans ; Japan ; Lactobacillus/classification/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; *Microbiota ; Phylogeny ; Pregnancy ; Sex Work/statistics &amp; numerical data ; Vagina/*microbiology ; Young Adult ; }, abstract = {The composition of vaginal microbiota changes throughout life in response to health status, sexual activity, and pregnancy. Here the constitution of the vaginal microbiota among non-pregnant women, pregnant woman, and commercial sex workers (CSWs) in Japan were compared. Vaginal samples were obtained from 54 women between January 2014 and February 2015 and the microbiota of each was analyzed by 16S metagenomics as well as cluster and diversity analyses to identify differences. In addition, vaginal Lactobacillus spp. were isolated for comparison. Furthermore, data regarding the use of ritodrine hydrochloride by pregnant women was collected from medical charts. The vaginal microbiota were clustered into three groups. Group 1 was most often dominated by Lactobacillus spp., whereas groups 2 and 3 included not only Lactobacillus spp. but also Bifidobacterium, Atopobium, Prevotella, and Gardnerella spp., in addition to a few other taxa. In non-pregnant women, the proportions of microbes in groups 1, 2, and 3 were 31.8%, 36.4%, and 31.8%, respectively. In pregnant women, the abundance of group 1 microbes was notably greater than that of groups 2 and 3 (66.7% vs. 12.5% and 20.8%, respectively). In CSWs, the prevalence of group 3 microbes was far greater than that of group 1 (87.5% vs. 12.5%, respectively). The alpha diversity of non-pregnant women was significantly greater than that of pregnant women. The detection rate of live Lactobacillus spp. in CSWs was lower than in pregnant and non-pregnant women (25% vs. 50% and 68.2%, respectively). The vaginal microbiota of most pregnant women (60%) who received ritodrine hydrochloride was not dominated by Lactobacillus spp. These results suggest that there were clear differences in the colonization rate of Lactobacillus spp. among non-pregnant, pregnant, and CSW women groups. In addition, the dominance of Lactobacillus may influence the risk of preterm birth among women who received ritodrine hydrochloride during pregnancy.}, }
@article {pmid30285861, year = {2018}, author = {O'Neill, AM and Gallo, RL}, title = {Host-microbiome interactions and recent progress into understanding the biology of acne vulgaris.}, journal = {Microbiome}, volume = {6}, number = {1}, pages = {177}, pmid = {30285861}, issn = {2049-2618}, support = {R01 AR074302/AR/NIAMS NIH HHS/United States ; R01 AR069653/AR/NIAMS NIH HHS/United States ; U19 AI117673/AI/NIAID NIH HHS/United States ; R01 AR064781/AR/NIAMS NIH HHS/United States ; R01 AI116576/AI/NIAID NIH HHS/United States ; }, mesh = {Acne Vulgaris/drug therapy/*microbiology ; Dysbiosis/microbiology ; Hair Follicle/*microbiology ; Humans ; Metagenome/genetics ; Microbiota/genetics ; Propionibacterium acnes/*genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Sebaceous Glands/*microbiology ; Staphylococcus epidermidis/*genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; }, abstract = {Acne is one of the most common skin diseases worldwide and results in major health care costs and significant morbidity to severely affected individuals. However, the pathophysiology of this disorder is not well understood. Host-microbiome interactions that affect both innate and adaptive immune homeostasis appear to be a central factor in this disease, with recent observations suggesting that the composition and activities of the microbiota in acne is perturbed. Staphylococcus epidermidis and Cutibacterium acnes (C. acnes; formerly Propionibacterium acnes) are two major inhabitants of the skin that are thought to contribute to the disease but are also known to promote health by inhibiting the growth and invasion of pathogens. Because C. acnes is ubiquitous in sebaceous-rich skin, it is typically labeled as the etiological agent of acne yet it fails to fulfill all of Koch's postulates. The outdated model of acne progression proposes that increased sebum production promotes over-proliferation of C. acnes in a plugged hair follicle, thereby driving inflammation. In contrast, growing evidence indicates that C. acnes is equally abundant in both unaffected and acne-affected follicles. Moreover, recent advances in metagenomic sequencing of the acne microbiome have revealed a diverse population structure distinct from healthy individuals, uncovering new lineage-specific virulence determinants. In this article, we review recent developments in the interactions of skin microbes with host immunity, discussing the contribution of dysbiosis to the immunobiology of acne and newly emerging skin microbiome-based therapeutics to treat acne.}, }
@article {pmid30281913, year = {2019}, author = {Jusino, MA and Banik, MT and Palmer, JM and Wray, AK and Xiao, L and Pelton, E and Barber, JR and Kawahara, AY and Gratton, C and Peery, MZ and Lindner, DL}, title = {An improved method for utilizing high-throughput amplicon sequencing to determine the diets of insectivorous animals.}, journal = {Molecular ecology resources}, volume = {19}, number = {1}, pages = {176-190}, doi = {10.1111/1755-0998.12951}, pmid = {30281913}, issn = {1755-0998}, support = {//United States Forest Service, Northern Research Station/ ; Hatch Formula Funds//University of Wisconsin-Madison, Wisconsin Agricultural Experiment Station/ ; IOS-1121739//National Science Foundation/ ; IOS-1121807//National Science Foundation/ ; }, mesh = {Animals ; *Chiroptera ; Computational Biology/*methods ; DNA/chemistry/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Electron Transport Complex IV/genetics ; Feces/chemistry ; *Feeding Behavior ; High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing/*methods ; Metagenomics/*methods ; }, abstract = {DNA analysis of predator faeces using high-throughput amplicon sequencing (HTS) enhances our understanding of predator-prey interactions. However, conclusions drawn from this technique are constrained by biases that occur in multiple steps of the HTS workflow. To better characterize insectivorous animal diets, we used DNA from a diverse set of arthropods to assess PCR biases of commonly used and novel primer pairs for the mitochondrial gene, cytochrome oxidase C subunit 1 (COI). We compared diversity recovered from HTS of bat guano samples using a commonly used primer pair &quot;ZBJ&quot; to results using the novel primer pair &quot;ANML.&quot; To parameterize our bioinformatics pipeline, we created an arthropod mock community consisting of single-copy (cloned) COI sequences. To examine biases associated with both PCR and HTS, mock community members were combined in equimolar amounts both pre- and post-PCR. We validated our system using guano from bats fed known diets and using composite samples of morphologically identified insects collected in pitfall traps. In PCR tests, the ANML primer pair amplified 58 of 59 arthropod taxa (98%), whereas ZBJ amplified 24-40 of 59 taxa (41%-68%). Furthermore, in an HTS comparison of field-collected samples, the ANML primers detected nearly fourfold more arthropod taxa than the ZBJ primers. The additional arthropods detected include medically and economically relevant insect groups such as mosquitoes. Results revealed biases at both the PCR and sequencing levels, demonstrating the pitfalls associated with using HTS read numbers as proxies for abundance. The use of an arthropod mock community allowed for improved bioinformatics pipeline parameterization.}, }
@article {pmid30272305, year = {2018}, author = {Zhou, S and Cai, Y and Wang, M and Yang, WD and Duan, N}, title = {Oral microbial flora of patients with Sicca syndrome.}, journal = {Molecular medicine reports}, volume = {18}, number = {6}, pages = {4895-4903}, pmid = {30272305}, issn = {1791-3004}, mesh = {Biodiversity ; Case-Control Studies ; Computational Biology/methods ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Metagenome ; Metagenomics/methods ; *Microbiota ; Mouth/*microbiology ; Sjogren's Syndrome/*etiology ; }, abstract = {Primary sicca syndrome (pSS) is a systemic autoimmune disease. However, its exact etiology and pathogenesis remain elusive. Various infectious factors have been identified to be closely associated with the occurrence and development of PSS. The present study aimed to assess the composition of the oral microbial flora of patients with pSS in China in order to provide guidance for treatment. The microbial flora of nine patients with pSS and five healthy controls from East China was evaluated in saliva samples using high‑throughput sequencing. A high microbial diversity was detected in the pSS and control groups, with bacteroidetes, firmicutes and proteobacteria constituting the largest phyla in the two groups. Compared with the control group, bacteroidetes and actinobacteria were significantly more abundant in the pSS group, whereas proteobacteria were significantly less abundant. However, no significant differences in bacterial richness and diversity were observed between the two groups. According to a Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes linear discriminant analysis, genes regulating cell apoptosis and the immune and digestive systems were significantly upregulated in the pSS group compared with those in the control group. In conclusion, the present study provided basic data on the flora of the oral cavity in patients with pSS from East China and may serve as a reference for the treatment of this condition.}, }
@article {pmid30271256, year = {2018}, author = {Anslan, S and Nilsson, RH and Wurzbacher, C and Baldrian, P and Leho Tedersoo,  and Bahram, M}, title = {Great differences in performance and outcome of high-throughput sequencing data analysis platforms for fungal metabarcoding.}, journal = {MycoKeys}, volume = {}, number = {39}, pages = {29-40}, pmid = {30271256}, issn = {1314-4049}, abstract = {Along with recent developments in high-throughput sequencing (HTS) technologies and thus fast accumulation of HTS data, there has been a growing need and interest for developing tools for HTS data processing and communication. In particular, a number of bioinformatics tools have been designed for analysing metabarcoding data, each with specific features, assumptions and outputs. To evaluate the potential effect of the application of different bioinformatics workflow on the results, we compared the performance of different analysis platforms on two contrasting high-throughput sequencing data sets. Our analysis revealed that the computation time, quality of error filtering and hence output of specific bioinformatics process largely depends on the platform used. Our results show that none of the bioinformatics workflows appears to perfectly filter out the accumulated errors and generate Operational Taxonomic Units, although PipeCraft, LotuS and PIPITS perform better than QIIME2 and Galaxy for the tested fungal amplicon dataset. We conclude that the output of each platform requires manual validation of the OTUs by examining the taxonomy assignment values.}, }
@article {pmid30267472, year = {2019}, author = {Suchan, T and Talavera, G and Sáez, L and Ronikier, M and Vila, R}, title = {Pollen metabarcoding as a tool for tracking long-distance insect migrations.}, journal = {Molecular ecology resources}, volume = {19}, number = {1}, pages = {149-162}, doi = {10.1111/1755-0998.12948}, pmid = {30267472}, issn = {1755-0998}, support = {CGL2016-76322//AEI/FEDER, UE/ ; IJCI-2016-29083//MINECO programme Juan de la Cierva Incorporación/ ; LRB16/1015//British Ecological Society/ ; //Polish Academy of Sciences statutory fund/ ; 622716//FP7/ ; WW1-300R-18//National Geographic Society/ ; }, mesh = {Africa ; *Animal Migration ; Animals ; Arabia ; Butterflies/*physiology ; DNA Barcoding, Taxonomic/*methods ; Entomology/*methods ; Mediterranean Region ; Metagenomics/*methods ; Pollen/*genetics ; Spain ; }, abstract = {Insects account for a large portion of Earth's biodiversity and are key players for ecosystems, notably as pollinators. While insect migration is suspected to represent a natural phenomenon of major importance, remarkably little is known about it, except for a few flagship species. The reason for this situation is mainly due to technical limitations in the study of insect movement. Here, we propose using metabarcoding of pollen carried by insects as a method for tracking their migrations. We developed a flexible and simple protocol allowing efficient multiplexing and not requiring DNA extraction, one of the most time-consuming part of metabarcoding protocols, and apply this method to the study of the long-distance migration of the butterfly Vanessa cardui, an emerging model for insect migration. We collected 47 butterfly samples along the Mediterranean coast of Spain in spring and performed metabarcoding of pollen collected from their bodies to test for potential arrivals from the African continent. In total, we detected 157 plant species from 23 orders, most of which (82.8%) were insect-pollinated. Taxa present in Africa-Arabia represented 73.2% of our data set, and 19.1% were endemic to this region, strongly supporting the hypothesis that migratory butterflies colonize southern Europe from Africa in spring. Moreover, our data suggest that a northwards trans-Saharan migration in spring is plausible for early arrivals (February) into Europe, as shown by the presence of Saharan floristic elements. Our results demonstrate the possibility of regular insect-mediated transcontinental pollination, with potential implications for ecosystem functioning, agriculture and plant phylogeography.}, }
@article {pmid30267313, year = {2018}, author = {Song, EJ and Lee, ES and Nam, YD}, title = {Progress of analytical tools and techniques for human gut microbiome research.}, journal = {Journal of microbiology (Seoul, Korea)}, volume = {56}, number = {10}, pages = {693-705}, pmid = {30267313}, issn = {1976-3794}, mesh = {Computational Biology/*trends ; Data Analysis ; Feces/microbiology ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; Humans ; Metagenomics/*trends ; Microbiota ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Sequence Analysis, DNA ; }, abstract = {Massive DNA sequencing studies have expanded our insights and understanding of the ecological and functional characteristics of the gut microbiome. Advanced sequencing technologies allow us to understand the close association of the gut microbiome with human health and critical illnesses. In the future, analyses of the gut microbiome will provide key information associating with human individual health, which will help provide personalized health care for diseases. Numerous molecular biological analysis tools have been rapidly developed and employed for the gut microbiome researches; however, methodological differences among researchers lead to inconsistent data, limiting extensive share of data. It is therefore very essential to standardize the current methodologies and establish appropriate pipelines for human gut microbiome research. Herein, we review the methods and procedures currently available for studying the human gut microbiome, including fecal sample collection, metagenomic DNA extraction, massive DNA sequencing, and data analyses with bioinformatics. We believe that this review will contribute to the progress of gut microbiome research in the clinical and practical aspects of human health.}, }
@article {pmid30266101, year = {2018}, author = {Alneberg, J and Karlsson, CMG and Divne, AM and Bergin, C and Homa, F and Lindh, MV and Hugerth, LW and Ettema, TJG and Bertilsson, S and Andersson, AF and Pinhassi, J}, title = {Genomes from uncultivated prokaryotes: a comparison of metagenome-assembled and single-amplified genomes.}, journal = {Microbiome}, volume = {6}, number = {1}, pages = {173}, pmid = {30266101}, issn = {2049-2618}, support = {310039//European Research Council/International ; }, mesh = {Bacteria/classification/*genetics ; Genome, Bacterial/*genetics ; High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing ; Metagenome/*genetics ; Microbiota/*genetics ; *Nucleic Acid Amplification Techniques ; Oceans and Seas ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Sequence Alignment ; Sweden ; Whole Genome Sequencing/*methods ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: Prokaryotes dominate the biosphere and regulate biogeochemical processes essential to all life. Yet, our knowledge about their biology is for the most part limited to the minority that has been successfully cultured. Molecular techniques now allow for obtaining genome sequences of uncultivated prokaryotic taxa, facilitating in-depth analyses that may ultimately improve our understanding of these key organisms.<br><br>RESULTS: We compared results from two culture-independent strategies for recovering bacterial genomes: single-amplified genomes and metagenome-assembled genomes. Single-amplified genomes were obtained from samples collected at an offshore station in the Baltic Sea Proper and compared to previously obtained metagenome-assembled genomes from a time series at the same station. Among 16 single-amplified genomes analyzed, seven were found to match metagenome-assembled genomes, affiliated with a diverse set of taxa. Notably, genome pairs between the two approaches were nearly identical (average 99.51% sequence identity; range 98.77-99.84%) across overlapping regions (30-80% of each genome). Within matching pairs, the single-amplified genomes were consistently smaller and less complete, whereas the genetic functional profiles were maintained. For the metagenome-assembled genomes, only on average 3.6% of the bases were estimated to be missing from the genomes due to wrongly binned contigs.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: The strong agreement between the single-amplified and metagenome-assembled genomes emphasizes that both methods generate accurate genome information from uncultivated bacteria. Importantly, this implies that the research questions and the available resources are allowed to determine the selection of genomics approach for microbiome studies.}, }
@article {pmid30261940, year = {2018}, author = {Denman, SE and Morgavi, DP and McSweeney, CS}, title = {Review: The application of omics to rumen microbiota function.}, journal = {Animal : an international journal of animal bioscience}, volume = {12}, number = {s2}, pages = {s233-s245}, doi = {10.1017/S175173111800229X}, pmid = {30261940}, issn = {1751-732X}, mesh = {Animals ; Bacteria/*classification/genetics ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/*genetics ; Gene Expression Profiling/veterinary ; *Genomics ; Livestock ; *Metagenome ; Metagenomics ; Methane/*metabolism ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Rumen/metabolism ; }, abstract = {Rumen microbiome profiling uses 16S rRNA (18S rRNA, internal transcribed spacer) gene sequencing, a method that usually sequences a small portion of a single gene and is often biased and varies between different laboratories. Functional information can be inferred from this data, but only for those that are closely related to known annotated species, and even then may not truly reflect the function performed within the environment being studied. Genome sequencing of isolates and metagenome-assembled genomes has now reached a stage where representation of the majority of rumen bacterial genera are covered, but this still only represents a portion of rumen microbial species. The creation of a microbial genome (bins) database with associated functional annotations will provide a consistent reference to allow mapping of RNA-Seq reads for functional gene analysis from within the rumen microbiome. The integration of multiple omic analytics is linking functional gene activity, metabolic pathways and rumen metabolites with the responsible microbiota, supporting our biological understanding of the rumen system. The application of these techniques has advanced our understanding of the major microbial populations and functional pathways that are used in relation to lower methane emissions, higher feed efficiencies and responses to different feeding regimes. Continued and more precise use of these tools will lead to a detailed and comprehensive understanding of compositional and functional capacity and design of techniques for the directed intervention and manipulation of the rumen microbiota towards a desired state.}, }
@article {pmid30260956, year = {2018}, author = {Hunt, KA and Jennings, RM and Inskeep, WP and Carlson, RP}, title = {Multiscale analysis of autotroph-heterotroph interactions in a high-temperature microbial community.}, journal = {PLoS computational biology}, volume = {14}, number = {9}, pages = {e1006431}, pmid = {30260956}, issn = {1553-7358}, support = {U01 EB019416/EB/NIBIB NIH HHS/United States ; }, mesh = {Autotrophic Processes ; Biomass ; Carbon/chemistry ; Computer Simulation ; Electron Transport ; Electrons ; Ferric Compounds/*chemistry ; Genome, Archaeal ; Heterotrophic Processes ; Hot Temperature ; Iron/chemistry ; Metagenomics ; *Microbiota ; Oxygen/chemistry ; Phylogeny ; Sulfides/chemistry ; Sulfolobaceae/*metabolism ; Transcriptome ; }, abstract = {Interactions among microbial community members can lead to emergent properties, such as enhanced productivity, stability, and robustness. Iron-oxide mats in acidic (pH 2-4), high-temperature (> 65 °C) springs of Yellowstone National Park contain relatively simple microbial communities and are well-characterized geochemically. Consequently, these communities are excellent model systems for studying the metabolic activity of individual populations and key microbial interactions. The primary goals of the current study were to integrate data collected in situ with in silico calculations across process-scales encompassing enzymatic activity, cellular metabolism, community interactions, and ecosystem biogeochemistry, as well as to predict and quantify the functional limits of autotroph-heterotroph interactions. Metagenomic and transcriptomic data were used to reconstruct carbon and energy metabolisms of an important autotroph (Metallosphaera yellowstonensis) and heterotroph (Geoarchaeum sp. OSPB) from the studied Fe(III)-oxide mat communities. Standard and hybrid elementary flux mode and flux balance analyses of metabolic models predicted cellular- and community-level metabolic acclimations to simulated environmental stresses, respectively. In situ geochemical analyses, including oxygen depth-profiles, Fe(III)-oxide deposition rates, stable carbon isotopes and mat biomass concentrations, were combined with cellular models to explore autotroph-heterotroph interactions important to community structure-function. Integration of metabolic modeling with in situ measurements, including the relative population abundance of autotrophs to heterotrophs, demonstrated that Fe(III)-oxide mat communities operate at their maximum total community growth rate (i.e. sum of autotroph and heterotroph growth rates), as opposed to net community growth rate (i.e. total community growth rate subtracting autotroph consumed by heterotroph), as predicted from the maximum power principle. Integration of multiscale data with ecological theory provides a basis for predicting autotroph-heterotroph interactions and community-level cellular organization.}, }
@article {pmid30258040, year = {2018}, author = {Taft, DH and Liu, J and Maldonado-Gomez, MX and Akre, S and Huda, MN and Ahmad, SM and Stephensen, CB and Mills, DA}, title = {Bifidobacterial Dominance of the Gut in Early Life and Acquisition of Antimicrobial Resistance.}, journal = {mSphere}, volume = {3}, number = {5}, pages = {}, pmid = {30258040}, issn = {2379-5042}, support = {S10 RR029668/RR/NCRR NIH HHS/United States ; S10 RR027303/RR/NCRR NIH HHS/United States ; F32 HD093185/HD/NICHD NIH HHS/United States ; R01 AT008759/AT/NCCIH NIH HHS/United States ; R01 AT007079/AT/NCCIH NIH HHS/United States ; }, mesh = {Anti-Bacterial Agents/*pharmacology ; Bangladesh ; Bifidobacterium/genetics/*physiology ; DNA, Bacterial/genetics ; Drug Resistance, Bacterial/*genetics ; Feces/microbiology ; Female ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; Humans ; Infant ; Male ; Metagenomics ; Probiotics/therapeutic use ; Regression Analysis ; }, abstract = {Bifidobacterium species are important commensals capable of dominating the infant gut microbiome, in part by producing acids that suppress growth of other taxa. Bifidobacterium species are less prone to possessing antimicrobial resistance (AMR) genes (ARGs) than other taxa that may colonize infants. Given that AMR is a growing public health crisis and ARGs are present in the gut microbiome of humans from early life, this study examines the correlation between a Bifidobacterium-dominated infant gut microbiome and AMR levels, measured by a culture-independent metagenomic approach both in early life and as infants become toddlers. In general, Bifidobacterium dominance is associated with a significant reduction in AMR in a Bangladeshi cohort, both in the number of acquired AMR genes present and in the abundance of AMR genes. However, by year 2, Bangladeshi infants had no significant differences in AMR related to their early-life Bifidobacterium levels. A generalized linear model including all infants in a previously published Swedish cohort found a significant negative association between log-transformed total AMR and Bifidobacterium levels, thus confirming the relationship between Bifidobacterium levels and AMR. In both cohorts, there was no change between early-life and later-life AMR abundance in high-Bifidobacterium infants but a significant reduction in AMR abundance in low-Bifidobacterium infants. These results support the hypothesis that early Bifidobacterium dominance of the infant gut microbiome may help reduce colonization by taxa containing ARGs.IMPORTANCE Infants are vulnerable to an array of infectious diseases, and as the gut microbiome may serve as a reservoir of AMR for pathogens, reducing the levels of AMR in infants is important to infant health. This study demonstrates that high levels of Bifidobacterium are associated with reduced levels of AMR in early life and suggests that probiotic interventions to increase infant Bifidobacterium levels have the potential to reduce AMR in infants. However, this effect is not sustained at year 2 of age in Bangladeshi infants, underscoring the need for more detailed studies of the biogeography and timing of infant AMR acquisition.}, }
@article {pmid30250208, year = {2018}, author = {Pärnänen, K and Karkman, A and Hultman, J and Lyra, C and Bengtsson-Palme, J and Larsson, DGJ and Rautava, S and Isolauri, E and Salminen, S and Kumar, H and Satokari, R and Virta, M}, title = {Maternal gut and breast milk microbiota affect infant gut antibiotic resistome and mobile genetic elements.}, journal = {Nature communications}, volume = {9}, number = {1}, pages = {3891}, pmid = {30250208}, issn = {2041-1723}, mesh = {Anti-Bacterial Agents/*adverse effects ; Antibiotic Prophylaxis/adverse effects ; Breast Feeding ; Drug Resistance, Bacterial/*genetics ; Feces/microbiology ; Female ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/drug effects/*genetics ; Humans ; Infant ; Interspersed Repetitive Sequences/*genetics ; Maternal Inheritance ; Metagenomics ; Milk, Human/*microbiology ; Phylogeny ; Time Factors ; }, abstract = {The infant gut microbiota has a high abundance of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) compared to adults, even in the absence of antibiotic exposure. Here we study potential sources of infant gut ARGs by performing metagenomic sequencing of breast milk, as well as infant and maternal gut microbiomes. We find that fecal ARG and mobile genetic element (MGE) profiles of infants are more similar to those of their own mothers than to those of unrelated mothers. MGEs in mothers' breast milk are also shared with their own infants. Termination of breastfeeding and intrapartum antibiotic prophylaxis of mothers, which have the potential to affect microbial community composition, are associated with higher abundances of specific ARGs, the composition of which is largely shaped by bacterial phylogeny in the infant gut. Our results suggest that infants inherit the legacy of past antibiotic consumption of their mothers via transmission of genes, but microbiota composition still strongly impacts the overall resistance load.}, }
@article {pmid30249182, year = {2018}, author = {Cavalcanti, GS and Shukla, P and Morris, M and Ribeiro, B and Foley, M and Doane, MP and Thompson, CC and Edwards, MS and Dinsdale, EA and Thompson, FL}, title = {Rhodoliths holobionts in a changing ocean: host-microbes interactions mediate coralline algae resilience under ocean acidification.}, journal = {BMC genomics}, volume = {19}, number = {1}, pages = {701}, pmid = {30249182}, issn = {1471-2164}, mesh = {Biodiversity ; Hydrogen-Ion Concentration ; Metagenome ; *Microbiota/genetics ; Oceans and Seas ; Photosynthesis ; Rhodophyta/metabolism/*microbiology/physiology ; Seawater/chemistry/microbiology ; Stress, Physiological ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: Life in the ocean will increasingly have to contend with a complex matrix of concurrent shifts in environmental properties that impact their physiology and control their life histories. Rhodoliths are coralline red algae (Corallinales, Rhodophyta) that are photosynthesizers, calcifiers, and ecosystem engineers and therefore represent important targets for ocean acidification (OA) research. Here, we exposed live rhodoliths to near-future OA conditions to investigate responses in their photosynthetic capacity, calcium carbonate production, and associated microbiome using carbon uptake, decalcification assays, and whole genome shotgun sequencing metagenomic analysis, respectively. The results from our live rhodolith assays were compared to similar manipulations on dead rhodolith (calcareous skeleton) biofilms and water column microbial communities, thereby enabling the assessment of host-microbiome interaction under climate-driven environmental perturbations.<br><br>RESULTS: Under high pCO2 conditions, live rhodoliths exhibited positive physiological responses, i.e. increased photosynthetic activity, and no calcium carbonate biomass loss over time. Further, whereas the microbiome associated with live rhodoliths remained stable and resembled a healthy holobiont, the microbial community associated with the water column changed after exposure to elevated pCO2.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that a tightly regulated microbial-host interaction, as evidenced by the stability of the rhodolith microbiome recorded here under OA-like conditions, is important for host resilience to environmental stress. This study extends the scarce comprehension of microbes associated with rhodolith beds and their reaction to increased pCO2, providing a more comprehensive approach to OA studies by assessing the host holobiont.}, }
@article {pmid30248115, year = {2018}, author = {Kurobe, T and Lehman, PW and Hammock, BG and Bolotaolo, MB and Lesmeister, S and Teh, SJ}, title = {Biodiversity of cyanobacteria and other aquatic microorganisms across a freshwater to brackish water gradient determined by shotgun metagenomic sequencing analysis in the San Francisco Estuary, USA.}, journal = {PloS one}, volume = {13}, number = {9}, pages = {e0203953}, pmid = {30248115}, issn = {1932-6203}, mesh = {Bacteria/classification/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Biodiversity ; Chlorophyta/classification/genetics ; Cyanobacteria/classification/*genetics/*isolation &amp; purification ; DNA, Bacterial/genetics ; Diatoms/classification/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Estuaries ; Fresh Water/microbiology ; Genotype ; Harmful Algal Bloom ; Metagenomics ; Microcystis/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Phylogeny ; Polymerase Chain Reaction ; Saline Waters ; Salinity ; San Francisco ; Spatio-Temporal Analysis ; *Water Microbiology ; }, abstract = {Blooms of Microcystis and other harmful cyanobacteria can degrade water quality by producing cyanotoxins or other toxic compounds. The goals of this study were (1) to facilitate understanding of community structure for various aquatic microorganisms in brackish water and freshwater regions with emphasis on cyanobacteria, and (2) to test a hypothesis that Microcystis genotypes that tolerate higher salinity were blooming in brackish water environments during the severe drought, 2014. Shotgun metagenomic analysis revealed that cyanobacteria dominated the brackish water region while bacteria dominated the freshwater region. A group of cyanobacteria (e.g., Aphanizomenon, Microcystis, Planktothrix, Pseudanabaena), bacteria (e.g., Bacillus, Porphyrobacter), and diatoms (Phaeodactylum and Thalassiosira) were abundant in the brackish water region. In contrast, Hassallia (cyanobacteria) and green algae (Nannochloropsis, Chlamydomonas, and Volvox) were abundant in the landward freshwater region. Station variation was also apparent. One landward sampling station located downstream of an urbanized area differed substantially from the other stations in terms of both water chemistry and community structure, with a higher percentage of arthropods, green algae, and eukaryotes. Screening of the Microcystis internal transcribed spacer region revealed six representative genotypes, and two of which were successfully quantified using qPCR (Genotypes I and VI). Both genotypes occurred predominantly in the freshwater region, so the data from this study did not support the hypothesis that salinity tolerant Microcystis genotypes bloomed in the brackish water region in 2014.}, }
@article {pmid30242595, year = {2018}, author = {Hemmat-Jou, MH and Safari-Sinegani, AA and Mirzaie-Asl, A and Tahmourespour, A}, title = {Analysis of microbial communities in heavy metals-contaminated soils using the metagenomic approach.}, journal = {Ecotoxicology (London, England)}, volume = {27}, number = {9}, pages = {1281-1291}, pmid = {30242595}, issn = {1573-3017}, mesh = {Environmental Monitoring/*methods ; Metagenome ; *Metagenomics ; Metals, Heavy/*toxicity ; Soil ; *Soil Microbiology ; Soil Pollutants/*toxicity ; }, abstract = {Soil pollution occurring at mining sites has adverse impacts on soil microbial diversity. New approaches, such as metagenomics approach, have become a powerful tool to investigate biodiversity of soil microbial communities. In the current study, metagenomics approach was used to investigate the microbial diversity of soils contaminated with different concentrations of lead (Pb) and zinc (Zn). The contaminated soils were collected from a Pb and Zn mine. The soil total DNA was extracted and 16S rDNA genes were amplified using universal primers. The PCR amplicons were sequenced and bioinformatic analysis of metagenomes was conducted to identify prokaryotic diversity in the Pb- and Zn-contaminated soils. The results indicated that the ten most abundant bacteria in all samples were Solirubrobacter (Actinobacteria), Geobacter (Proteobacteria), Edaphobacter (Acidobacteria), Pseudomonas (Proteobacteria), Gemmatiomonas (Gemmatimonadetes), Nitrosomonas, Xanthobacter, and Sphingomonas (Proteobacteria), Pedobacter (Bacterioidetes), and Ktedonobacter (Chloroflexi), descendingly. Archaea were also numerous, and Nitrososphaerales which are important in the nitrogen cycle had the highest abundance in the samples. Although, alpha and beta diversity showed negative effects of Pb and Zn contamination on soil microbial communities, microbial diversity of the contaminated soils was not subjected to a significant change. This study provided valuable insights into microbial composition in heavy metals-contaminated soils.}, }
@article {pmid30240699, year = {2018}, author = {Harris, L and van Zyl, LJ and Kirby-McCullough, BM and Damelin, LH and Tiemessen, CT and Trindade, M}, title = {Identification and sequence analysis of two novel cryptic plasmids isolated from the vaginal mucosa of South African women.}, journal = {Plasmid}, volume = {98}, number = {}, pages = {56-62}, doi = {10.1016/j.plasmid.2018.09.008}, pmid = {30240699}, issn = {1095-9890}, mesh = {DNA, Bacterial/*genetics ; Female ; Humans ; Lactobacillus/classification/*genetics/*isolation &amp; purification/metabolism ; Microbiota ; Mucous Membrane/*microbiology ; Phylogeny ; Plasmids/chemistry/*genetics ; Sequence Analysis, DNA ; South Africa/epidemiology ; Vagina/*microbiology ; Vaginosis, Bacterial/epidemiology/*microbiology ; }, abstract = {The vaginal mucosa is dominated by Gram positive, rod shaped lactobacilli which serve as a natural barrier against infection. In both healthy- and bacterial vaginosis (BV)-infected women Lactobacillus crispatus and Lactobacillus jensenii have been found to be the predominant Lactobacillus species. Many studies have been conducted to assess factors influencing lactobacilli dominance in the vaginal microbiome. In the present study two plasmids, pLc4 and pLc17, isolated from vaginal Lactobacillus strains of both healthy and BV-infected women were characterized. The smaller plasmid, pLc4 (4224 bp), was detected in both L. crispatus and L. jensenii strains, while pLc17 was only detected in L. crispatus. Based on its nucleotide sequence pLc4 appears highly novel, with its replication protein having 44% identity to the replication initiation protein of pSMQ173b_03. Phylogenetic analysis with other Rolling Circle Replication plasmids confirmed that pLc4 shows a low degree of similarity to these plasmids. Plasmid pLc17 (16,663 bp) appears to carry both a RCR replicon and a theta replicon, which is rare in naturally occurring plasmids. pLc4 was maintained at a high copy number of 29, while pLc17 appears to be a medium copy number plasmid maintained at 11 copies per chromosome. While sequence analysis is a valuable tool to study cryptic plasmids, further function-based analysis will be required in order to fully elucidate the role of these plasmids within the vaginal milieu.}, }
@article {pmid30240114, year = {2019}, author = {Bergner, LM and Orton, RJ and da Silva Filipe, A and Shaw, AE and Becker, DJ and Tello, C and Biek, R and Streicker, DG}, title = {Using noninvasive metagenomics to characterize viral communities from wildlife.}, journal = {Molecular ecology resources}, volume = {19}, number = {1}, pages = {128-143}, doi = {10.1111/1755-0998.12946}, pmid = {30240114}, issn = {1755-0998}, support = {//Wellcome Trust/United Kingdom ; 102507/Z/13/Z//Sir Henry Dale Fellowship, jointly funded by the Wellcome Trust and Royal Society/ ; 102507/Z/13/A//Wellcome-Beit Prize/ ; MC_UU_12014/12//Medical Research Council/United Kingdom ; }, mesh = {Animals ; Biodiversity ; Chiroptera/*virology ; Feces/virology ; Metagenomics/*methods ; Oropharynx/virology ; Peru ; Sequence Analysis, DNA/*methods ; Specimen Handling/*methods ; Virus Diseases/*veterinary/virology ; Viruses/*classification/*genetics ; }, abstract = {Microbial communities play an important role in organismal and ecosystem health. While high-throughput metabarcoding has revolutionized the study of bacterial communities, generating comparable viral communities has proven elusive, particularly in wildlife samples where the diversity of viruses and limited quantities of viral nucleic acid present distinctive challenges. Metagenomic sequencing is a promising solution for studying viral communities, but the lack of standardized methods currently precludes comparisons across host taxa or localities. Here, we developed an untargeted shotgun metagenomic sequencing protocol to generate comparable viral communities from noninvasively collected faecal and oropharyngeal swabs. Using samples from common vampire bats (Desmodus rotundus), a key species for virus transmission to humans and domestic animals, we tested how different storage media, nucleic acid extraction procedures and enrichment steps affect viral community detection. Based on finding viral contamination in foetal bovine serum, we recommend storing swabs in RNAlater or another nonbiological medium. We recommend extracting nucleic acid directly from swabs rather than from supernatant or pelleted material, which had undetectable levels of viral RNA. Results from a low-input RNA library preparation protocol suggest that ribosomal RNA depletion and light DNase treatment reduce host and bacterial nucleic acid, and improve virus detection. Finally, applying our approach to twelve pooled samples from seven localities in Peru, we showed that detected viral communities saturated at the attained sequencing depth, allowing unbiased comparisons of viral community composition. Future studies using the methods outlined here will elucidate the determinants of viral communities across host species, environments and time.}, }
@article {pmid30232167, year = {2018}, author = {Ingala, MR and Simmons, NB and Perkins, SL}, title = {Bats Are an Untapped System for Understanding Microbiome Evolution in Mammals.}, journal = {mSphere}, volume = {3}, number = {5}, pages = {}, pmid = {30232167}, issn = {2379-5042}, mesh = {Animals ; Chiroptera/*microbiology ; *Diet ; Ecology ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/genetics/*physiology ; Humans ; *Metagenomics ; Phylogeny ; }, abstract = {Mammals evolved in a microbial world, and consequently, microbial symbionts have played a role in their evolution. An exciting new subdiscipline of metagenomics considers the ways in which microbes, particularly those found in the gut, have facilitated the ecological and phylogenetic radiation of mammals. However, the vast majority of such studies focus on domestic animals, laboratory models, or charismatic megafauna (e.g., pandas and chimpanzees). The result is a plethora of studies covering few taxa across the mammal tree of life, leaving broad patterns of microbiome function and evolution unclear. Wildlife microbiome research urgently needs a model system in which to test hypotheses about metagenomic involvement in host ecology and evolution. We propose that bats (Order: Chiroptera) represent a model system ideal for comparative microbiome research, affording opportunities to examine host phylogeny, diet, and other natural history characteristics in relation to the evolution of the gut microbiome.}, }
@article {pmid30231921, year = {2018}, author = {Vavourakis, CD and Andrei, AS and Mehrshad, M and Ghai, R and Sorokin, DY and Muyzer, G}, title = {A metagenomics roadmap to the uncultured genome diversity in hypersaline soda lake sediments.}, journal = {Microbiome}, volume = {6}, number = {1}, pages = {168}, pmid = {30231921}, issn = {2049-2618}, mesh = {Bacteria/classification/*genetics/isolation &amp; purification/metabolism ; Carbon Cycle ; Genetic Variation ; Genome, Bacterial ; Geologic Sediments/analysis/*microbiology ; Lakes/analysis/*microbiology ; Metagenome ; Metagenomics ; Microbiota ; Nitrogen Cycle ; Phylogeny ; Sodium Chloride/analysis ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: Hypersaline soda lakes are characterized by extreme high soluble carbonate alkalinity. Despite the high pH and salt content, highly diverse microbial communities are known to be present in soda lake brines but the microbiome of soda lake sediments received much less attention of microbiologists. Here, we performed metagenomic sequencing on soda lake sediments to give the first extensive overview of the taxonomic diversity found in these complex, extreme environments and to gain novel physiological insights into the most abundant, uncultured prokaryote lineages.<br><br>RESULTS: We sequenced five metagenomes obtained from four surface sediments of Siberian soda lakes with a pH 10 and a salt content between 70 and 400 g L-1. The recovered 16S rRNA gene sequences were mostly from Bacteria, even in the salt-saturated lakes. Most OTUs were assigned to uncultured families. We reconstructed 871 metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) spanning more than 45 phyla and discovered the first extremophilic members of the Candidate Phyla Radiation (CPR). Five new species of CPR were among the most dominant community members. Novel dominant lineages were found within previously well-characterized functional groups involved in carbon, sulfur, and nitrogen cycling. Moreover, key enzymes of the Wood-Ljungdahl pathway were encoded within at least four bacterial phyla never previously associated with this ancient anaerobic pathway for carbon fixation and dissimilation, including the Actinobacteria.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: Our first sequencing effort of hypersaline soda lake sediment metagenomes led to two important advances. First, we showed the existence and obtained the first genomes of haloalkaliphilic members of the CPR and several hundred other novel prokaryote lineages. The soda lake CPR is a functionally diverse group, but the most abundant organisms in this study are likely fermenters with a possible role in primary carbon degradation. Second, we found evidence for the presence of the Wood-Ljungdahl pathway in many more taxonomic groups than those encompassing known homo-acetogens, sulfate-reducers, and methanogens. Since only few environmental metagenomics studies have targeted sediment microbial communities and never to this extent, we expect that our findings are relevant not only for the understanding of haloalkaline environments but can also be used to set targets for future studies on marine and freshwater sediments.}, }
@article {pmid30227897, year = {2018}, author = {Arora-Williams, K and Olesen, SW and Scandella, BP and Delwiche, K and Spencer, SJ and Myers, EM and Abraham, S and Sooklal, A and Preheim, SP}, title = {Dynamics of microbial populations mediating biogeochemical cycling in a freshwater lake.}, journal = {Microbiome}, volume = {6}, number = {1}, pages = {165}, pmid = {30227897}, issn = {2049-2618}, mesh = {Bacteria/classification/isolation &amp; purification/metabolism ; Carbon/chemistry/metabolism ; Ecosystem ; Lakes/*chemistry/*microbiology ; Metagenome ; Metagenomics ; Methane/chemistry/metabolism ; *Microbiota ; Oxidation-Reduction ; Oxygen/chemistry/metabolism ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: Microbial processes are intricately linked to the depletion of oxygen in in-land and coastal water bodies, with devastating economic and ecological consequences. Microorganisms deplete oxygen during biomass decomposition, degrading the habitat of many economically important aquatic animals. Microbes then turn to alternative electron acceptors, which alter nutrient cycling and generate potent greenhouse gases. As oxygen depletion is expected to worsen with altered land use and climate change, understanding how chemical and microbial dynamics impact dead zones will aid modeling efforts to guide remediation strategies. More work is needed to understand the complex interplay between microbial genes, populations, and biogeochemistry during oxygen depletion.<br><br>RESULTS: Here, we used 16S rRNA gene surveys, shotgun metagenomic sequencing, and a previously developed biogeochemical model to identify genes and microbial populations implicated in major biogeochemical transformations in a model lake ecosystem. Shotgun metagenomic sequencing was done for one time point in Aug., 2013, and 16S rRNA gene sequencing was done for a 5-month time series (Mar.-Aug., 2013) to capture the spatiotemporal dynamics of genes and microorganisms mediating the modeled processes. Metagenomic binning analysis resulted in many metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) that are implicated in the modeled processes through gene content similarity to cultured organism and the presence of key genes involved in these pathways. The MAGs suggested some populations are capable of methane and sulfide oxidation coupled to nitrate reduction. Using the model, we observe that modulating these processes has a substantial impact on overall lake biogeochemistry. Additionally, 16S rRNA gene sequences from the metagenomic and amplicon libraries were linked to processes through the MAGs. We compared the dynamics of microbial populations in the water column to the model predictions. Many microbial populations involved in primary carbon oxidation had dynamics similar to the model, while those associated with secondary oxidation processes deviated substantially.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: This work demonstrates that the unique capabilities of resident microbial populations will substantially impact the concentration and speciation of chemicals in the water column, unless other microbial processes adjust to compensate for these differences. It further highlights the importance of the biological aspects of biogeochemical processes, such as fluctuations in microbial population dynamics. Integrating gene and population dynamics into biogeochemical models has the potential to improve predictions of the community response under altered scenarios to guide remediation efforts.}, }
@article {pmid30225935, year = {2019}, author = {Drinkwater, R and Schnell, IB and Bohmann, K and Bernard, H and Veron, G and Clare, E and Gilbert, MTP and Rossiter, SJ}, title = {Using metabarcoding to compare the suitability of two blood-feeding leech species for sampling mammalian diversity in North Borneo.}, journal = {Molecular ecology resources}, volume = {19}, number = {1}, pages = {105-117}, doi = {10.1111/1755-0998.12943}, pmid = {30225935}, issn = {1755-0998}, support = {SAS-2016-100//The Leverhulme Trust/ ; NE/K016148/1//Natural Environment Research Council/ ; DFF 5051-00140//The Danish Council for Independent Research/ ; }, mesh = {Animals ; Borneo ; Cluster Analysis ; DNA Barcoding, Taxonomic/*methods ; DNA, Ribosomal/chemistry/genetics ; *Feeding Behavior ; High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing ; *Host Specificity ; Leeches/*physiology ; Metagenomics/*methods ; Phylogeny ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Sequence Analysis, DNA ; }, abstract = {The application of high-throughput sequencing (HTS) for metabarcoding of mixed samples offers new opportunities in conservation biology. Recently, the successful detection of prey DNA from the guts of leeches has raised the possibility that these, and other blood-feeding invertebrates, might serve as useful samplers of mammals. Yet little is known about whether sympatric leech species differ in their feeding preferences, and whether this has a bearing on their relative suitability for monitoring local mammalian diversity. To address these questions, we collected spatially matched samples of two congeneric leech species Haemadipsa picta and Haemadipsa sumatrana from lowland rainforest in Borneo. For each species, we pooled ~500 leeches into batches of 10 individuals, performed PCR to target a section of the mammalian 16S rRNA locus and undertook sequencing of amplicon libraries using an Illumina MiSeq. In total, we identified sequences from 14 mammalian genera, spanning nine families and five orders. We found greater numbers of detections, and higher diversity of OTUs, in H. picta compared with H. sumatrana, with rodents only present in the former leech species. However, comparison of samples from across the landscape revealed no significant difference in mammal community composition between the leech species. We therefore suggest that H. picta is the more suitable iDNA sampler in this degraded Bornean forest. We conclude that the choice of invertebrate sampler can influence the detectability of different mammal groups and that this should be accounted for when designing iDNA studies.}, }
@article {pmid30219103, year = {2018}, author = {Uritskiy, GV and DiRuggiero, J and Taylor, J}, title = {MetaWRAP-a flexible pipeline for genome-resolved metagenomic data analysis.}, journal = {Microbiome}, volume = {6}, number = {1}, pages = {158}, pmid = {30219103}, issn = {2049-2618}, support = {R01 AI134384/AI/NIAID NIH HHS/United States ; T32 GM007231/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/United States ; U41 HG006620/HG/NHGRI NIH HHS/United States ; }, mesh = {Algorithms ; Bacteria/classification/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Data Analysis ; Data Mining ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; *Genome, Bacterial ; Humans ; Metagenome ; Metagenomics/*methods ; *Software ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: The study of microbiomes using whole-metagenome shotgun sequencing enables the analysis of uncultivated microbial populations that may have important roles in their environments. Extracting individual draft genomes (bins) facilitates metagenomic analysis at the single genome level. Software and pipelines for such analysis have become diverse and sophisticated, resulting in a significant burden for biologists to access and use them. Furthermore, while bin extraction algorithms are rapidly improving, there is still a lack of tools for their evaluation and visualization.<br><br>RESULTS: To address these challenges, we present metaWRAP, a modular pipeline software for shotgun metagenomic data analysis. MetaWRAP deploys state-of-the-art software to handle metagenomic data processing starting from raw sequencing reads and ending in metagenomic bins and their analysis. MetaWRAP is flexible enough to give investigators control over the analysis, while still being easy-to-install and easy-to-use. It includes hybrid algorithms that leverage the strengths of a variety of software to extract and refine high-quality bins from metagenomic data through bin consolidation and reassembly. MetaWRAP's hybrid bin extraction algorithm outperforms individual binning approaches and other bin consolidation programs in both synthetic and real data sets. Finally, metaWRAP comes with numerous modules for the analysis of metagenomic bins, including taxonomy assignment, abundance estimation, functional annotation, and visualization.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: MetaWRAP is an easy-to-use modular pipeline that automates the core tasks in metagenomic analysis, while contributing significant improvements to the extraction and interpretation of high-quality metagenomic bins. The bin refinement and reassembly modules of metaWRAP consistently outperform other binning approaches. Each module of metaWRAP is also a standalone component, making it a flexible and versatile tool for tackling metagenomic shotgun sequencing data. MetaWRAP is open-source software available at https://github.com/bxlab/metaWRAP .}, }
@article {pmid30217078, year = {2018}, author = {Li, Y and Hingamp, P and Watai, H and Endo, H and Yoshida, T and Ogata, H}, title = {Degenerate PCR Primers to Reveal the Diversity of Giant Viruses in Coastal Waters.}, journal = {Viruses}, volume = {10}, number = {9}, pages = {}, pmid = {30217078}, issn = {1999-4915}, support = {203143100025//Canon Foundation for Scientific Research/International ; 16KT0020//Japan Society for the Promotion of Science/International ; 17H03850//Japan Society for the Promotion of Science/International ; 26430184//Japan Society for the Promotion of Science/International ; 2016-28//Institute for Chemical Research, Kyoto University/International ; 2017-25//Institute for Chemical Research, Kyoto University/International ; ANR-11-BTBR-0008//French Investments for the Future program/International ; }, mesh = {*Biodiversity ; Computational Biology/methods ; Genome, Viral ; Giant Viruses/*classification/*genetics ; Metagenome ; Metagenomics/methods ; Phylogeny ; *Polymerase Chain Reaction/methods ; Seawater/*virology ; *Water Microbiology ; }, abstract = {&quot;Megaviridae&quot; is a proposed family of giant viruses infecting unicellular eukaryotes. These viruses are ubiquitous in the sea and have impact on marine microbial community structure and dynamics through their lytic infection cycle. However, their diversity and biogeography have been poorly characterized due to the scarce detection of Megaviridae sequences in metagenomes, as well as the limitation of reference sequences used to design specific primers for this viral group. Here, we propose a set of 82 degenerated primers (referred to as MEGAPRIMER), targeting DNA polymerase genes (polBs) of Megaviridae. MEGAPRIMER was designed based on 921 Megaviridae polBs from sequenced genomes and metagenomes. By applying this primer set to environmental DNA meta-barcoding of a coastal seawater sample, we report 5595 non-singleton operational taxonomic units (OTUs) of Megaviridae at 97% nucleotide sequence identity. The majority of the OTUs were found to form diverse clades, which were phylogenetically distantly phylogenetically related to known viruses such as Mimivirus. The Megaviridae OTUs detected in this study outnumber the giant virus OTUs identified in previous individual studies by more than an order of magnitude. Hence, MEGAPRIMER represents a useful tool to study the diversity of Megaviridae at the population level in natural environments.}, }
@article {pmid30213145, year = {2018}, author = {Gómez-Villegas, P and Vigara, J and León, R}, title = {Characterization of the Microbial Population Inhabiting a Solar Saltern Pond of the Odiel Marshlands (SW Spain).}, journal = {Marine drugs}, volume = {16}, number = {9}, pages = {}, pmid = {30213145}, issn = {1660-3397}, support = {0055_ALGARED_PLUS_5_E//INTERREG VA España-Portugal (POCTEP) 2014-2020 Cooperation Program/ ; }, mesh = {Bacteroidetes/*genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Biodiversity ; Biotechnology/methods ; DNA, Bacterial/isolation &amp; purification ; Genetic Variation ; Halobacteriales/*genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing ; Phylogeny ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; *Salinity ; Sequence Analysis, DNA ; Spain ; *Water Microbiology ; Wetlands ; }, abstract = {The solar salterns located in the Odiel marshlands, in southwest Spain, are an excellent example of a hypersaline environment inhabited by microbial populations specialized in thriving under conditions of high salinity, which remains poorly explored. Traditional culture-dependent taxonomic studies have usually under-estimated the biodiversity in saline environments due to the difficulties that many of these species have to grow at laboratory conditions. Here we compare two molecular methods to profile the microbial population present in the Odiel saltern hypersaline water ponds (33% salinity). On the one hand, the construction and characterization of two clone PCR amplified-16S rRNA libraries, and on the other, a high throughput 16S rRNA sequencing approach based on the Illumina MiSeq platform. The results reveal that both methods are comparable for the estimation of major genera, although massive sequencing provides more information about the less abundant ones. The obtained data indicate that Salinibacter ruber is the most abundant genus, followed by the archaea genera, Halorubrum and Haloquadratum. However, more than 100 additional species can be detected by Next Generation Sequencing (NGS). In addition, a preliminary study to test the biotechnological applications of this microbial population, based on its ability to produce and excrete haloenzymes, is shown.}, }
@article {pmid30209011, year = {2018}, author = {Shade, A and Dunn, RR and Blowes, SA and Keil, P and Bohannan, BJM and Herrmann, M and Küsel, K and Lennon, JT and Sanders, NJ and Storch, D and Chase, J}, title = {Macroecology to Unite All Life, Large and Small.}, journal = {Trends in ecology &amp; evolution}, volume = {33}, number = {10}, pages = {731-744}, doi = {10.1016/j.tree.2018.08.005}, pmid = {30209011}, issn = {1872-8383}, mesh = {*Biodiversity ; Ecology/classification/*methods ; }, abstract = {Macroecology is the study of the mechanisms underlying general patterns of ecology across scales. Research in microbial ecology and macroecology have long been detached. Here, we argue that it is time to bridge the gap, as they share a common currency of species and individuals, and a common goal of understanding the causes and consequences of changes in biodiversity. Microbial ecology and macroecology will mutually benefit from a unified research agenda and shared datasets that span the entirety of the biodiversity of life and the geographic expanse of the Earth.}, }
@article {pmid30205462, year = {2018}, author = {Hidalgo-Cantabrana, C and Sanozky-Dawes, R and Barrangou, R}, title = {Insights into the Human Virome Using CRISPR Spacers from Microbiomes.}, journal = {Viruses}, volume = {10}, number = {9}, pages = {}, pmid = {30205462}, issn = {1999-4915}, support = {support//North Carolina Agricultural Foundation/International ; internal support//North Carolina State University/International ; }, mesh = {*Biodiversity ; Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats ; Humans ; Metagenomics ; *Microbiota ; Viruses/*classification/genetics/*isolation &amp; purification ; }, abstract = {Due to recent advances in next-generation sequencing over the past decade, our understanding of the human microbiome and its relationship to health and disease has increased dramatically. Yet, our insights into the human virome, and its interplay with important microbes that impact human health, is relatively limited. Prokaryotic and eukaryotic viruses are present throughout the human body, comprising a large and diverse population which influences several niches and impacts our health at various body sites. The presence of prokaryotic viruses like phages, has been documented at many different body sites, with the human gut being the richest ecological niche. Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) and associated proteins constitute the adaptive immune system of bacteria, which prevents attack by invasive nucleic acid. CRISPR-Cas systems function by uptake and integration of foreign genetic element sequences into the CRISPR array, which constitutes a genomic archive of iterative vaccination events. Consequently, CRISPR spacers can be investigated to reconstruct interplay between viruses and bacteria, and metagenomic sequencing data can be exploited to provide insights into host-phage interactions within a niche. Here, we show how the CRISPR spacer content of commensal and pathogenic bacteria can be used to determine the evidence of their phage exposure. This framework opens new opportunities for investigating host-virus dynamics in metagenomic data, and highlights the need to dedicate more efforts for virome sampling and sequencing.}, }
@article {pmid30192933, year = {2018}, author = {Li, F and Chen, C and Wei, W and Wang, Z and Dai, J and Hao, L and Song, L and Zhang, X and Zeng, L and Du, H and Tang, H and Liu, N and Yang, H and Wang, J and Madsen, L and Brix, S and Kristiansen, K and Xu, X and Li, J and Wu, R and Jia, H}, title = {The metagenome of the female upper reproductive tract.}, journal = {GigaScience}, volume = {7}, number = {10}, pages = {}, pmid = {30192933}, issn = {2047-217X}, mesh = {Biodiversity ; Computational Biology/methods ; Female ; High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing ; Humans ; *Metagenome ; *Metagenomics/methods ; *Microbiota ; Reproductive Tract Infections/*microbiology ; Vagina/microbiology ; }, abstract = {Background: The human uterus is traditionally believed to be sterile, while the vaginal microbiota plays an important role in fending off pathogens. Emerging evidence demonstrates the presence of bacteria beyond the vagina. However, a microbiome-wide metagenomic analysis characterizing the diverse microbial communities has been lacking.<br><br>Results: We performed shotgun-sequencing of 52 samples from the cervical canal and the peritoneal fluid of Chinese women of reproductive age using the Illumina platform. Direct annotation of sequencing reads identified the taxonomy of bacteria, archaea, fungi and viruses, confirming and extending the results from our previous study. We replicated our previous findings in another 24 samples from the vagina, the cervical canal, the uterus and the peritoneal fluid using the BGISEQ-500 platform revealing that microorganisms in the samples from the same individuals were largely shared in the entire reproductive tract. Human sequences made up more than 99% of the 20GB raw data. After filtering, vaginal microorganisms were well covered in the generated reproductive tract gene catalogue, while the more diverse upper reproductive tract microbiota would require greater depth of sequencing and more samples to meet the full coverage scale.<br><br>Conclusions: We provide novel detailed data on the microbial composition of a largely unchartered body site, the female reproductive tract. Our results indicated the presence of an intra-individual continuum of microorganisms that gradually changed from the vagina to the peritoneal fluid. This study also provides a framework for understanding the implications of the composition and functional potential of the distinct microbial ecosystems of the female reproductive tract in relation to health and disease.}, }
@article {pmid30185512, year = {2018}, author = {Rohwer, RR and Hamilton, JJ and Newton, RJ and McMahon, KD}, title = {TaxAss: Leveraging a Custom Freshwater Database Achieves Fine-Scale Taxonomic Resolution.}, journal = {mSphere}, volume = {3}, number = {5}, pages = {}, pmid = {30185512}, issn = {2379-5042}, mesh = {Algorithms ; Animals ; Bacteria/*classification ; DNA, Bacterial/genetics ; Databases as Topic ; *Databases, Genetic ; Ecosystem ; Fresh Water/*microbiology ; *Metagenomics ; Mice ; *Microbial Consortia ; *Phylogeny ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Sequence Analysis, DNA ; }, abstract = {Taxonomy assignment of freshwater microbial communities is limited by the minimally curated phylogenies used for large taxonomy databases. Here we introduce TaxAss, a taxonomy assignment workflow that classifies 16S rRNA gene amplicon data using two taxonomy reference databases: a large comprehensive database and a small ecosystem-specific database rigorously curated by scientists within a field. We applied TaxAss to five different freshwater data sets using the comprehensive SILVA database and the freshwater-specific FreshTrain database. TaxAss increased the percentage of the data set classified compared to using only SILVA, especially at fine-resolution family to species taxon levels, while across the freshwater test data sets classifications increased by as much as 11 to 40% of total reads. A similar increase in classifications was not observed in a control mouse gut data set, which was not expected to contain freshwater bacteria. TaxAss also maintained taxonomic richness compared to using only the FreshTrain across all taxon levels from phylum to species. Without TaxAss, most organisms not represented in the FreshTrain were unclassified, but at fine taxon levels, incorrect classifications became significant. We validated TaxAss using simulated amplicon data derived from full-length clone libraries and found that 96 to 99% of test sequences were correctly classified at fine resolution. TaxAss splits a data set's sequences into two groups based on their percent identity to reference sequences in the ecosystem-specific database. Sequences with high similarity to sequences in the ecosystem-specific database are classified using that database, and the others are classified using the comprehensive database. TaxAss is free and open source and is available at https://www.github.com/McMahonLab/TaxAssIMPORTANCE Microbial communities drive ecosystem processes, but microbial community composition analyses using 16S rRNA gene amplicon data sets are limited by the lack of fine-resolution taxonomy classifications. Coarse taxonomic groupings at the phylum, class, and order levels lump ecologically distinct organisms together. To avoid this, many researchers define operational taxonomic units (OTUs) based on clustered sequences, sequence variants, or unique sequences. These fine-resolution groupings are more ecologically relevant, but OTU definitions are data set dependent and cannot be compared between data sets. Microbial ecologists studying freshwater have curated a small, ecosystem-specific taxonomy database to provide consistent and up-to-date terminology. We created TaxAss, a workflow that leverages this database to assign taxonomy. We found that TaxAss improves fine-resolution taxonomic classifications (family, genus, and species). Fine taxonomic groupings are more ecologically relevant, so they provide an alternative to OTU-based analyses that is consistent and comparable between data sets.}, }
@article {pmid30179232, year = {2018}, author = {Biller, SJ and Berube, PM and Dooley, K and Williams, M and Satinsky, BM and Hackl, T and Hogle, SL and Coe, A and Bergauer, K and Bouman, HA and Browning, TJ and De Corte, D and Hassler, C and Hulston, D and Jacquot, JE and Maas, EW and Reinthaler, T and Sintes, E and Yokokawa, T and Chisholm, SW}, title = {Marine microbial metagenomes sampled across space and time.}, journal = {Scientific data}, volume = {5}, number = {}, pages = {180176}, pmid = {30179232}, issn = {2052-4463}, mesh = {Archaea/*genetics ; Atlantic Ocean ; Bacteria/*genetics ; Biodiversity ; Ecosystem ; Eukaryota/*genetics ; *Metagenome ; Metagenomics ; Pacific Ocean ; Viruses/*genetics ; Water Microbiology ; }, abstract = {Recent advances in understanding the ecology of marine systems have been greatly facilitated by the growing availability of metagenomic data, which provide information on the identity, diversity and functional potential of the microbial community in a particular place and time. Here we present a dataset comprising over 5 terabases of metagenomic data from 610 samples spanning diverse regions of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. One set of metagenomes, collected on GEOTRACES cruises, captures large geographic transects at multiple depths per station. The second set represents two years of time-series data, collected at roughly monthly intervals from 3 depths at two long-term ocean sampling sites, Station ALOHA and BATS. These metagenomes contain genomic information from a diverse range of bacteria, archaea, eukaryotes and viruses. The data's utility is strengthened by the availability of extensive physical, chemical, and biological measurements associated with each sample. We expect that these metagenomes will facilitate a wide range of comparative studies that seek to illuminate new aspects of marine microbial ecosystems.}, }
@article {pmid30177919, year = {2018}, author = {Lin, JD and Lemay, MA and Parfrey, LW}, title = {Diverse Bacteria Utilize Alginate Within the Microbiome of the Giant Kelp Macrocystis pyrifera.}, journal = {Frontiers in microbiology}, volume = {9}, number = {}, pages = {1914}, pmid = {30177919}, issn = {1664-302X}, abstract = {Bacteria are integral to marine carbon cycling. They transfer organic carbon to higher trophic levels and remineralise it into inorganic forms. Kelp forests are among the most productive ecosystems within the global oceans, yet the diversity and metabolic capacity of bacteria that transform kelp carbon is poorly understood. Here, we use 16S amplicon and metagenomic shotgun sequencing to survey bacterial communities associated with the surfaces of the giant kelp Macrocystis pyrifera and assess the capacity of these bacteria for carbohydrate metabolism. We find that Macrocystis-associated communities are distinct from the water column, and that they become more diverse and shift in composition with blade depth, which is a proxy for tissue age. These patterns are also observed in metagenomic functional profiles, though the broader functional groups-carbohydrate active enzyme families-are largely consistent across samples and depths. Additionally, we assayed more than 250 isolates cultured from Macrocystis blades and the surrounding water column for the ability to utilize alginate, the primary polysaccharide in Macrocystis tissue. The majority of cultured bacteria (66%) demonstrated this capacity; we find that alginate utilization is patchily distributed across diverse genera in the Bacteroidetes and Proteobacteria, yet can also vary between isolates with identical 16S rRNA sequences. The genes encoding enzymes involved in alginate metabolism were detected in metagenomic data across taxonomically diverse bacterial communities, further indicating this capacity is likely widespread amongst bacteria in kelp forests. Overall, the M. pyrifera epibiota shifts across a depth gradient, demonstrating a connection between bacterial assemblage and host tissue state.}, }
@article {pmid30177915, year = {2018}, author = {Wu, YT and Yang, CY and Chiang, PW and Tseng, CH and Chiu, HH and Saeed, I and Baatar, B and Rogozin, D and Halgamuge, S and Degermendzhi, A and Tang, SL}, title = {Comprehensive Insights Into Composition, Metabolic Potentials, and Interactions Among Archaeal, Bacterial, and Viral Assemblages in Meromictic Lake Shunet in Siberia.}, journal = {Frontiers in microbiology}, volume = {9}, number = {}, pages = {1763}, pmid = {30177915}, issn = {1664-302X}, abstract = {Microorganisms are critical to maintaining stratified biogeochemical characteristics in meromictic lakes; however, their community composition and potential roles in nutrient cycling are not thoroughly described. Both metagenomics and metaviromics were used to determine the composition and capacity of archaea, bacteria, and viruses along the water column in the landlocked meromictic Lake Shunet in Siberia. Deep sequencing of 265 Gb and high-quality assembly revealed a near-complete genome corresponding to Nonlabens sp. sh3vir. in a viral sample and 38 bacterial bins (0.2-5.3 Mb each). The mixolimnion (3.0 m) had the most diverse archaeal, bacterial, and viral communities, followed by the monimolimnion (5.5 m) and chemocline (5.0 m). The bacterial and archaeal communities were dominated by Thiocapsa and Methanococcoides, respectively, whereas the viral community was dominated by Siphoviridae. The archaeal and bacterial assemblages and the associated energy metabolism were significantly related to the various depths, in accordance with the stratification of physicochemical parameters. Reconstructed elemental nutrient cycles of the three layers were interconnected, including co-occurrence of denitrification and nitrogen fixation in each layer and involved unique processes due to specific biogeochemical properties at the respective depths. According to the gene annotation, several pre-dominant yet unknown and uncultured bacteria also play potentially important roles in nutrient cycling. Reciprocal BLAST analysis revealed that the viruses were specific to the host archaea and bacteria in the mixolimnion. This study provides insights into the bacterial, archaeal, and viral assemblages and the corresponding capacity potentials in Lake Shunet, one of the three meromictic lakes in central Asia. Lake Shunet was determined to harbor specific and diverse viral, bacterial, and archaeal communities that intimately interacted, revealing patterns shaped by indigenous physicochemical parameters.}, }
@article {pmid30177353, year = {2018}, author = {Rhoads, JM and Collins, J and Fatheree, NY and Hashmi, SS and Taylor, CM and Luo, M and Hoang, TK and Gleason, WA and Van Arsdall, MR and Navarro, F and Liu, Y}, title = {Infant Colic Represents Gut Inflammation and Dysbiosis.}, journal = {The Journal of pediatrics}, volume = {203}, number = {}, pages = {55-61.e3}, doi = {10.1016/j.jpeds.2018.07.042}, pmid = {30177353}, issn = {1097-6833}, mesh = {Acinetobacter/isolation &amp; purification ; Breast Feeding ; Case-Control Studies ; Colic/*complications ; Dysbiosis/*diagnosis ; Feces/*chemistry/microbiology ; Female ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; Humans ; Infant ; Infant Formula ; Infant, Newborn ; Inflammation/*diagnosis ; Lactobacillus/isolation &amp; purification ; Leukocyte L1 Antigen Complex/*analysis ; Male ; }, abstract = {OBJECTIVE: To dissect potential confounding effects of breast milk and formula feeding on crying + fussing, fecal calprotectin, and gut microbiota in babies with colic. We hypothesized that infant colic is associated with gut inflammation linked to intestinal dysbiosis.<br><br>STUDY DESIGN: A nested case-control design of 3 of our studies was used to analyze clinical and laboratory data at presentation, comparing babies with colic with controls. All investigators other than the biostatistician were blinded during data analysis. Subjects were recruited based on their age and crying + fussy time. We screened 65 infants, 37 with colic, as defined by Barr diary (crying + fussing time >3 hours daily), who were compared with 28 noncolicky infants.<br><br>RESULTS: Fecal calprotectin was elevated in babies with colic. For each mode of infant feeding (breast milk, formula, or breast + formula), infants' fecal calprotectin was higher in babies with colic. Infants with colic had similar levels of fecal alpha diversity (richness) when compared with controls, and alpha diversity was lower in breast-fed babies. Beta diversity at the phylum level revealed significant differences in microbial population. A phylum difference resulted from reduced Actinobacteria (95% of which are Bifidobacilli) in babies with colic. Species significantly associated with colic were Acinetobacter and Lactobacillus iners.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: Colic is linked with gut inflammation (as determined by fecal calprotectin) and dysbiosis, independent of mode of feeding, with fewer Bifidobacilli.<br><br>TRIAL REGISTRATION: Clinicaltrials.gov: NCT01279265 and NCT01849991.}, }
@article {pmid30173738, year = {2018}, author = {Stroebel, C and Alexander, T and Workentine, ML and Timsit, E}, title = {Effects of transportation to and co-mingling at an auction market on nasopharyngeal and tracheal bacterial communities of recently weaned beef cattle.}, journal = {Veterinary microbiology}, volume = {223}, number = {}, pages = {126-133}, doi = {10.1016/j.vetmic.2018.08.007}, pmid = {30173738}, issn = {1873-2542}, mesh = {Animals ; Bacteria/genetics/*isolation &amp; purification ; Bovine Respiratory Disease Complex/*microbiology ; Cattle ; DNA, Bacterial/chemistry/genetics ; Female ; *Metagenomics ; *Microbiota ; Moraxella/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Mycoplasma/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Nasopharynx/microbiology ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/chemistry/genetics ; Trachea/microbiology ; Transportation ; Weaning ; }, abstract = {The objective was to study effects of transportation to and co-mingling at an auction market on nasopharyngeal and tracheal bacterial communities of feedlot cattle. Two groups of 30 Angus-cross heifers were studied from weaning to 28 d after arrival at a feedlot. For each group, half the heifers were either transported directly to a feedlot after weaning (RANC) or transported to and co-mingled at an auction market for 24 h before being placed in a feedlot (AUCT). Deep nasal swabs (DNS) and trans-tracheal aspirates (TTA) were collected at weaning (d0) and at on-arrival processing at the feedlot (d2). At 7 (d9) and 28 d (d30) after arrival, DNS were repeated. The DNA was extracted from DNS and TTA and the V4 region of the 16S rRNA gene sequenced (MiSeq). Alpha diversity analysis did not reveal differences between AUCT and RANC. However, bacterial diversity decreased over time in the nasopharynx, especially at d9. Although beta-diversity was not different between AUCT and RANC, interval after arrival and feedlot where heifers were placed affected composition of the nasopharyngeal bacterial communities. In both groups, a large increase in Mycoplasma was observed after arrival; in one group, Mycoplasma bovis was dominant at d9 and remained dominant until d30. However, in the other group, Mycoplasma dispar dominated at d9 and was replaced by Moraxella at d30. We concluded that transportation to and co-mingling at an auction market for 24 h did not significantly influence diversity or composition of nasopharyngeal or tracheal bacterial communities.}, }
@article {pmid30168288, year = {2018}, author = {Minich, JJ and Zhu, Q and Xu, ZZ and Amir, A and Ngochera, M and Simwaka, M and Allen, EE and Zidana, H and Knight, R}, title = {Microbial effects of livestock manure fertilization on freshwater aquaculture ponds rearing tilapia (Oreochromis shiranus) and North African catfish (Clarias gariepinus).}, journal = {MicrobiologyOpen}, volume = {7}, number = {6}, pages = {e00716}, doi = {10.1002/mbo3.716}, pmid = {30168288}, issn = {2045-8827}, mesh = {Animal Feed/analysis/microbiology ; Animals ; Aquaculture ; Bacteria/classification/genetics/*isolation &amp; purification ; Catfishes/*growth &amp; development/metabolism ; Cattle ; Livestock ; Manure/analysis/*microbiology ; Microbiota ; Ponds/analysis/*microbiology ; Poultry ; Swine ; Tilapia/*growth &amp; development/metabolism ; }, abstract = {The majority of seafood is farmed, with most finfish coming from freshwater ponds. Ponds are often fertilized to promote microbial productivity as a natural feed source to fish. To understand if pond fertilization with livestock manure induces a probiotic or prebiotic effect, we communally reared tilapia (Oreochromis shiranus), and North African catfish (Clarias gariepinus), for 4 weeks under seven manure treatments including layer chicken, broiler chicken, guinea fowl, quail, pig, cow, vs. commercial feed to evaluate microbial community dynamics of the manure, pond water, and fish feces using 16S and 18S rRNA marker genes along with metagenome sequencing. Catfish growth, but not tilapia, was positively associated with plankton abundance (p = 0.0006, R2 = 0.4887) and greatest in ponds fertilized with quail manure (ANOVA, p < 0.05). Manure was unique and influenced the 16S microbiome in pond water, tilapia gut, and catfish gut and 18S community in pond water and catfish guts (PERMANOVA, p = 0.001). On average, 18.5%, 18.6%, and 45.3% of manure bacteria sOTUs, (sub-operational taxonomic units), were present in the water column, catfish feces, and tilapia feces which comprised 3.7%, 12.8%, and 10.9% of the total microbial richness of the communities, respectively. Antibiotic resistance genes were highest in the manure and water samples followed by tilapia feces and lowest in catfish feces (p < 0.0001). In this study, we demonstrate how the bacterial and eukaryotic microbial composition of fish ponds are influenced by specific livestock manure inputs and that the gut microbiome of tilapia is more sensitive and responsive than catfish to these changes. We conclude that animal manure used as fertilizer induces a primarily prebiotic effect on the pond ecosystem rather than a direct probiotic effect on fish.}, }
@article {pmid30166168, year = {2018}, author = {Li, Z and Feng, C and Luo, X and Yao, H and Zhang, D and Zhang, T}, title = {Revealing the influence of microbiota on the quality of Pu-erh tea during fermentation process by shotgun metagenomic and metabolomic analysis.}, journal = {Food microbiology}, volume = {76}, number = {}, pages = {405-415}, doi = {10.1016/j.fm.2018.07.001}, pmid = {30166168}, issn = {1095-9998}, mesh = {Aspergillus/classification/genetics/isolation &amp; purification/metabolism ; Bacteria/classification/genetics/isolation &amp; purification/*metabolism ; Camellia sinensis/chemistry/*microbiology ; Fermentation ; Flavoring Agents/chemistry/metabolism ; Metabolomics ; Metagenomics ; *Microbiota ; Phenols/chemistry/metabolism ; Quality Control ; Tea/*chemistry/microbiology ; }, abstract = {Multispecies microbial community in natural solid-state fermentation (SSF) is crucial for the formation of Chinese Pu-erh tea's unique quality. However, the association between microbiota and tea quality are still poorly understood. Herein, shotgun metagenomic and metabolomic analysis showed that significant variations in composition of microbiota, collective functional genes, and flavour compounds occurred during SSF process. Furthermore, the formation pathways of the dominant flavours including theabrownin, methoxy-phenolic compound, alcohol and carvone were proposed. Moreover, biological interaction networks analysis among functional core microbiota, functional genes, and dominant flavours indicated Aspergillus was the main flavour-producing microorganism in the early SSF, while many other genera including Bacillus, Rasamsonia, Lichtheimia, Debaryomyces were determined as the functional core microorganism for flavours production in the late SSF. This study provides a perspective for bridging the gap between the microbiota and quality in Pu-erh tea, and benefited for further optimizing production efficiency and product quality.}, }
@article {pmid30166158, year = {2018}, author = {Bouju-Albert, A and Pilet, MF and Guillou, S}, title = {Influence of lactate and acetate removal on the microbiota of French fresh pork sausages.}, journal = {Food microbiology}, volume = {76}, number = {}, pages = {328-336}, doi = {10.1016/j.fm.2018.06.011}, pmid = {30166158}, issn = {1095-9998}, mesh = {Acetates/*pharmacology ; Animals ; Brochothrix/drug effects/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Colony Count, Microbial ; Food Microbiology/methods ; Food Packaging/methods ; Food Preservation/methods ; Food Preservatives/chemistry/*pharmacology ; Hydrogen-Ion Concentration ; Lactic Acid/*pharmacology ; Lactobacillus/drug effects/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Leuconostoc/drug effects/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Meat Products/analysis/*microbiology ; Metagenomics ; Microbiota/*drug effects/genetics ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S ; Red Meat/*microbiology ; Swine ; Vacuum ; }, abstract = {The microbiota of fresh French pork sausages were characterised in five batches of comminuted pork meat that were equally divided into two formulations either containing the acid-based preservatives lactate and acetate, or no preservatives. Conventional microbiological analysis and high-throughput 16S rDNA amplicon sequencing methods were performed on meat batches packed under modified atmosphere (70% oxygen and 30% carbon dioxide) during chilled storage. In addition, meat pH and colour, and gas composition of the packages were monitored until the end of the shelf-life. During storage, the population of mesophilic and lactic acid bacteria increased from 4 log CFU/g to 8 log CFU/g after 15 days of chilled storage, both with and without preservatives. Despite similar changes of the physical and chemical parameters, such as pH and package gas composition, spoilage was delayed in the meat containing the preservatives, suggesting that lactate and acetate are effective against spoilage. Metagenetic analysis showed that at the end of the shelf-life, the species distribution differed between both the formulations and the batches. Lactic acid bacteria were shown to dominate both with and without preservatives; however, samples containing no preservatives were characterised by the presence of an increased population of Brochothrix spp. and Pseudomonas spp. whereas, Leuconostoc mesenteroides/pseudomesenteroides and Lactobacillus curvatus/graminis were more abundant in the meat with preservatives.}, }
@article {pmid30166157, year = {2018}, author = {Jung, MJ and Kim, MS and Yun, JH and Lee, JY and Kim, PS and Lee, HW and Ha, JH and Roh, SW and Bae, JW}, title = {Viral community predicts the geographical origin of fermented vegetable foods more precisely than bacterial community.}, journal = {Food microbiology}, volume = {76}, number = {}, pages = {319-327}, doi = {10.1016/j.fm.2018.06.010}, pmid = {30166157}, issn = {1095-9998}, mesh = {Bacteria/genetics/isolation &amp; purification/virology ; Bacteriophages/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Brassica/microbiology ; DNA, Bacterial/genetics ; DNA, Viral/genetics ; Fermented Foods/*microbiology/*virology ; Food Microbiology ; Geography ; High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing ; Humans ; Lactobacillales/genetics/isolation &amp; purification/virology ; Metagenomics ; Microbiota/*genetics ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Sequence Analysis, DNA ; Vegetables/*microbiology/*virology ; }, abstract = {Fermented foods are considered as an integral part of the global human diet. Fermented foods also have unique microbial communities such as bacteria, archaea, fungi, and viruses that are essential to the fermentation process and affect final product characteristics. Despite the ecological importance of virus, little is known about the diversity and ecological role of virus in the food ecosystem. In this study, the viral and host bacterial communities from 10 representative samples of Korean and Chinese kimchi were analyzed in triplicate using next-generation sequencing technology. The overall structures of bacterial and viral communities were dominated by lactic acid bacteria in phylum Firmicutes and bacteriophages in order Caudovirales, respectively. For the single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) viruses, bacteriophage in family Microviridae were dominant in Korean kimchi. After correction for multiple comparisons using false discovery rate (FDR, P < 0.05), the relative abundances of 6 bacterial taxa and 33 viral host taxa at the genus level were significantly different between Korean and Chinese kimchi. Notably, in beta-diversity analysis, viral communities were much more clearly separated according to their geographical origin (PERMANOVA pseudo-F = 11.57, P < 0.001 in Bray-Curtis PCoA) than bacterial communities (pseudo-F = 4.75, P < 0.001 in unweighted UniFrac PCoA). Thus, viral metagenomics represents a potentially useful in-depth analytical method for determining the geographical origins of fermented foods.}, }
@article {pmid30166151, year = {2018}, author = {Mataragas, M and Alessandria, V and Ferrocino, I and Rantsiou, K and Cocolin, L}, title = {A bioinformatics pipeline integrating predictive metagenomics profiling for the analysis of 16S rDNA/rRNA sequencing data originated from foods.}, journal = {Food microbiology}, volume = {76}, number = {}, pages = {279-286}, doi = {10.1016/j.fm.2018.05.009}, pmid = {30166151}, issn = {1095-9998}, mesh = {Algorithms ; Cheese/microbiology ; *Computational Biology ; DNA, Ribosomal ; Food Microbiology/methods ; High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing ; Metabolic Networks and Pathways ; Metagenomics/*methods ; Microbial Consortia/*genetics ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/*genetics ; *Sequence Analysis, DNA ; Software ; }, abstract = {The recent advances in molecular biology, such as the advent of next-generation sequencing (NGS) platforms, have paved the way to new exciting tools which rapidly transform food microbiology. Nowadays, NGS methods such as 16S rDNA/rRNA metagenomics or amplicon sequencing are used for the taxonomic profiling of the food microbial communities. Although 16S rDNA/rRNA NGS-based microbial data are not suited for the investigation of the functional potential of the identified operational taxonomic units as compared to shotgun metagenomics, advances in the bioinformatics discipline allow now the performance of such studies. In this paper, a bioinformatics workflow is described integrating predictive metagenomics profiling with specific application to food microbiology data. Bioinformatics tools pertinent to each sub-module of the pipeline are suggested as well. The published 16S rDNA/rRNA amplicon data originated from an Italian Grana-type cheese, using an NGS platform, was employed to demonstrate the predictive metagenomics profiling approach. The pipeline identified the microbial community and the changes that occurred in the microbial profile during manufacture of the food product studied (taxonomic profiling). The workflow also indicated significant changes in the functional profiling of the community. The tool may help to investigate the functional potential, alterations, and interactions of a microbial community. The proposed workflow may also find an application in the investigation of the ecology of foodborne pathogens encountered in various food products.}, }
@article {pmid30165813, year = {2018}, author = {Rotimi, AM and Pierneef, R and Reva, ON}, title = {Selection of marker genes for genetic barcoding of microorganisms and binning of metagenomic reads by Barcoder software tools.}, journal = {BMC bioinformatics}, volume = {19}, number = {1}, pages = {309}, pmid = {30165813}, issn = {1471-2105}, support = {93664//National Research Foundation/ ; }, mesh = {Algorithms ; Bacteria/*genetics ; Base Sequence ; DNA Barcoding, Taxonomic/*methods ; *Genes, Bacterial ; Genetic Markers ; Humans ; Metagenome/genetics ; Metagenomics/*methods ; Microbiota/genetics ; Phylogeny ; ROC Curve ; Reproducibility of Results ; Sample Size ; *Software ; Species Specificity ; Whole Genome Sequencing ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: Metagenomic approaches have revealed the complexity of environmental microbiomes with the advancement in whole genome sequencing displaying a significant level of genetic heterogeneity on the species level. It has become apparent that patterns of superior bioactivity of bacteria applicable in biotechnology as well as the enhanced virulence of pathogens often requires distinguishing between closely related species or sub-species. Current methods for binning of metagenomic reads usually do not allow for identification below the genus level and generally stops at the family level.<br><br>RESULTS: In this work, an attempt was made to improve metagenomic binning resolution by creating genome specific barcodes based on the core and accessory genomes. This protocol was implemented in novel software tools available for use and download from http://bargene.bi.up.ac.za /. The most abundant barcode genes from the core genomes were found to encode for ribosomal proteins, certain central metabolic genes and ABC transporters. Performance of metabarcode sequences created by this package was evaluated using artificially generated and publically available metagenomic datasets. Furthermore, a program (Barcoding 2.0) was developed to align reads against barcode sequences and thereafter calculate various parameters to score the alignments and the individual barcodes. Taxonomic units were identified in metagenomic samples by comparison of the calculated barcode scores to set cut-off values. In this study, it was found that varying sample sizes, i.e. number of reads in a metagenome and metabarcode lengths, had no significant effect on the sensitivity and specificity of the algorithm. Receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curves were calculated for different taxonomic groups based on the results of identification of the corresponding genomes in artificial metagenomic datasets. The reliability of distinguishing between species of the same genus or family by the program was nearly perfect.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: The results showed that the novel online tool BarcodeGenerator (http://bargene.bi.up.ac.za /) is an efficient approach for generating barcode sequences from a set of complete genomes provided by users. Another program, Barcoder 2.0 is available from the same resource to enable an efficient and practical use of metabarcodes for visualization of the distribution of organisms of interest in environmental and clinical samples.}, }
@article {pmid30158489, year = {2018}, author = {Garcia, R and La Clair, JJ and Müller, R}, title = {Future Directions of Marine Myxobacterial Natural Product Discovery Inferred from Metagenomics.}, journal = {Marine drugs}, volume = {16}, number = {9}, pages = {}, pmid = {30158489}, issn = {1660-3397}, support = {German Center for Infection Research//Deutsches Zentrum für Infektionsforschung/ ; X//Xenobe Research Institute/ ; }, mesh = {Aquatic Organisms/*genetics/metabolism ; Biodiversity ; Biological Products/metabolism/*pharmacology ; DNA, Bacterial/genetics ; *Metagenomics ; Myxococcales/*genetics/metabolism ; Phylogeny ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/*genetics ; Salt Tolerance/genetics ; Sequence Analysis, DNA ; }, abstract = {Over the last two decades, halophilic (organisms that thrive at high salt concentrations) and halotolerant (organisms that have adapted to high salt concentrations) myxobacteria emerged as an important source of structurally diverse secondary metabolites from the marine environment. This review explores the advance of metagenomics analysis and 16S rRNA gene phylogeny of the cultured and uncultured myxobacteria from marine and other salt-environments up to July 2018. The diversity of novel groups of myxobacteria in these environments appears unprecedented, especially in the Sorangiineae and Nannocystineae suborders. The Sandaracinaceae related clade in the Sorangiineae suborder seems more widely distributed compared to the exclusively marine myxobacterial cluster. Some of the previously identified clones from metagenomic studies were found to be related to the Nannocystineae suborder. This understanding provides the foundation for a vital, unexplored resource. Understanding the conditions required to cultivate these yet &quot;uncultured&quot; myxobacteria in the laboratory, while a key next step, offers a significant potential to further expand access to diverse secondary metabolites.}, }
@article {pmid30155977, year = {2018}, author = {Bálint, M and Nowak, C and Márton, O and Pauls, SU and Wittwer, C and Aramayo, JL and Schulze, A and Chambert, T and Cocchiararo, B and Jansen, M}, title = {Accuracy, limitations and cost efficiency of eDNA-based community survey in tropical frogs.}, journal = {Molecular ecology resources}, volume = {18}, number = {6}, pages = {1415-1426}, doi = {10.1111/1755-0998.12934}, pmid = {30155977}, issn = {1755-0998}, support = {//USGS Amphibian Research and Monitoring Initiative/ ; //Globetrotter/ ; //Erika and Walter Datz-Stiftung/ ; LOEWE - Landes-Offensive zur Entwicklung Wissens//Hessisches Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Kunst/ ; //Ministry of Higher Education/ ; }, mesh = {Amphibians/*classification/*genetics ; Animals ; *Biota ; Bolivia ; Costs and Cost Analysis ; DNA Barcoding, Taxonomic/economics/*methods ; Metagenomics/economics/*methods ; Tropical Climate ; }, abstract = {Rapid environmental change in highly biodiverse tropical regions demands efficient biomonitoring programmes. While existing metrics of species diversity and community composition rely on encounter-based survey data, eDNA recently emerged as alternative approach. Costs and ecological value of eDNA-based methods have rarely been evaluated in tropical regions, where high species richness is accompanied by high functional diversity (e.g., the use of different microhabitats by different species and life stages). We first tested whether estimation of tropical frogs' community structure derived from eDNA data is compatible with expert field assessments. Next, we evaluated whether eDNA is a financially viable solution for biodiversity monitoring in tropical regions. We applied eDNA metabarcoding to investigate frog species occurrence in five ponds in the Chiquitano dry forest region in Bolivia and compared our data with a simultaneous visual and audio encounter survey (VAES). We found that taxon lists and community structure generated with eDNA and VAES correspond closely, and most deviations are attributable to different species' life histories. Cost efficiency of eDNA surveys was mostly influenced by the richness of local fauna and the number of surveyed sites: VAES may be less costly in low-diversity regions, but eDNA quickly becomes more cost-efficient in high-diversity regions with many sites sampled. The results highlight that eDNA is suitable for large-scale biodiversity surveys in high-diversity areas if life history is considered, and certain precautions in sampling, genetic analyses and data interpretation are taken. We anticipate that spatially extensive, standardized eDNA biodiversity surveys will quickly emerge in the future.}, }
@article {pmid30153857, year = {2018}, author = {Ugarte, A and Vicedomini, R and Bernardes, J and Carbone, A}, title = {A multi-source domain annotation pipeline for quantitative metagenomic and metatranscriptomic functional profiling.}, journal = {Microbiome}, volume = {6}, number = {1}, pages = {149}, pmid = {30153857}, issn = {2049-2618}, mesh = {Algorithms ; Bacteria/classification/*genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Bacterial Proteins/*chemistry/*genetics/metabolism ; Databases, Genetic ; Environmental Microbiology ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; Humans ; Metagenome ; Metagenomics/*methods ; Molecular Sequence Annotation/*methods ; Protein Domains ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: Biochemical and regulatory pathways have until recently been thought and modelled within one cell type, one organism and one species. This vision is being dramatically changed by the advent of whole microbiome sequencing studies, revealing the role of symbiotic microbial populations in fundamental biochemical functions. The new landscape we face requires the reconstruction of biochemical and regulatory pathways at the community level in a given environment. In order to understand how environmental factors affect the genetic material and the dynamics of the expression from one environment to another, we want to evaluate the quantity of gene protein sequences or transcripts associated to a given pathway by precisely estimating the abundance of protein domains, their weak presence or absence in environmental samples.<br><br>RESULTS: MetaCLADE is a novel profile-based domain annotation pipeline based on a multi-source domain annotation strategy. It applies directly to reads and improves identification of the catalog of functions in microbiomes. MetaCLADE is applied to simulated data and to more than ten metagenomic and metatranscriptomic datasets from different environments where it outperforms InterProScan in the number of annotated domains. It is compared to the state-of-the-art non-profile-based and profile-based methods, UProC and HMM-GRASPx, showing complementary predictions to UProC. A combination of MetaCLADE and UProC improves even further the functional annotation of environmental samples.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: Learning about the functional activity of environmental microbial communities is a crucial step to understand microbial interactions and large-scale environmental impact. MetaCLADE has been explicitly designed for metagenomic and metatranscriptomic data and allows for the discovery of patterns in divergent sequences, thanks to its multi-source strategy. MetaCLADE highly improves current domain annotation methods and reaches a fine degree of accuracy in annotation of very different environments such as soil and marine ecosystems, ancient metagenomes and human tissues.}, }
@article {pmid30152883, year = {2018}, author = {Toivonen, L and Hasegawa, K and Ajami, NJ and Celedón, JC and Mansbach, JM and Petrosino, JF and Camargo, CA}, title = {Circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D, nasopharyngeal microbiota, and bronchiolitis severity.}, journal = {Pediatric allergy and immunology : official publication of the European Society of Pediatric Allergy and Immunology}, volume = {29}, number = {8}, pages = {877-880}, pmid = {30152883}, issn = {1399-3038}, support = {//Päivikki ja Sakari Sohlbergin Säätiö/International ; R01 AI134940/AI/NIAID NIH HHS/United States ; U01 AI087881/AI/NIAID NIH HHS/United States ; UH3 OD023253/OD/NIH HHS/United States ; R01 AI137091/AI/NIAID NIH HHS/United States ; //Suomen Lääketieteen Säätiö/International ; UG3 OD023253/OD/NIH HHS/United States ; }, mesh = {Bronchiolitis/*etiology ; Cohort Studies ; Female ; Humans ; Infant ; Male ; Microbiota/genetics/*immunology ; Nasopharynx/*microbiology ; Prospective Studies ; Risk Factors ; United States ; Vitamin D/*analogs &amp; derivatives/blood ; }, }
@article {pmid30149004, year = {2018}, author = {Kim, JY and Kim, EM and Yi, MH and Lee, J and Lee, S and Hwang, Y and Yong, D and Sohn, WM and Yong, TS}, title = {Intestinal fluke Metagonimus yokogawai infection increases probiotic Lactobacillus in mouse cecum.}, journal = {Experimental parasitology}, volume = {193}, number = {}, pages = {45-50}, doi = {10.1016/j.exppara.2018.08.002}, pmid = {30149004}, issn = {1090-2449}, mesh = {Animals ; Bacteria/classification/growth &amp; development ; Cecum/*microbiology ; Fish Diseases/parasitology ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; Heterophyidae/*physiology ; *Lactobacillus ; Mice ; Mice, Inbred ICR ; Osmeriformes/parasitology ; *Probiotics ; Trematode Infections/*microbiology ; }, abstract = {Helminth infection can alleviate immune-mediated disorders such as allergies and autoimmune diseases, by altering the gut microbiome. However, changes in gut microbiome due to intestinal trematodes remain unelucidated. Here, we evaluated the changes in the gut microbiome of ICR mice infected with Metagonimus yokogawai, a hypo-virulent intestinal trematode. Four weeks after infection, mouse cecal content was analyzed by 16S rRNA amplicon analysis. Although there was no apparent difference in species richness and diversity, the microbiome composition was different in the infected and control groups. Furthermore, several Lactobacillus species with known immunomodulatory role in immune-mediated diseases were increased in the infected group.}, }
@article {pmid30143202, year = {2018}, author = {Shikata, A and Sermsathanaswadi, J and Thianheng, P and Baramee, S and Tachaapaikoon, C and Waeonukul, R and Pason, P and Ratanakhanokchai, K and Kosugi, A}, title = {Characterization of an Anaerobic, Thermophilic, Alkaliphilic, High Lignocellulosic Biomass-Degrading Bacterial Community, ISHI-3, Isolated from Biocompost.}, journal = {Enzyme and microbial technology}, volume = {118}, number = {}, pages = {66-75}, doi = {10.1016/j.enzmictec.2018.07.001}, pmid = {30143202}, issn = {1879-0909}, mesh = {Alkalies/chemistry ; Animals ; Bacteria, Anaerobic/growth &amp; development ; *Biomass ; Cattle ; *Composting ; Lignin/*metabolism ; Metagenome ; *Microbial Consortia ; Oryza/*metabolism/microbiology ; Phylogeny ; Temperature ; Zea mays/*metabolism/microbiology ; }, abstract = {The generation of a complex microbial consortium is a promising approach for efficient biomass decomposition. An anaerobic thermophilic alkaliphilic microbial consortium with efficient degradation ability was screened from bovine manure compost using non-pretreated milling corn stover (CS) and rice straw (RS). A stable microbial consortium ISHI-3 with high degradation ability for CS and RS was isolated by the roll tube technique. ISHI-3 comprised Herbivorax saccincola and bacteria belonging to the classes Pelotomaculum, Tepidanaerobacter, and Tepidimicrobium, as determined by DGGE of the PCR-generated 16S rRNA genes. Furthermore, metagenomics analysis using a 16S rRNA library was carried out to determine the bacterial distribution during degradation of CS and RS. H. saccincola and bacteria belonging to Pelotomaculum were relatively abundant in the beginning to middle periods of culture with CS and RS whereas bacteria belonging to Tepidanaerobacter and Tepidimicrobium gradually increased in the population during the later stages. To understand the role of non-cellulolytic bacteria in the consortium, novel strains ET1 and GL4, which were most closely related to Tepidimicrobium ferriphilum and Tepidanaerobacter acetatoxydans, were isolated from ISHI-3. Based on their carbon source usage, morphology, and phylogenetic analysis, we propose that strains ET1 and GL4 should be classified as a novel genus or species. Bacteria ET1 and GL4 can utilize different organic compounds as carbon and energy sources such as organic acids, alcohols, sugars, and amino acids, showing a preference for organic acids and alcohols rather than sugars such as glucose and cellobiose. These results indicated that ET1 and GL4 help to accelerate efficient lignocellulose degradation of H. saccincola.}, }
@article {pmid30143055, year = {2018}, author = {Chiarello, M and Auguet, JC and Bettarel, Y and Bouvier, C and Claverie, T and Graham, NAJ and Rieuvilleneuve, F and Sucré, E and Bouvier, T and Villéger, S}, title = {Skin microbiome of coral reef fish is highly variable and driven by host phylogeny and diet.}, journal = {Microbiome}, volume = {6}, number = {1}, pages = {147}, pmid = {30143055}, issn = {2049-2618}, mesh = {Animal Feed ; Animals ; Bacteria/*classification/genetics ; Biodiversity ; Coral Reefs ; Fishes/classification/*microbiology ; Humans ; Metagenomics/*methods ; Microbiota ; Phylogeny ; Plankton/microbiology ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Sequence Analysis, DNA/*methods ; Skin/microbiology ; Species Specificity ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: The surface of marine animals is covered by abundant and diversified microbial communities, which have major roles for the health of their host. While such microbiomes have been deeply examined in marine invertebrates such as corals and sponges, the microbiomes living on marine vertebrates have received less attention. Specifically, the diversity of these microbiomes, their variability among species, and their drivers are still mostly unknown, especially among the fish species living on coral reefs that contribute to key ecosystem services while they are increasingly affected by human activities. Here, we investigated these knowledge gaps analyzing the skin microbiome of 138 fish individuals belonging to 44 coral reef fish species living in the same area.<br><br>RESULTS: Prokaryotic communities living on the skin of coral reef fishes are highly diverse, with on average more than 600 OTUs per fish, and differ from planktonic microbes. Skin microbiomes varied between fish individual and species, and interspecific differences were slightly coupled to the phylogenetic affiliation of the host and its ecological traits.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: These results highlight that coral reef biodiversity is greater than previously appreciated, since the high diversity of macro-organisms supports a highly diversified microbial community. This suggest that beyond the loss of coral reefs-associated macroscopic species, anthropic activities on coral reefs could also lead to a loss of still unexplored host-associated microbial diversity, which urgently needs to be assessed.}, }
@article {pmid30141128, year = {2019}, author = {Li, H and Mishra, M and Ding, S and Miyamoto, MM}, title = {Diversity and Dynamics of &quot;Candidatus Endobugula&quot; and Other Symbiotic Bacteria in Chinese Populations of the Bryozoan, Bugula neritina.}, journal = {Microbial ecology}, volume = {77}, number = {1}, pages = {243-256}, doi = {10.1007/s00248-018-1233-x}, pmid = {30141128}, issn = {1432-184X}, support = {201205024-2//Public Welfare Project of the State Oceanic Administration/ ; 2013FY110700//National Basic Research Foundation of China/ ; }, mesh = {Animals ; Biodiversity ; Bryostatins/metabolism ; Bryozoa/growth &amp; development/*microbiology ; China ; DNA, Bacterial/isolation &amp; purification ; Ecology ; Gammaproteobacteria/*classification/genetics/*isolation &amp; purification/*metabolism ; Geography ; Larva/microbiology ; Life Cycle Stages ; *Metagenomics ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; *Symbiosis ; }, abstract = {Bugula neritina is a common invasive cosmopolitan bryozoan that harbors (like many sessile marine invertebrates) a symbiotic bacterial (SB) community. Among the SB of B. neritina, &quot;Candidatus Endobugula sertula&quot; continues to receive the greatest attention, because it is the source of bryostatins. The bryostatins are potent bioactive polyketides, which have been investigated for their therapeutic potential to treat various cancers, Alzheimer's disease, and AIDS. In this study, we compare the metagenomics sequences for the 16S ribosomal RNA gene of the SB communities from different geographic and life cycle samples of Chinese B. neritina. Using a variety of approaches for estimating alpha/beta diversity and taxonomic abundance, we find that the SB communities vary geographically with invertebrate and fish mariculture and with latitude and environmental temperature. During the B. neritina life cycle, we find that the diversity and taxonomic abundances of the SB communities change with the onset of host metamorphosis, filter feeding, colony formation, reproduction, and increased bryostatin production. &quot;Ca. Endobugula sertula&quot; is confirmed as the symbiont of the Chinese &quot;Ca. Endobugula&quot;/B. neritina symbiosis. Our study extends our knowledge about B. neritina symbiosis from the New to the Old World and offers new insights into the environmental and life cycle factors that can influence its SB communities, &quot;Ca. Endobugula,&quot; and bryostatins more globally.}, }
@article {pmid30138419, year = {2018}, author = {Oliveira, JL and Cury, JC and Gurgel-Gonçalves, R and Bahia, AC and Monteiro, FA}, title = {Field-collected Triatoma sordida from central Brazil display high microbiota diversity that varies with regard to developmental stage and intestinal segmentation.}, journal = {PLoS neglected tropical diseases}, volume = {12}, number = {8}, pages = {e0006709}, pmid = {30138419}, issn = {1935-2735}, mesh = {Animals ; Bacteria/*classification ; Brazil ; Female ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; Gastrointestinal Tract/*microbiology ; Male ; Nymph ; RNA, Bacterial/genetics ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Triatoma/growth &amp; development/*microbiology ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND/METHODOLOGY: Triatomine bugs are the vectors of Trypanosoma cruzi, the agent of Chagas disease. Vector control has for decades relied upon insecticide spraying, but insecticide resistance has recently emerged in several triatomine populations. One alternative strategy to reduce T. cruzi transmission is paratransgenesis, whereby symbiotic bacteria are genetically engineered to produce T. cruzi-killing proteins in the vector's gut. This approach requires in-depth knowledge of the vectors' natural gut microbiota. Here, we use metagenomics (16S rRNA 454 pyrosequencing) to describe the gut microbiota of field-caught Triatoma sordida-likely the most common peridomestic triatomine in Brazil. For large nymphs (4th and 5th stage) and adults, we also studied separately the three main digestive-tract segments-anterior midgut, posterior midgut, and hindgut.<br><br>PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Bacteria of four phyla (12 genera) were present in both nymphs (all five stages) and adults, thus defining T. sordida's 'bacterial core': Actinobacteria (Brevibacterium, Corynebacterium, Dietzia, Gordonia, Nitriliruptor, Nocardia, Nocardiopsis, Rhodococcus, and Williamsia), Proteobacteria (Pseudomonas and Sphingobium), and Firmicutes (Staphylococcus). We found some clear differences in bacterial composition and relative abundance among development stages; overall, Firmicutes and Proteobacteria increased, but Actinobacteria decreased, through development. Finally, the bacterial microbiotas of the bugs' anterior midgut, posterior midgut, and hindgut were sharply distinct.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Our results identify the 'bacterial core set' of T. sordida and reveal important gut microbiota differences among development stages-particularly between 1st-3rd stage nymphs and adults. Further, we show that, within any given development stage, the vectors' gut cannot be regarded as a single homogeneous environment. Cultivable, non-pathogenic 'core' bacterial species may now be tested as candidates for paratransgenic control of T. cruzi transmission by T. sordida.}, }
@article {pmid30138339, year = {2018}, author = {Whitfield-Cargile, CM and Chamoun-Emanuelli, AM and Cohen, ND and Richardson, LM and Ajami, NJ and Dockery, HJ}, title = {Differential effects of selective and non-selective cyclooxygenase inhibitors on fecal microbiota in adult horses.}, journal = {PloS one}, volume = {13}, number = {8}, pages = {e0202527}, pmid = {30138339}, issn = {1932-6203}, mesh = {4-Butyrolactone/administration &amp; dosage/adverse effects/analogs &amp; derivatives ; Adult ; Animals ; Anti-Inflammatory Agents, Non-Steroidal/*administration &amp; dosage/adverse effects ; Cyclooxygenase 2/genetics ; Cyclooxygenase 2 Inhibitors/*administration &amp; dosage/adverse effects ; Feces/microbiology ; Horses/microbiology ; Humans ; Metagenome/drug effects ; Microbiota/*drug effects ; Phenylbutazone/administration &amp; dosage/adverse effects ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/*genetics ; Sulfones/administration &amp; dosage/adverse effects ; }, abstract = {Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are routinely used in both veterinary and human medicine. Gastrointestinal injury is a frequent adverse event associated with NSAID use and evidence suggests that NSAIDs induce gastrointestinal microbial imbalance (i.e., dysbiosis) in both animals and people. It is unknown, however, whether cyclooxygenase (COX)-2-selective NSAIDs induce dysbiosis, or if this phenomenon occurs in horses administered any class of NSAIDs. Therefore, our objectives were to determine whether the composition and diversity of the fecal microbiota of adult horses were altered by NSAID use, and whether these effects differed between non-selective and COX-2-selective NSAIDs. Twenty-five adult horses were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 groups: control (n = 5); phenylbutazone (n = 10); or, firocoxib (n = 10). Treatments were administered for 10 days. Fecal samples were collected every 5 days for 25 days. DNA was extracted from feces and the 16S rRNA gene amplified and sequenced to determine the composition of the microbiota and the inferred metagenome. While the fecal microbiota profile of the control group remained stable over time, the phenylbutazone and firocoxib groups had decreased diversity, and alteration of their microbiota profiles was most pronounced at day 10. Similarly, there were clear alterations of the inferred metagenome at day 10 compared to all other days, indicating that use of both non-selective and selective COX inhibitors resulted in temporary alterations of the fecal microbiota and inferred metagenome. Dysbiosis associated with NSAID administration is clinically relevant because dysbiosis has been associated with several important diseases of horses including abdominal pain (colic), colitis, enteric infections, and laminitis.}, }
@article {pmid30137571, year = {2019}, author = {Chen, WL and Tang, SGH and Jahromi, MF and Candyrine, SCL and Idrus, Z and Abdullah, N and Liang, JB}, title = {Metagenomics analysis reveals significant modulation of cecal microbiota of broilers fed palm kernel expeller diets.}, journal = {Poultry science}, volume = {98}, number = {1}, pages = {56-68}, doi = {10.3382/ps/pey366}, pmid = {30137571}, issn = {1525-3171}, mesh = {Animal Feed/analysis ; Animal Nutritional Physiological Phenomena ; Animals ; Arecaceae/chemistry ; Cecum/*microbiology ; Chickens/*microbiology ; Diet/veterinary ; Firmicutes/isolation &amp; purification ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/*drug effects/genetics ; Lactobacillus/isolation &amp; purification ; Male ; *Metagenome ; Oligosaccharides/pharmacology ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S ; }, abstract = {The potential use of palm kernel expeller (PKE) as an alternative energy source in broiler diets is limited by the high fiber content. Although enzymatic treatment could alleviate the fiber component and increase the nutritive value of PKE, this apparent improvement is not reflected in the growth response of birds fed with the treated-PKE. As chicken's ceca are the most heavily populated with microflora within their gastrointestinal tract, it was hypothesized that any modulation of the intestinal environment by dietary treatments should be reflected by the composition and activities of the cecal microflora. There is a correlation between cecal microbiota composition and the efficiency of the host to extract energy from the diet and to deposit that energy into improved feed conversion ratio. At present, little is known about the changes on cecal microflora of broilers fed with PKE diets. Hence, this study was designed to assess the effects of feeding different forms of PKE; namely untreated PKE (UPKE), enzyme-treated PKE (EPKE), and oligosaccharides extracted from PKE (OligoPKE), on the cecal microbiota of broiler chickens at 14 d old (day 14) and 28 d old (day 28) using 16S rRNA gene high-throughput next-generation sequencing method. The results showed that temporal changes in cecal microbiota of broiler chickens were evident on day 14 and day 28. The relative abundance of phylum Firmicutes, known to be involved in nutrient uptake and absorption in both age groups was higher in the UPKE as compared to EPKE group. In addition, supplementation of OligoPKE increased (P < 0.05) the relative abundance of Lactobacillus on both D14 and D28, signifying its effect as prebiotics in enhancing growth of indigenous Lactobacillus. Our results showed that cecal microbiota was significantly modulated by dietary treatments and that the lower relative abundance of phylum Firmicutes in chickens fed with EPKE could be a reason why broiler chickens fed with EPKE of higher metabolizable energy (ME) content did not show improvement in their growth performance.}, }
@article {pmid30134786, year = {2018}, author = {Denning, NL and Prince, JM}, title = {Neonatal intestinal dysbiosis in necrotizing enterocolitis.}, journal = {Molecular medicine (Cambridge, Mass.)}, volume = {24}, number = {1}, pages = {4}, pmid = {30134786}, issn = {1528-3658}, mesh = {Animals ; Anti-Bacterial Agents/therapeutic use ; *Dysbiosis/chemically induced ; *Enterocolitis, Necrotizing/immunology/microbiology ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; Histamine H2 Antagonists/therapeutic use ; Humans ; Infant, Newborn ; Toll-Like Receptors/immunology ; }, abstract = {Necrotizing Enterocolitis (NEC) is one of the most devastating gastrointestinal diseases in neonates, particularly among preterm infants in whom surgical NEC is the leading cause of morbidity. NEC pathophysiology occurs in the hyper-reactive milieu of the premature gut after bacterial colonization. The resultant activation of the TLR4 pathway appears to be a strongly contributing factor. Advancements in metagenomics may yield new clarity to the relationship between the neonatal intestinal microbiome and the development of NEC. After a century without effective directed treatments, microbiome manipulation offers a promising therapeutic target for the prevention and treatment of this devastating disease.}, }
@article {pmid30131068, year = {2018}, author = {Jiao, S and Chen, W and Wang, J and Du, N and Li, Q and Wei, G}, title = {Soil microbiomes with distinct assemblies through vertical soil profiles drive the cycling of multiple nutrients in reforested ecosystems.}, journal = {Microbiome}, volume = {6}, number = {1}, pages = {146}, pmid = {30131068}, issn = {2049-2618}, mesh = {Archaea/*classification/genetics/isolation &amp; purification/metabolism ; Bacteria/*classification/genetics/isolation &amp; purification/metabolism ; Biodiversity ; Fungi/*classification/genetics/isolation &amp; purification/metabolism ; Metagenomics ; Nutrients/metabolism ; Phylogeny ; Plant Roots/microbiology ; Sequence Analysis, DNA ; Soil/chemistry ; Soil Microbiology ; Trees/*growth &amp; development/microbiology ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: Soil microbiomes play an important role in the services and functioning of terrestrial ecosystems. However, little is known of their vertical responses to restoration process and their contributions to soil nutrient cycling in the subsurface profiles. Here, we investigated the community assembly of soil bacteria, archaea, and fungi along vertical (i.e., soil depths of 0-300 cm) and horizontal (i.e., distance from trees of 30-90 cm) profiles in a chronosequence of reforestation sites that represent over 30 years of restoration.<br><br>RESULTS: In the superficial layers (0-80 cm), bacterial and fungal diversity decreased, whereas archaeal diversity increased with increasing soil depth. As reforestation proceeded over time, the vertical spatial variation in bacterial communities decreased, while that in archaeal and fungal communities increased. Vertical distributions of the soil microbiomes were more related to the variation in soil properties, while their horizontal distributions may be driven by a gradient effect of roots extending from the tree. Bacterial and archaeal beta-diversity were strongly related to multi-nutrient cycling in the soil, respectively, playing major roles in deep and superficial layers.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: Taken together, these results reveal a new perspective on the vertical and horizontal spatial variation in soil microbiomes at the fine scale of single trees. Distinct response patterns underpinned the contributions of soil bacteria, archaea, and fungi as a function of subsurface nutrient cycling during the reforestation of ex-arable land.}, }
@article {pmid30129704, year = {2018}, author = {Macher, JN and Vivancos, A and Piggott, JJ and Centeno, FC and Matthaei, CD and Leese, F}, title = {Comparison of environmental DNA and bulk-sample metabarcoding using highly degenerate cytochrome c oxidase I primers.}, journal = {Molecular ecology resources}, volume = {18}, number = {6}, pages = {1456-1468}, doi = {10.1111/1755-0998.12940}, pmid = {30129704}, issn = {1755-0998}, mesh = {Aquatic Organisms/classification/*genetics ; DNA/chemistry/*genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; DNA Barcoding, Taxonomic/*methods ; DNA Primers/*genetics ; Electron Transport Complex IV/*genetics ; *Fresh Water ; Metagenomics/*methods ; New Zealand ; Rivers ; }, abstract = {Freshwater biodiversity provides important ecosystem services and is at the core of water quality monitoring worldwide. To assess freshwater biodiversity, genetic methods such as metabarcoding are increasingly used as they are faster and allow better taxonomic resolution than manual identification methods. Either sampled organisms are used directly for &quot;bulk metabarcoding,&quot; or water is filtered and the extracted environmental DNA serves as a proxy for biodiversity via &quot;eDNA metabarcoding.&quot; Despite the advantages of both methods, questions remain regarding their comparability and applicability for routine biomonitoring and stressor impact assessment. Therefore, we compared metabarcoding results from bulk and eDNA samples taken from 19 streams spanning a wide gradient of farming intensities in New Zealand. We performed PCR with highly degenerate cytochrome c oxidase I primers and sequenced libraries on an Illumina MiSeq. The inferred community composition differed strongly between the two methods. More taxa were captured by eDNA than bulk-sample metabarcoding (5,819 vs. 1,483), but more of the commonly used invertebrate bioindicator taxa (mayflies, stoneflies and caddisflies) were found in bulk (47) than eDNA samples (37). Catchment-wide and local land use impacts on communities were detected better by eDNA metabarcoding, especially for non-metazoan taxa. Our findings imply that bulk-sample metabarcoding resembles classical freshwater biomonitoring approaches better, as more indicator macroinvertebrate taxa are captured. However, eDNA metabarcoding might be better suited to infer the impact of stressors on stream ecosystems at larger scales, as many new and potentially more informative taxa are registered. We therefore suggest exploring both methods in future assessments of stream biodiversity.}, }
@article {pmid30128756, year = {2018}, author = {Mukhtar, S and Mirza, BS and Mehnaz, S and Mirza, MS and Mclean, J and Malik, KA}, title = {Impact of soil salinity on the microbial structure of halophyte rhizosphere microbiome.}, journal = {World journal of microbiology &amp; biotechnology}, volume = {34}, number = {9}, pages = {136}, pmid = {30128756}, issn = {1573-0972}, support = {Project # HEC (FD/2012/1843)//Higher Education Commission, Pakistan/ ; Project # 5-9/PAS/2012/969//Pakistan Academy of Sciences/ ; }, mesh = {Archaea/*classification/genetics ; Bacteria/*classification/genetics ; DNA, Bacterial ; Ecosystem ; Metagenomics ; Microbiota/genetics/*physiology ; Pakistan ; Phylogeny ; Plant Roots/microbiology ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Rhizosphere ; *Salinity ; Salt-Tolerant Plants/classification/*microbiology ; Soil/*chemistry ; *Soil Microbiology ; }, abstract = {The rhizosphere microbiome plays a significant role in the life of plants in promoting plant survival under adverse conditions. However, limited information is available about microbial diversity in saline environments. In the current study, we compared the composition of the rhizosphere microbiomes of the halophytes Urochloa, Kochia, Salsola, and Atriplex living in moderate and high salinity environments (Khewra salt mines; Pakistan) with that of the non-halophyte Triticum. Soil microbiomes analysis using pyrosequencing of 16S rRNA gene indicated that Actinobacteria were dominant in saline soil samples whereas Proteobacteria predominated in non-saline soil samples. Firmicutes, Acidobacteria, Bacteriodetes and Thaumarchaeota were predominant phyla in saline and non-saline soils, whereas Cyanobacteria, Verrucomicrobia, Gemmatimonadetes and the unclassified WPS-2 were less abundant. Sequences from Euryarchaeota, Ignavibacteriae, and Nanohaloarchaeota were identified only from the rhizosphere of halophytes. Dominant halophilic bacteria and archaea identified in this study included Agrococcus, Armatimonadetes gp4, Halalkalicoccus, Haloferula and Halobacterium. Our analysis showed that increases in soil salinity correlated with significant differences in the alpha and beta diversity of the microbial communities across saline and non-saline soil samples. Having a complete inventory of the soil bacteria from different saline environments in Pakistan will help in the discovery of potential inoculants for crops growing on salt-affected land.}, }
@article {pmid30126456, year = {2018}, author = {Milani, C and Casey, E and Lugli, GA and Moore, R and Kaczorowska, J and Feehily, C and Mangifesta, M and Mancabelli, L and Duranti, S and Turroni, F and Bottacini, F and Mahony, J and Cotter, PD and McAuliffe, FM and van Sinderen, D and Ventura, M}, title = {Tracing mother-infant transmission of bacteriophages by means of a novel analytical tool for shotgun metagenomic datasets: METAnnotatorX.}, journal = {Microbiome}, volume = {6}, number = {1}, pages = {145}, pmid = {30126456}, issn = {2049-2618}, mesh = {Bacteriophages/*classification/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Computational Biology/*methods/standards ; Feces/*virology ; Female ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; Genotype ; Humans ; Infant, Newborn ; Male ; Metagenomics/*methods/standards ; Mothers ; Sequence Analysis, DNA/methods ; Software ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: Despite the relevance of viral populations, our knowledge of (bacterio) phage populations, i.e., the phageome, suffers from the absence of a &quot;gold standard&quot; protocol for viral DNA extraction with associated in silico sequence processing analyses. To overcome this apparent hiatus, we present here a comprehensive performance evaluation of various protocols and propose an optimized pipeline that covers DNA extraction, sequencing, and bioinformatic analysis of phageome data.<br><br>RESULTS: Five widely used protocols for viral DNA extraction from fecal samples were tested for their performance in removal of non-viral DNA. Moreover, we developed a novel bioinformatic platform, METAnnotatorX, for metagenomic dataset analysis. This in silico tool facilitates a range of read- and assembly-based analyses, including taxonomic profiling using an iterative multi-database pipeline, classification of contigs at genus and species level, as well as functional characterizations of reads and assembled data. Performances of METAnnotatorX were assessed through investigation of seven mother-newborn pairs, leading to the identification of shared phage genotypes, of which two were genomically decoded and characterized. METAnnotatorX was furthermore employed to evaluate a protocol for the identification of contaminant non-viral DNA in sequenced datasets and was exploited to determine the amount of metagenomic data needed for robust evaluation of human adult-derived (fecal) phageomes.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: Results obtained in this study demonstrate that a comprehensive pipeline for analysis of phageomes will be pivotal for future explorations of the ecology of phages in the gut environment as well as for understanding their impact on the physiology and bacterial community kinetics as players of dysbiosis and homeostasis in the gut microbiota.}, }
@article {pmid30124863, year = {2018}, author = {McGrath, C}, title = {Up in the Air: The Emerging Science of Dust and Sandstorm Microbes.}, journal = {Genome biology and evolution}, volume = {10}, number = {8}, pages = {2008-2009}, pmid = {30124863}, issn = {1759-6653}, mesh = {*Dust ; Health ; Humans ; Metagenomics ; *Microbiota ; Soil Microbiology ; }, }
@article {pmid30123190, year = {2018}, author = {Roscini, L and Tristezza, M and Corte, L and Colabella, C and Perrotta, C and Rampino, P and Robert, V and Vu, D and Cardinali, G and Grieco, F}, title = {Early Ongoing Speciation of Ogataea uvarum Sp. Nov. Within the Grape Ecosystem Revealed by the Internal Variability Among the rDNA Operon Repeats.}, journal = {Frontiers in microbiology}, volume = {9}, number = {}, pages = {1687}, pmid = {30123190}, issn = {1664-302X}, abstract = {A yeast strain was isolated during a study on vineyard-associated yeast strains from Apulia in Southern Italy. ITS and LSU D1/D2 rDNA sequences showed this strain not to belong to any known species and was described as the type strain of Ogataea uvarum sp. nov., a close relative of O. philodendri. Several secondary peaks appeared in the sequences, suggesting internal heterogeneity among the copies of the rDNA. This hypothesis was tested by sequencing single clones of the marker region. The analyses showed different levels of variability throughout the operon with differences between the rRNA encoding genes and the internally transcribed regions. O. uvarum and O. philodendri share high frequency variants, i.e., variants frequently found in many clones, whereas there is a large variability of the low frequency polymorphisms, suggesting that the mechanism of homogenization is more active with the former than with the latter type of variation. These findings indicate that low frequency variants are detected in Sanger sequencing as secondary peaks whereas in Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) of metagenomics DNA would lead to an overestimate of the alpha diversity. For the first time in our knowledge, this investigation shed light on the variation of the copy number of the rDNA cistron during the yeast speciation process. These polymorphisms can be used to investigate on the processes occurring in these taxonomic markers during the separation of fungal species, it being a genetic process highly frequent in the complex microbial ecosystem existing in grape, must and wine.}, }
@article {pmid30122883, year = {2018}, author = {Zhao, Y and Mao, YF and Tang, YS and Ni, MZ and Liu, QH and Wang, Y and Feng, Q and Peng, JH and Hu, YY}, title = {Altered oral microbiota in chronic hepatitis B patients with different tongue coatings.}, journal = {World journal of gastroenterology}, volume = {24}, number = {30}, pages = {3448-3461}, pmid = {30122883}, issn = {2219-2840}, mesh = {Adult ; Bacteria/genetics/*isolation &amp; purification/metabolism ; Case-Control Studies ; DNA, Viral/isolation &amp; purification ; Female ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/*physiology ; Healthy Volunteers ; Hepatitis B virus/genetics/*isolation &amp; purification ; Hepatitis B, Chronic/diagnosis/metabolism/*microbiology ; Humans ; Male ; Medicine, Chinese Traditional/methods ; Metagenomics ; Middle Aged ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Tongue/*microbiology ; }, abstract = {AIM: To elucidate tongue coating microbiota and metabolic differences in chronic hepatitis B (CHB) patients with yellow or white tongue coatings.<br><br>METHODS: Tongue coating samples were collected from 53 CHB patients (28 CHB yellow tongue coating patients and 25 CHB white tongue coating patients) and 22 healthy controls. Microbial DNA was extracted from the tongue samples, and the bacterial 16S ribosomal RNA gene V3 region was amplified from all samples and sequenced with the Ion Torrent PGM™ sequencing platform according to the standard protocols. The metabolites in the tongue coatings were evaluated using a liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) platform. Statistical analyses were then performed.<br><br>RESULTS: The relative compositions of the tongue coating microbiotas and metabolites in the CHB patients were significantly different from those of the healthy controls, but the tongue coating microbiota abundances and diversity levels were not significantly different. Compared with the CHB white tongue coating patients, the CHB yellow tongue coating patients had higher hepatitis B viral DNA (HBV-DNA) titers (median 21210 vs 500, respectively, P = 0.03) and a significantly lower level of Bacteroidetes (20.14% vs 27.93%, respectively, P = 0.013) and higher level of Proteobacteria (25.99% vs 18.17%, respectively, P = 0.045) in the microbial compositions at the phylum level. The inferred metagenomic pathways enriched in the CHB yellow tongue coating patients were mainly those involved in amino acid metabolism, which was consistent with the metabolic disorder. The abundances of bacteria from Bacteroidales at the order level were higher in the CHB white tongue coating patients (19.2% vs 27.22%, respectively, P = 0.011), whereas Neisseriales were enriched in the yellow tongue coating patients (21.85% vs 13.83%, respectively, P = 0.029). At the family level, the abundance of Neisseriaceae in the yellow tongue patients was positively correlated with the HBV-DNA level but negatively correlated with the S-adenosyl-L-methionine level.<br><br>CONCLUSION: This research illustrates specific clinical features and bacterial structures in CHB patients with different tongue coatings, which facilitates understanding of the traditional tongue diagnosis.}, }
@article {pmid30121535, year = {2019}, author = {Bedoya, K and Coltell, O and Cabarcas, F and Alzate, JF}, title = {Metagenomic assessment of the microbial community and methanogenic pathways in biosolids from a municipal wastewater treatment plant in Medellín, Colombia.}, journal = {The Science of the total environment}, volume = {648}, number = {}, pages = {572-581}, doi = {10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.08.119}, pmid = {30121535}, issn = {1879-1026}, mesh = {Colombia ; *Metagenome ; Methane/*biosynthesis ; *Microbiota/genetics ; Solid Waste/*analysis ; *Waste Disposal, Fluid ; Waste Water/*microbiology ; }, abstract = {Abundance and diversity of microbial communities in biosolids are variable and poorly studied in the tropics, and it is known that rainfall is one of the events that could affect the phylogenetic and functional microbial structure. In the present study, using NGS technics, we studied the microbial diversity as well as the methanogenesis pathway in one of the largest WWTP in Colombia. Besides, we sampled and analyzed biosolids from rainy season and dry season. Phylogenetic classification showed a predominance of bacteria in both samples and difference in the dominant groups depending on the rainfall season. Whereas Pseudomonas was the dominant bacteria in the dry season, Coprothermobacter was in the rainy season. Archaea abundance was higher in the rainy season (11.5%) doubling dry season proportion. The bioreactor biogas production and total solids content showed similar results between rainy and dry season at the sampling dates. The most abundant Archaea related with methanogenesis was Methanosaeta, which is a methanogenic microorganism that exclusively uses acetate to produce methane. Moreover, annotation of the methanogenic pathway in the metagenome showed abundance in genes encoding Acetyl-CoA synthetases (ACSS), an enzyme that catalyzes acetate activation. Our results suggest that the microbial diversity was stable among the two time points tested, rainy season and dry season; and, although there were changes in the microbial abundance of dominant bacterial species, anaerobic digester performance is not affected.}, }
@article {pmid30118379, year = {2019}, author = {Ito, T and Sekizuka, T and Kishi, N and Yamashita, A and Kuroda, M}, title = {Conventional culture methods with commercially available media unveil the presence of novel culturable bacteria.}, journal = {Gut microbes}, volume = {10}, number = {1}, pages = {77-91}, doi = {10.1080/19490976.2018.1491265}, pmid = {30118379}, issn = {1949-0984}, mesh = {Bacteria/classification/genetics/*growth &amp; development/*isolation &amp; purification ; *Bacteriological Techniques ; Culture Media ; Feces/microbiology ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/genetics/*physiology ; Genome, Bacterial/genetics ; Humans ; Metagenomics ; Phylogeny ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Sequence Analysis, DNA ; }, abstract = {Recent metagenomic analysis has revealed that our gut microbiota plays an important role in not only the maintenance of our health but also various diseases such as obesity, diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease, and allergy. However, most intestinal bacteria are considered 'unculturable' bacteria, and their functions remain unknown. Although culture-independent genomic approaches have enabled us to gain insight into their potential roles, culture-based approaches are still required to understand their characteristic features and phenotypes. To date, various culturing methods have been attempted to obtain these 'unculturable' bacteria, but most such methods require advanced techniques. Here, we have tried to isolate possible unculturable bacteria from a healthy Japanese individual by using commercially available media. A 16S rRNA (ribosomal RNA) gene metagenomic analysis revealed that each culture medium showed bacterial growth depending on its selective features and a possibility of the presence of novel bacterial species. Whole genome sequencing of these candidate strains suggested the isolation of 8 novel bacterial species classified in the Actinobacteria and Firmicutes phyla. Our approach indicates that a number of intestinal bacteria hitherto considered unculturable are potentially culturable and can be cultured on commercially available media. We have obtained novel gut bacteria from a healthy Japanese individual using a combination of comprehensive genomics and conventional culturing methods. We would expect that the discovery of such novel bacteria could illuminate pivotal roles for the gut microbiota in association with human health.}, }
@article {pmid30110928, year = {2018}, author = {Wu, L and Wang, J and Wu, H and Chen, J and Xiao, Z and Qin, X and Zhang, Z and Lin, W}, title = {Comparative Metagenomic Analysis of Rhizosphere Microbial Community Composition and Functional Potentials under Rehmannia glutinosa Consecutive Monoculture.}, journal = {International journal of molecular sciences}, volume = {19}, number = {8}, pages = {}, pmid = {30110928}, issn = {1422-0067}, mesh = {*Bacteria/classification/genetics/growth &amp; development ; *Metagenome ; Microbial Consortia/*physiology ; Rehmannia/*microbiology ; *Rhizosphere ; *Soil Microbiology ; }, abstract = {Consecutive monoculture of Rehmannia glutinosa, highly valued in traditional Chinese medicine, leads to a severe decline in both quality and yield. Rhizosphere microbiome was reported to be closely associated with the soil health and plant performance. In this study, comparative metagenomics was applied to investigate the shifts in rhizosphere microbial structures and functional potentials under consecutive monoculture. The results showed R. glutinosa monoculture significantly decreased the relative abundances of Pseudomonadaceae and Burkholderiaceae, but significantly increased the relative abundances of Sphingomonadaceae and Streptomycetaceae. Moreover, the abundances of genera Pseudomonas, Azotobacter, Burkholderia, and Lysobacter, among others, were significantly lower in two-year monocultured soil than in one-year cultured soil. For potentially harmful/indicator microorganisms, the percentages of reads categorized to defense mechanisms (i.e., ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters, efflux transporter, antibiotic resistance) and biological metabolism (i.e., lipid transport and metabolism, secondary metabolites biosynthesis, transport and catabolism, nucleotide transport and metabolism, transcription) were significantly higher in two-year monocultured soil than in one-year cultured soil, but the opposite was true for potentially beneficial microorganisms, which might disrupt the equilibrium between beneficial and harmful microbes. Collectively, our results provide important insights into the shifts in genomic diversity and functional potentials of rhizosphere microbiome in response to R. glutinosa consecutive monoculture.}, }
@article {pmid30108167, year = {2018}, author = {Peura, S and Buck, M and Aalto, SL and Morales, SE and Nykänen, H and Eiler, A}, title = {Novel Autotrophic Organisms Contribute Significantly to the Internal Carbon Cycling Potential of a Boreal Lake.}, journal = {mBio}, volume = {9}, number = {4}, pages = {}, pmid = {30108167}, issn = {2150-7511}, mesh = {Anaerobiosis ; *Autotrophic Processes ; *Biota ; Carbon/*metabolism ; Cluster Analysis ; DNA, Ribosomal/chemistry/genetics ; Finland ; Lakes/*microbiology ; Metagenomics ; Phylogeny ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Sequence Analysis, DNA ; }, abstract = {Oxygen-stratified lakes are typical for the boreal zone and also a major source of greenhouse gas emissions in the region. Due to shallow light penetration, restricting the growth of phototrophic organisms, and large allochthonous organic carbon inputs from the catchment area, the lake metabolism is expected to be dominated by heterotrophic organisms. In this study, we test this assumption and show that the potential for autotrophic carbon fixation and internal carbon cycling is high throughout the water column. Further, we show that during the summer stratification carbon fixation can exceed respiration in a boreal lake even below the euphotic zone. Metagenome-assembled genomes and 16S profiling of a vertical transect of the lake revealed multiple organisms in an oxygen-depleted compartment belonging to novel or poorly characterized phyla. Many of these organisms were chemolithotrophic, potentially deriving their energy from reactions related to sulfur, iron, and nitrogen transformations. The community, as well as the functions, was stratified along the redox gradient. The autotrophic potential in the lake metagenome below the oxygenic zone was high, pointing toward a need for revising our concepts of internal carbon cycling in boreal lakes. Further, the importance of chemolithoautotrophy for the internal carbon cycling suggests that many predicted climate change-associated fluctuations in the physical properties of the lake, such as altered mixing patterns, likely have consequences for the whole-lake metabolism even beyond the impact to the phototrophic community.IMPORTANCE Autotrophic organisms at the base of the food web are the only life form capable of turning inorganic carbon into the organic form, facilitating the survival of all other organisms. In certain environments, the autotrophic production is limited by environmental conditions and the food web is supported by external carbon inputs. One such environment is stratified boreal lakes, which are one of the biggest natural sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the boreal region. Thus, carbon cycling in these habitats is of utmost importance for the future climate. Here, we demonstrate a high potential for internal carbon cycling via phototrophic and novel chemolithotrophic organisms in the anoxic, poorly illuminated layers of a boreal lake. Our results significantly increase our knowledge on the microbial communities and their metabolic potential in oxygen-depleted freshwaters and help to understand and predict how climate change-induced alterations could impact the lake carbon dynamics.}, }
@article {pmid30106226, year = {2018}, author = {Heeger, F and Bourne, EC and Baschien, C and Yurkov, A and Bunk, B and Spröer, C and Overmann, J and Mazzoni, CJ and Monaghan, MT}, title = {Long-read DNA metabarcoding of ribosomal RNA in the analysis of fungi from aquatic environments.}, journal = {Molecular ecology resources}, volume = {18}, number = {6}, pages = {1500-1514}, doi = {10.1111/1755-0998.12937}, pmid = {30106226}, issn = {1755-0998}, support = {SAW-2014-IGB-1//Leibniz Association/ ; }, mesh = {Aquatic Organisms/classification/genetics ; Cluster Analysis ; DNA Barcoding, Taxonomic/*methods ; DNA, Fungal/chemistry/genetics ; DNA, Ribosomal Spacer/chemistry/genetics ; Fungi/*classification/*genetics ; Metagenomics/*methods ; Phylogeny ; RNA, Fungal/*genetics ; RNA, Ribosomal/genetics ; RNA, Ribosomal, 18S/genetics ; Sequence Analysis, DNA ; }, abstract = {DNA metabarcoding is widely used to study prokaryotic and eukaryotic microbial diversity. Technological constraints limit most studies to marker lengths below 600 base pairs (bp). Longer sequencing reads of several thousand bp are now possible with third-generation sequencing. Increased marker lengths provide greater taxonomic resolution and allow for phylogenetic methods of classification, but longer reads may be subject to higher rates of sequencing error and chimera formation. In addition, most bioinformatics tools for DNA metabarcoding were designed for short reads and are therefore unsuitable. Here, we used Pacific Biosciences circular consensus sequencing (CCS) to DNA-metabarcode environmental samples using a ca. 4,500 bp marker that included most of the eukaryote SSU and LSU rRNA genes and the complete ITS region. We developed an analysis pipeline that reduced error rates to levels comparable to short-read platforms. Validation using a mock community indicated that our pipeline detected 98% of chimeras de novo. We recovered 947 OTUs from water and sediment samples from a natural lake, 848 of which could be classified to phylum, 397 to genus and 330 to species. By allowing for the simultaneous use of three databases (Unite, SILVA and RDP LSU), long-read DNA metabarcoding provided better taxonomic resolution than any single marker. We foresee the use of long reads enabling the cross-validation of reference sequences and the synthesis of ribosomal rRNA gene databases. The universal nature of the rRNA operon and our recovery of >100 nonfungal OTUs indicate that long-read DNA metabarcoding holds promise for studies of eukaryotic diversity more broadly.}, }
@article {pmid30102711, year = {2018}, author = {Watanabe, K and Igarashi, M and Li, X and Nakatani, A and Miyamoto, J and Inaba, Y and Sutou, A and Saito, T and Sato, T and Tachibana, N and Inoue, H and Kimura, I}, title = {Dietary soybean protein ameliorates high-fat diet-induced obesity by modifying the gut microbiota-dependent biotransformation of bile acids.}, journal = {PloS one}, volume = {13}, number = {8}, pages = {e0202083}, pmid = {30102711}, issn = {1932-6203}, mesh = {Animals ; Bile Acids and Salts/*metabolism ; Biodiversity ; Diet, High-Fat/adverse effects ; Dietary Supplements ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/*drug effects ; Glucagon-Like Peptide 1/metabolism ; Intestinal Mucosa/drug effects/metabolism/microbiology ; Male ; Metabolic Networks and Pathways/*drug effects ; Metagenome ; Metagenomics/methods ; Mice ; Obesity/*etiology/*metabolism ; Soybean Proteins/*pharmacology ; }, abstract = {The consumption of soybean protein has well-known favorable metabolic effects (e.g., reduced body weight, body fat, hyperglycemia, insulin resistance, hepatic steatosis, and lipogenesis). These effects of soy protein have been linked to modulation by the gut microbiota; however, the dynamic interplay among these factors remains unclear. Accordingly, we examined the metabolic phenotype, intestinal BA pool, and the gut microbiome of male C57BL/6 mice that were randomized to receive either a regular high-fat diet (HFD) or HFD that contained soybean protein isolate (SPI) in place of dairy protein. The intake of SPI significantly reduced the HFD-induced weight gain and adipose tissue mass accumulation and attenuated hepatic steatosis. Along with an enhancement in the secretion of intestinal Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), an enlarged cecal BA pool with an elevated secondary/primary BA ratio was observed in the mice that consumed SPI, while fecal BA excretion remained unaltered. SPI also elicited dramatic changes in the gut microbiome, characterized by an expansion of taxa that may be involved in the biotransformation of BAs. The observed effects were abolished in germ-free (GF) mice, indicating that they were dependent on the microbiota. These findings collectively indicate that the metabolic benefits of SPI under the HFD regime may arise from a microbiota-driven increase in BA transformation and increase in GLP-1 secretion.}, }
@article {pmid30092815, year = {2018}, author = {Murali, A and Bhargava, A and Wright, ES}, title = {IDTAXA: a novel approach for accurate taxonomic classification of microbiome sequences.}, journal = {Microbiome}, volume = {6}, number = {1}, pages = {140}, pmid = {30092815}, issn = {2049-2618}, mesh = {Bacteria/*classification/genetics ; DNA Barcoding, Taxonomic/*methods ; Machine Learning ; Metagenomics/*methods ; Microbiota ; Phylogeny ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Software ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: Microbiome studies often involve sequencing a marker gene to identify the microorganisms in samples of interest. Sequence classification is a critical component of this process, whereby sequences are assigned to a reference taxonomy containing known sequence representatives of many microbial groups. Previous studies have shown that existing classification programs often assign sequences to reference groups even if they belong to novel taxonomic groups that are absent from the reference taxonomy. This high rate of &quot;over classification&quot; is particularly detrimental in microbiome studies because reference taxonomies are far from comprehensive.<br><br>RESULTS: Here, we introduce IDTAXA, a novel approach to taxonomic classification that employs principles from machine learning to reduce over classification errors. Using multiple reference taxonomies, we demonstrate that IDTAXA has higher accuracy than popular classifiers such as BLAST, MAPSeq, QIIME, SINTAX, SPINGO, and the RDP Classifier. Similarly, IDTAXA yields far fewer over classifications on Illumina mock microbial community data when the expected taxa are absent from the training set. Furthermore, IDTAXA offers many practical advantages over other classifiers, such as maintaining low error rates across varying input sequence lengths and withholding classifications from input sequences composed of random nucleotides or repeats.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: IDTAXA's classifications may lead to different conclusions in microbiome studies because of the substantially reduced number of taxa that are incorrectly identified through over classification. Although misclassification error is relatively minor, we believe that many remaining misclassifications are likely caused by errors in the reference taxonomy. We describe how IDTAXA is able to identify many putative mislabeling errors in reference taxonomies, enabling training sets to be automatically corrected by eliminating spurious sequences. IDTAXA is part of the DECIPHER package for the R programming language, available through the Bioconductor repository or accessible online (http://DECIPHER.codes).}, }
@article {pmid30091981, year = {2018}, author = {Bradley, PH and Nayfach, S and Pollard, KS}, title = {Phylogeny-corrected identification of microbial gene families relevant to human gut colonization.}, journal = {PLoS computational biology}, volume = {14}, number = {8}, pages = {e1006242}, pmid = {30091981}, issn = {1553-7358}, support = {T32 GM067547/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/United States ; }, mesh = {Bacteria/genetics ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/*genetics/physiology ; Gene Expression Regulation, Bacterial/genetics ; Genes, Microbial/genetics ; Humans ; Metagenome ; Metagenomics/*methods ; Microbiota/genetics ; Phylogeny ; }, abstract = {The mechanisms by which different microbes colonize the healthy human gut versus other body sites, the gut in disease states, or other environments remain largely unknown. Identifying microbial genes influencing fitness in the gut could lead to new ways to engineer probiotics or disrupt pathogenesis. We approach this problem by measuring the statistical association between a species having a gene and the probability that the species is present in the gut microbiome. The challenge is that closely related species tend to be jointly present or absent in the microbiome and also share many genes, only a subset of which are involved in gut adaptation. We show that this phylogenetic correlation indeed leads to many false discoveries and propose phylogenetic linear regression as a powerful solution. To apply this method across the bacterial tree of life, where most species have not been experimentally phenotyped, we use metagenomes from hundreds of people to quantify each species' prevalence in and specificity for the gut microbiome. This analysis reveals thousands of genes potentially involved in adaptation to the gut across species, including many novel candidates as well as processes known to contribute to fitness of gut bacteria, such as acid tolerance in Bacteroidetes and sporulation in Firmicutes. We also find microbial genes associated with a preference for the gut over other body sites, which are significantly enriched for genes linked to fitness in an in vivo competition experiment. Finally, we identify gene families associated with higher prevalence in patients with Crohn's disease, including Proteobacterial genes involved in conjugation and fimbria regulation, processes previously linked to inflammation. These gene targets may represent new avenues for modulating host colonization and disease. Our strategy of combining metagenomics with phylogenetic modeling is general and can be used to identify genes associated with adaptation to any environment.}, }
@article {pmid30086347, year = {2018}, author = {Miró-Abella, E and Torrell, H and Herrero, P and Canela, N and Arola, L and Borrull, F and Ras, R and Fontanals, N}, title = {Monitoring and evaluation of the interaction between deoxynivalenol and gut microbiota in Wistar rats by mass spectrometry-based metabolomics and next-generation sequencing.}, journal = {Food and chemical toxicology : an international journal published for the British Industrial Biological Research Association}, volume = {121}, number = {}, pages = {124-130}, doi = {10.1016/j.fct.2018.08.006}, pmid = {30086347}, issn = {1873-6351}, mesh = {Animals ; Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid/methods ; Feces/chemistry ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/*drug effects ; High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing/*methods ; Metabolomics/*methods ; Metagenomics ; Mycotoxins/analysis/*toxicity ; No-Observed-Adverse-Effect Level ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/metabolism ; Rats ; Rats, Wistar ; Tandem Mass Spectrometry/*methods ; Trichothecenes/analysis/*toxicity ; }, abstract = {Published evidence has demonstrated the several toxic characteristics of mycotoxins and their considerable risk to human and animal health. One of the most common uncertainties regards whether if very low concentrations of the mycotoxin deoxynivalenol (DON), easily consumed within the Mediterranean Diet, can cause metabolic alterations; some of them produced by the interaction between DON and gut microbiota. Accordingly, faecal samples were collected from Wistar rats that had consumed the mycotoxin DON at low levels (60 and 120 μg kg-1 body weight of DON per day), and were analysed by ultra-high performance liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry detection, in order to monitor the mycotoxin DON and its metabolite de-epoxy deoxynivalenol (DOM-1). The obtained results showed an evolution in DON excretion and the metabolite DOM-1 which has less toxic properties, over the course of the days of the study. To elucidate whether intestinal microbiota had a role in the observed detoxification process, the changes in microbial gut biodiversity were explored through 16s rRNA high throughput sequencing. No main changes were detected but significant increase in Coprococcus genus relative abundance was found. Further studies are needed to confirm if intestinal microbiota composition and function are affected by low mycotoxin concentrations.}, }
@article {pmid30081953, year = {2018}, author = {Zhu, J and Liao, M and Yao, Z and Liang, W and Li, Q and Liu, J and Yang, H and Ji, Y and Wei, W and Tan, A and Liang, S and Chen, Y and Lin, H and Zhu, X and Huang, S and Tian, J and Tang, R and Wang, Q and Mo, Z}, title = {Breast cancer in postmenopausal women is associated with an altered gut metagenome.}, journal = {Microbiome}, volume = {6}, number = {1}, pages = {136}, pmid = {30081953}, issn = {2049-2618}, mesh = {Adult ; Bacteria/*classification/genetics ; Bacterial Proteins/genetics ; Breast Neoplasms/metabolism/*microbiology ; C-Reactive Protein/metabolism ; Case-Control Studies ; Estradiol/metabolism ; Female ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; Gene Regulatory Networks ; Humans ; Metagenomics/*methods ; Middle Aged ; Phylogeny ; Postmenopause/metabolism ; Premenopause/metabolism ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: Increasing evidence suggests that gut microbiota play a role in the pathogenesis of breast cancer. The composition and functional capacity of gut microbiota associated with breast cancer have not been studied systematically.<br><br>METHODS: We performed a comprehensive shotgun metagenomic analysis of 18 premenopausal breast cancer patients, 25 premenopausal healthy controls, 44 postmenopausal breast cancer patients, and 46 postmenopausal healthy controls.<br><br>RESULTS: Microbial diversity was higher in breast cancer patients than in controls. Relative species abundance in gut microbiota did not differ significantly between premenopausal breast cancer patients and premenopausal controls. In contrast, relative abundance of 45 species differed significantly between postmenopausal patients and postmenopausal controls: 38 species were enriched in postmenopausal patients, including Escherichia coli, Klebsiella sp_1_1_55, Prevotella amnii, Enterococcus gallinarum, Actinomyces sp. HPA0247, Shewanella putrefaciens, and Erwinia amylovora, and 7 species were less abundant in postmenopausal patients, including Eubacterium eligens and Lactobacillus vaginalis. Acinetobacter radioresistens and Enterococcus gallinarum were positively but weakly associated with expression of high-sensitivity C-reactive protein; Shewanella putrefaciens and Erwinia amylovora were positively but weakly associated with estradiol levels. Actinomyces sp. HPA0247 negatively but weakly correlated with CD3+CD8+ T cell numbers. Further characterization of metagenome functional capacity indicated that the gut metagenomes of postmenopausal breast cancer patients were enriched in genes encoding lipopolysaccharide biosynthesis, iron complex transport system, PTS system, secretion system, and beta-oxidation.<br><br>CONCLUSION: The composition and functions of the gut microbial community differ between postmenopausal breast cancer patients and healthy controls. The gut microbiota may regulate or respond to host immunity and metabolic balance. Thus, while cause and effect cannot be determined, there is a reproducible change in the microbiota of treatment-naive patients relative to matched controls.}, }
@article {pmid30077182, year = {2018}, author = {Ye, Z and Zhang, N and Wu, C and Zhang, X and Wang, Q and Huang, X and Du, L and Cao, Q and Tang, J and Zhou, C and Hou, S and He, Y and Xu, Q and Xiong, X and Kijlstra, A and Qin, N and Yang, P}, title = {A metagenomic study of the gut microbiome in Behcet's disease.}, journal = {Microbiome}, volume = {6}, number = {1}, pages = {135}, pmid = {30077182}, issn = {2049-2618}, mesh = {Animals ; Bacteria/*classification/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Bacterial Capsules/genetics ; Behcet Syndrome/*microbiology ; Case-Control Studies ; DNA, Bacterial/genetics ; DNA, Ribosomal/genetics ; Fecal Microbiota Transplantation ; Feces/microbiology ; Female ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; Gene Expression Regulation, Bacterial ; Humans ; Male ; Metagenomics/*methods ; Mice ; Phylogeny ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/*genetics ; Saliva/microbiology ; Sequence Analysis, DNA ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: Behcet's disease (BD) is a recalcitrant, multisystemic inflammatory disease that can lead to irreversible blindness. Microbial agents have been considered to contribute to the pathogenesis of this disease, but the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. In this study, we investigated the association of gut microbiome composition with BD as well as its possible roles in the development of this disease.<br><br>METHODS: Fecal and saliva samples were collected from 32 active BD patients and 74 healthy controls. DNA extracted from fecal samples was subjected to metagenomic analysis, whereas DNA extracted from saliva samples was subjected to 16S rRNA gene sequencing analysis. The results were used to compare the composition and biological function of the microbiome between patients and healthy controls. Lastly, transplantation of pooled fecal samples from active BD patients into B10RIII mice undergoing experimental autoimmune uveitis (EAU) was performed to determine the causal relationship between the gut microbiome and BD.<br><br>RESULTS: Fecal samples from active BD patients were shown to be enriched in Bilophila spp., a sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRB) and several opportunistic pathogens (e.g., Parabacteroides spp. and Paraprevotella spp.) along with a lower level of butyrate-producing bacteria (BPB) Clostridium spp. and methanogens (Methanoculleus spp. Methanomethylophilus spp.). Analysis of microbial functions revealed that capsular polysaccharide transport system, oxidation-reduction process, type III, and type IV secretion systems were also increased in active BD patients. Network analysis showed that the BD-enriched SRB and opportunistic pathogens were positively correlated with each other, but they were negatively associated with the BPB and methanogens. Animal experiments revealed that fecal microbiota transplantation with feces from BD patients significantly exacerbated EAU activity and increased the production of inflammatory cytokines including IL-17 and IFN-γ.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: Our findings revealed that BD is associated with considerable gut microbiome changes, which is corroborated by a mouse study of fecal microbiota transplants. A model explaining the association of the gut microbiome composition with BD pathogenesis is proposed.}, }
@article {pmid30076897, year = {2018}, author = {Hagihara, M and Yamashita, R and Matsumoto, A and Mori, T and Kuroki, Y and Kudo, H and Oka, K and Takahashi, M and Nonogaki, T and Yamagishi, Y and Mikamo, H}, title = {The impact of Clostridium butyricum MIYAIRI 588 on the murine gut microbiome and colonic tissue.}, journal = {Anaerobe}, volume = {54}, number = {}, pages = {8-18}, doi = {10.1016/j.anaerobe.2018.07.012}, pmid = {30076897}, issn = {1095-8274}, mesh = {Animals ; Bacteria/classification/genetics/*isolation &amp; purification/metabolism ; Clostridium butyricum/genetics/isolation &amp; purification/metabolism/*physiology ; Colon/*microbiology/pathology ; Fatty Acids, Volatile/metabolism ; Feces/microbiology ; Female ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome/drug effects ; Mice ; Mice, Inbred ICR ; Phylogeny ; Probiotics/pharmacology ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: Clostridium butyricum MIYAIRI 588 (CBM 588) is a probiotic bacterium that is used as an anti-diarrheal medicine in Japan. However, the impact of this probiotic on the gut microbiome has not been fully elucidated, especially, when used with antimicrobials.<br><br>MATERIAL AND METHODS: In an in vivo study, CBM 588 monotherapy, clindamycin monotherapy, CBM 588 and clindamycin (combination therapy), or normal saline (control) was orally administered to mice for 4 days, and fecal samples were collected for 18 days to enumerate C. butyricum. We also extracted DNA from these fecal samples for metagenomics analysis by amplification of the V3-V4 region of the bacterial 16S rRNA gene and MiSeq Illumina sequencing. In addition, the concentrations of some short chain fatty acids were assessed in the fecal samples. A histological analysis was also conducted.<br><br>RESULTS: On day 4 (the last treatment day), there was no difference in the total counts of C. butyricum between the CBM 588 monotherapy and combination therapy groups (5.21 ± 0.78 vs. 5.13 ± 0.45 log10 cfu/g, p = 0.86). Clindamycin treatment resulted in dramatic increases in the phylum Firmicutes, especially Enterobacteriaceae, Clostridiaceae, Lactobacillus, and Enterococcus, compared with the other groups during the treatment period. CBM 588 treatment modified the bacterial community composition at lower phylogenetic levels. Some bacterial taxa, such as Bifidobacterium, Coprococcus, and Bacteroides, were significantly increased in the combination therapy group when compared with the other groups. In the metabolic analysis, CBM 588 enhanced lactic acid production. It also enhanced the efficiency of lactic acid use for the production of butyric acid. Only the clindamycin monotherapy group showed abnormal colon tissue, with superficial epithelial necrosis and the presence of inflammatory cells.<br><br>CONCLUSION: CBM 588 treatment modulated the gut microbiota composition under dysbiosis due to the use of an antimicrobial with strong activity against anaerobes and significantly reduced epithelial damage.}, }
@article {pmid30075203, year = {2018}, author = {Kumar, M and Ji, B and Babaei, P and Das, P and Lappa, D and Ramakrishnan, G and Fox, TE and Haque, R and Petri, WA and Bäckhed, F and Nielsen, J}, title = {Gut microbiota dysbiosis is associated with malnutrition and reduced plasma amino acid levels: Lessons from genome-scale metabolic modeling.}, journal = {Metabolic engineering}, volume = {49}, number = {}, pages = {128-142}, doi = {10.1016/j.ymben.2018.07.018}, pmid = {30075203}, issn = {1096-7184}, mesh = {Amino Acids/*blood ; Child ; *Child Nutrition Disorders/blood/genetics/microbiology ; Child, Preschool ; *Dysbiosis/blood/genetics/microbiology ; Female ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; *Genome, Bacterial ; Humans ; Male ; }, abstract = {Malnutrition is a severe non-communicable disease, which is prevalent in children from low-income countries. Recently, a number of metagenomics studies have illustrated associations between the altered gut microbiota and child malnutrition. However, these studies did not examine metabolic functions and interactions between individual species in the gut microbiota during health and malnutrition. Here, we applied genome-scale metabolic modeling to model the gut microbial species, which were selected from healthy and malnourished children from three countries. Our analysis showed reduced metabolite production capabilities in children from two low-income countries compared with a high-income country. Additionally, the models were also used to predict the community-level metabolic potentials of gut microbes and the patterns of pairwise interactions among species. Hereby we found that due to bacterial interactions there may be reduced production of certain amino acids in malnourished children compared with healthy children from the same communities. To gain insight into alterations in the metabolism of malnourished (stunted) children, we also performed targeted plasma metabolic profiling in the first 2 years of life of 25 healthy and 25 stunted children. Plasma metabolic profiling further revealed that stunted children had reduced plasma levels of essential amino acids compared to healthy controls. Our analyses provide a framework for future efforts towards further characterization of gut microbial metabolic capabilities and their contribution to malnutrition.}, }
@article {pmid30072968, year = {2018}, author = {Dittberner, H and Ohlmann, N and Acquisti, C}, title = {Stoichio-Metagenomics of Ocean Waters: A Molecular Evolution Approach to Trace the Dynamics of Nitrogen Conservation in Natural Communities.}, journal = {Frontiers in microbiology}, volume = {9}, number = {}, pages = {1590}, pmid = {30072968}, issn = {1664-302X}, abstract = {Nitrogen is crucially limiting in ocean surface waters, and its availability varies substantially with coastal regions typically richer in nutrients than open oceans. In a biological stoichiometry framework, a parsimonious strategy of nitrogen allocation predicts nitrogen content of proteins to be lower in communities adapted to open ocean than to coastal regions. To test this hypothesis we have directly interrogated marine microbial communities, using a series of metagenomics datasets with a broad geographical distribution from the Global Ocean Sampling Expedition. Analyzing over 20 million proteins, we document a ubiquitous signal of nitrogen conservation in open ocean communities, both in membrane and non-membrane proteins. Efficient nitrogen allocation is expected to specifically target proteins that are expressed at high rate in response to nitrogen starvation. Furthermore, in order to preserve protein functional efficiency, economic nitrogen allocation is predicted to target primarily the least functionally constrained regions of proteins. Contrasting the NtcA-induced pathway, typically up-regulated in response to nitrogen starvation, with the arginine anabolic pathway, which is instead up-regulated in response to nitrogen abundance, we show how both these predictions are fulfilled. Using evolutionary rates as an informative proxy of functional constraints, we show that variation in nitrogen allocation between open ocean and coastal communities is primarily localized in the least functionally constrained regions of the genes triggered by NtcA. As expected, such a pattern is not detectable in the genes involved in the arginine anabolic pathway. These results directly link environmental nitrogen availability to different adaptive strategies of genome evolution, and emphasize the relevance of the material costs of evolutionary change in natural ecosystems.}, }
@article {pmid30069051, year = {2018}, author = {Bahram, M and Hildebrand, F and Forslund, SK and Anderson, JL and Soudzilovskaia, NA and Bodegom, PM and Bengtsson-Palme, J and Anslan, S and Coelho, LP and Harend, H and Huerta-Cepas, J and Medema, MH and Maltz, MR and Mundra, S and Olsson, PA and Pent, M and Põlme, S and Sunagawa, S and Ryberg, M and Tedersoo, L and Bork, P}, title = {Structure and function of the global topsoil microbiome.}, journal = {Nature}, volume = {560}, number = {7717}, pages = {233-237}, doi = {10.1038/s41586-018-0386-6}, pmid = {30069051}, issn = {1476-4687}, abstract = {Soils harbour some of the most diverse microbiomes on Earth and are essential for both nutrient cycling and carbon storage. To understand soil functioning, it is necessary to model the global distribution patterns and functional gene repertoires of soil microorganisms, as well as the biotic and environmental associations between the diversity and structure of both bacterial and fungal soil communities1-4. Here we show, by leveraging metagenomics and metabarcoding of global topsoil samples (189 sites, 7,560 subsamples), that bacterial, but not fungal, genetic diversity is highest in temperate habitats and that microbial gene composition varies more strongly with environmental variables than with geographic distance. We demonstrate that fungi and bacteria show global niche differentiation that is associated with contrasting diversity responses to precipitation and soil pH. Furthermore, we provide evidence for strong bacterial-fungal antagonism, inferred from antibiotic-resistance genes, in topsoil and ocean habitats, indicating the substantial role of biotic interactions in shaping microbial communities. Our results suggest that both competition and environmental filtering affect the abundance, composition and encoded gene functions of bacterial and fungal communities, indicating that the relative contributions of these microorganisms to global nutrient cycling varies spatially.}, }
@article {pmid30055354, year = {2018}, author = {Linard, B and Crampton-Platt, A and Moriniere, J and Timmermans, MJTN and Andújar, C and Arribas, P and Miller, KE and Lipecki, J and Favreau, E and Hunter, A and Gómez-Rodríguez, C and Barton, C and Nie, R and Gillett, CPDT and Breeschoten, T and Bocak, L and Vogler, AP}, title = {The contribution of mitochondrial metagenomics to large-scale data mining and phylogenetic analysis of Coleoptera.}, journal = {Molecular phylogenetics and evolution}, volume = {128}, number = {}, pages = {1-11}, doi = {10.1016/j.ympev.2018.07.008}, pmid = {30055354}, issn = {1095-9513}, mesh = {Algorithms ; Animals ; Base Sequence ; Coleoptera/classification/*genetics ; Databases, Genetic ; *Metagenomics ; Mitochondria/*genetics ; *Phylogeny ; }, abstract = {A phylogenetic tree at the species level is still far off for highly diverse insect orders, including the Coleoptera, but the taxonomic breadth of public sequence databases is growing. In addition, new types of data may contribute to increasing taxon coverage, such as metagenomic shotgun sequencing for assembly of mitogenomes from bulk specimen samples. The current study explores the application of these techniques for large-scale efforts to build the tree of Coleoptera. We used shotgun data from 17 different ecological and taxonomic datasets (5 unpublished) to assemble a total of 1942 mitogenome contigs of >3000 bp. These sequences were combined into a single dataset together with all mitochondrial data available at GenBank, in addition to nuclear markers widely used in molecular phylogenetics. The resulting matrix of nearly 16,000 species with two or more loci produced trees (RAxML) showing overall congruence with the Linnaean taxonomy at hierarchical levels from suborders to genera. We tested the role of full-length mitogenomes in stabilizing the tree from GenBank data, as mitogenomes might link terminals with non-overlapping gene representation. However, the mitogenome data were only partly useful in this respect, presumably because of the purely automated approach to assembly and gene delimitation, but improvements in future may be possible by using multiple assemblers and manual curation. In conclusion, the combination of data mining and metagenomic sequencing of bulk samples provided the largest phylogenetic tree of Coleoptera to date, which represents a summary of existing phylogenetic knowledge and a defensible tree of great utility, in particular for studies at the intra-familial level, despite some shortcomings for resolving basal nodes.}, }
@article {pmid30048915, year = {2018}, author = {Milanović, V and Osimani, A and Garofalo, C and De Filippis, F and Ercolini, D and Cardinali, F and Taccari, M and Aquilanti, L and Clementi, F}, title = {Profiling white wine seed vinegar bacterial diversity through viable counting, metagenomic sequencing and PCR-DGGE.}, journal = {International journal of food microbiology}, volume = {286}, number = {}, pages = {66-74}, doi = {10.1016/j.ijfoodmicro.2018.07.022}, pmid = {30048915}, issn = {1879-3460}, mesh = {Acetic Acid/*analysis ; Bacteria/*classification/genetics/*isolation &amp; purification ; Biodiversity ; Fermentation ; Metagenomics ; Microbiota/genetics ; Molecular Typing ; Polymerase Chain Reaction ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Wine/*microbiology ; }, abstract = {The production of traditional vinegar is usually carried out using the so-called &quot;seed vinegar&quot; or &quot;mother of vinegar&quot; that is composed of an undefined and complex pool of microorganisms deriving from a previous vinegar production. To date, there have been relatively few studies on the microbiota of seed vinegars. The present study was carried out to discover the bacterial biota of seed vinegar samples used in the homemade production of local vinegars obtained from the acetic fermentation of white wine. The seed vinegar samples were subjected to viable counting and advanced molecular analyses, namely, Illumina sequencing and PCR-DGGE. The adopted polyphasic approach allowed the bacterial diversity of the analyzed samples to be profiled, thus revealing the presence of acetic acid bacteria ascribed to the genera Acetobacter, Gluconacetobacter, Gluconobacter and Komagataeibacter. Moreover, other microbial genera as Pseudomonas, Bacillus and Clostridium were abundantly found in almost all the samples, together with other minority genera. The results of viable counting confirmed the well-acknowledged limitations inherent with acetic acid bacteria recovery on plate growth media. The overall results confirmed that seed vinegars have a complex and heterogeneous biodiversity, thus encouraging their exploitation for the isolation and future technological characterization of cultures to be selected for the manufacture of mixed starter cultures.}, }
@article {pmid30042197, year = {2018}, author = {Murray, AK and Zhang, L and Yin, X and Zhang, T and Buckling, A and Snape, J and Gaze, WH}, title = {Novel Insights into Selection for Antibiotic Resistance in Complex Microbial Communities.}, journal = {mBio}, volume = {9}, number = {4}, pages = {}, pmid = {30042197}, issn = {2150-7511}, support = {BB/L502509/1//Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council/United Kingdom ; }, mesh = {Anti-Bacterial Agents/*pharmacology ; Cefotaxime/*pharmacology ; *Cephalosporin Resistance ; Cephalosporinase/genetics/metabolism ; Cluster Analysis ; DNA, Ribosomal/chemistry/genetics ; Metagenomics ; Microbiota/*drug effects ; Phylogeny ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; *Selection, Genetic ; Sequence Analysis, DNA ; Sewage/*microbiology ; }, abstract = {Recent research has demonstrated that selection for antibiotic resistance occurs at very low antibiotic concentrations in single-species experiments, but the relevance of these findings when species are embedded in complex microbial communities is unclear. We show that the strength of selection for naturally occurring resistance alleles in a complex community remains constant from low subinhibitory to above clinically relevant concentrations. Selection increases with antibiotic concentration before reaching a plateau where selection remains constant over a 2-order-magnitude concentration range. This is likely to be due to cross protection of the susceptible bacteria in the community following rapid extracellular antibiotic degradation by the resistant population, shown experimentally through a combination of chemical quantification and bacterial growth experiments. Metagenome and 16S rRNA analyses of sewage-derived bacterial communities evolved under cefotaxime exposure show preferential enrichment for blaCTX-M genes over all other beta-lactamase genes, as well as positive selection and co-selection for antibiotic resistant, opportunistic pathogens. These findings have far-reaching implications for our understanding of the evolution of antibiotic resistance, by challenging the long-standing assumption that selection occurs in a dose-dependent manner.IMPORTANCE Antibiotic resistance is one of the greatest global issues facing society. Still, comparatively little is known about selection for resistance at very low antibiotic concentrations. We show that the strength of selection for clinically important resistance genes within a complex bacterial community can remain constant across a large antibiotic concentration range (wide selective space). Therefore, largely understudied ecological compartments could be just as important as clinical environments for selection of antibiotic resistance.}, }
@article {pmid30041354, year = {2018}, author = {Tiralerdpanich, P and Sonthiphand, P and Luepromchai, E and Pinyakong, O and Pokethitiyook, P}, title = {Potential microbial consortium involved in the biodegradation of diesel, hexadecane and phenanthrene in mangrove sediment explored by metagenomics analysis.}, journal = {Marine pollution bulletin}, volume = {133}, number = {}, pages = {595-605}, doi = {10.1016/j.marpolbul.2018.06.015}, pmid = {30041354}, issn = {1879-3363}, mesh = {Alkanes/*metabolism ; Bacteria/genetics/metabolism ; Biodegradation, Environmental ; Environmental Pollutants/metabolism ; Gasoline ; Geologic Sediments/*microbiology ; Metagenomics/methods ; Microbial Consortia/genetics/*physiology ; Phenanthrenes/*metabolism ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/metabolism ; Thailand ; Wetlands ; }, abstract = {Hydrocarbon contamination is a serious problem that degrades the quality of mangrove ecosystems, and bioremediation using autochthonous bacteria is a promising technology to recover an impacted environment. This research investigates the biodegradation rates of diesel, hexadecane and phenanthrene, by conducting a microcosm study and survey of the autochthonous microbial community in contaminated mangrove sediment, using an Illumina MiSeq platform. The biodegradation rates of diesel, hexadecane and phenanthrene were 82, 86 and 8 mg kg-1 sediment day-1, respectively. The removal efficiencies of hexadecane and phenanthrene were >99%, whereas the removal efficiency of diesel was 88%. A 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequence analysis revealed that the major bacterial assemblages detected were Gammaproteobacteria, Deltaproteobacteria, Alphaproteobacteria. The bacterial compositions were relatively constant, while reductions of the supplemented hydrocarbons were observed. The results imply that the autochthonous microorganisms in the mangrove sediment were responsible for the degradation of the respective hydrocarbons. Diesel-, hexadecane- and phenanthrene-degrading bacteria, namely Bacillus sp., Pseudomonas sp., Acinetobacter sp. and Staphylococcus sp., were also isolated from the mangrove sediment. The mangrove sediment provides a potential resource of effective hydrocarbon-degrading bacteria that can be used as an inoculum or further developed as a ready-to-use microbial consortium for the purpose of bioremediation.}, }
@article {pmid30037148, year = {2018}, author = {Cross, ST and Kapuscinski, ML and Perino, J and Maertens, BL and Weger-Lucarelli, J and Ebel, GD and Stenglein, MD}, title = {Co-Infection Patterns in Individual Ixodes scapularis Ticks Reveal Associations between Viral, Eukaryotic and Bacterial Microorganisms.}, journal = {Viruses}, volume = {10}, number = {7}, pages = {}, pmid = {30037148}, issn = {1999-4915}, support = {UL1 TR002535/TR/NCATS NIH HHS/United States ; }, mesh = {Animals ; Bacteria/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Borrelia burgdorferi/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Coinfection/epidemiology/*microbiology/*virology ; Eukaryota/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing ; Ixodes/genetics/*microbiology/*virology ; Lyme Disease ; Microbiota/genetics ; Orthobunyavirus/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Phlebovirus/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Prevalence ; Symbiosis ; Tick Infestations/epidemiology/microbiology/virology ; Tick-Borne Diseases/*epidemiology/microbiology/virology ; Viruses/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Wisconsin/epidemiology ; }, abstract = {Ixodes scapularis ticks harbor a variety of microorganisms, including eukaryotes, bacteria and viruses. Some of these can be transmitted to and cause disease in humans and other vertebrates. Others are not pathogenic, but may impact the ability of the tick to harbor and transmit pathogens. A growing number of studies have examined the influence of bacteria on tick vector competence but the influence of the tick virome remains less clear, despite a surge in the discovery of tick-associated viruses. In this study, we performed shotgun RNA sequencing on 112 individual adult I. scapularis collected in Wisconsin, USA. We characterized the abundance, prevalence and co-infection rates of viruses, bacteria and eukaryotic microorganisms. We identified pairs of tick-infecting microorganisms whose observed co-infection rates were higher or lower than would be expected, or whose RNA levels were positively correlated in co-infected ticks. Many of these co-occurrence and correlation relationships involved two bunyaviruses, South Bay virus and blacklegged tick phlebovirus-1. These viruses were also the most prevalent microorganisms in the ticks we sampled, and had the highest average RNA levels. Evidence of associations between microbes included a positive correlation between RNA levels of South Bay virus and Borrelia burgdorferi, the Lyme disease agent. These findings contribute to the rationale for experimental studies on the impact of viruses on tick biology and vector competence.}, }
@article {pmid30036363, year = {2018}, author = {Chai, H and Jiang, H and Lin, L and Liu, L}, title = {A marginalized two-part Beta regression model for microbiome compositional data.}, journal = {PLoS computational biology}, volume = {14}, number = {7}, pages = {e1006329}, pmid = {30036363}, issn = {1553-7358}, mesh = {Animals ; Colony Count, Microbial ; Likelihood Functions ; *Logistic Models ; Metagenomics ; Mice ; *Microbiota ; Skin/*microbiology ; }, abstract = {In microbiome studies, an important goal is to detect differential abundance of microbes across clinical conditions and treatment options. However, the microbiome compositional data (quantified by relative abundance) are highly skewed, bounded in [0, 1), and often have many zeros. A two-part model is commonly used to separate zeros and positive values explicitly by two submodels: a logistic model for the probability of a specie being present in Part I, and a Beta regression model for the relative abundance conditional on the presence of the specie in Part II. However, the regression coefficients in Part II cannot provide a marginal (unconditional) interpretation of covariate effects on the microbial abundance, which is of great interest in many applications. In this paper, we propose a marginalized two-part Beta regression model which captures the zero-inflation and skewness of microbiome data and also allows investigators to examine covariate effects on the marginal (unconditional) mean. We demonstrate its practical performance using simulation studies and apply the model to a real metagenomic dataset on mouse skin microbiota. We find that under the proposed marginalized model, without loss in power, the likelihood ratio test performs better in controlling the type I error than those under conventional methods.}, }
@article {pmid30033973, year = {2018}, author = {Choi, HJ and Jeong, TY and Yoon, H and Oh, BY and Han, YS and Hur, MJ and Kang, S and Kim, JG}, title = {Comparative microbial communities in tidal flats sediment on Incheon, South Korea.}, journal = {The Journal of general and applied microbiology}, volume = {64}, number = {5}, pages = {232-239}, doi = {10.2323/jgam.2017.12.007}, pmid = {30033973}, issn = {1349-8037}, mesh = {Bacteria/*classification/genetics/*isolation &amp; purification ; *Biodiversity ; DNA, Bacterial/genetics ; *Environmental Microbiology ; Geologic Sediments/*microbiology ; Metagenomics ; *Microbiota ; Phylogeny ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S ; Republic of Korea ; Seawater/microbiology ; }, abstract = {Coastal ecosystems, play critical ecological roles of which tidal flats are a significant component of coastal wetlands, such as habitat and nutrient cycling in aquatic biology. Microbial communities in tidal flats are known to play vital roles of self-purification. And the microbial ecology of the sediment is easily affected by human activities and pollution. In this paper, we applied pyrosequencing technology to investigate microbial communities in three different tidal flats (Ganghwa Island, Ongnyeon land region and Yeongjong Island) on the Incheon, Korea peninsula. A total of 16,906 sequences were obtained. We used these sequences to identify the dominant phyla in the three tidal flats: Proteobacteria, Chloroflexi, Actinobacteria, and Bacteroidetes. The composition of the bacterial community of Ganghwa Island and the Ongnyeon region were more similar to each other than they were to the bacterial community of Yeongjong Island. Simpson's dominance index of Yeongjong Island was higher than that of the other regions, and the Shannon diversity index of this region was the lowest. Previous research of samples in these regions indicated that the three tidal flats had similar geochemical characteristics. However, their bacterial communities were rather distinct. This might be because the analysis of microbial communities and physiochemical analysis have different perspectives. Therefore, the pyrosequencing of a bacterial community with physiochemical analysis is recommended as an effective monitoring tool for the comprehensive management of tidal flats.}, }
@article {pmid30033505, year = {2018}, author = {Edouard, S and Million, M and Bachar, D and Dubourg, G and Michelle, C and Ninove, L and Charrel, R and Raoult, D}, title = {The nasopharyngeal microbiota in patients with viral respiratory tract infections is enriched in bacterial pathogens.}, journal = {European journal of clinical microbiology &amp; infectious diseases : official publication of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology}, volume = {37}, number = {9}, pages = {1725-1733}, pmid = {30033505}, issn = {1435-4373}, support = {10-IAHU-03//IHU Méditerranée Infection/ ; }, mesh = {Acute Disease/epidemiology ; Adolescent ; Adult ; Aged ; Aged, 80 and over ; Bacteria/genetics/isolation &amp; purification/*pathogenicity ; Case-Control Studies ; Child ; Child, Preschool ; Coinfection/microbiology/virology ; Disease Susceptibility/virology ; Female ; Haemophilus influenzae/genetics/isolation &amp; purification/pathogenicity ; High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing ; Humans ; Infant ; Infant, Newborn ; Male ; Metagenomics ; Microbiota/*genetics ; Middle Aged ; Nasopharynx/*microbiology/virology ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Respiratory Tract Infections/epidemiology/*microbiology/*virology ; Staphylococcus aureus/genetics/isolation &amp; purification/pathogenicity ; Streptococcus pneumoniae/genetics/isolation &amp; purification/pathogenicity ; Virus Diseases/*microbiology/virology ; Young Adult ; }, abstract = {The nasopharynx is the primary site of colonization by respiratory pathogen that constitutes the port of entrance in the respiratory tract. The role of mucosal respiratory microbiota in infection has been recently emphasized; therefore, we aimed to assess if a specific respiratory microbiota profile was associated with symptomatic infection and/or with presence of respiratory viruses. We performed a case-control study to characterize the healthy respiratory microbiota and its alteration during acute viral infections. Next-generation sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene was applied to 225 nasopharyngeal samples from 177 patients with viral respiratory infection and 48 matched healthy controls. We evidenced an important decrease of bacterial alpha-diversity in patients with symptomatic respiratory infection and a loss of the healthy core microbiota, specifically anaerobes and Prevotella spp. Moreover, eight respiratory pathogens were enriched in these patients, including Staphylococcus aureus, Haemophilus influenzae, Streptococcus pneumoniae, Moraxella catarrhalis, Dol osigranulum pigrum and Corynebacterium propinquum/pseudodiphtheriticum, whose role in respiratory infection is unclear. The asymptomatic carrier of influenza harbors a microbiota similar to healthy subjects, suggesting a critical role of microbiota in the clinical expression of viruses. These data suggest that the commensal microbiota plays a significant role in susceptibility to viral infection. The frequent co-detection of virus and bacteria raises the question of a strategy to prevent bacterial disease, focusing on the prevention of nasopharyngeal colonization through effective antibiotic treatment. In addition to antibiotics, further studies should test preventive or therapeutic interventions for maintaining or restoring a healthy nasopharyngeal microbiota.}, }
@article {pmid30031771, year = {2018}, author = {Wade, RM and Sherwood, AR}, title = {Updating Plakobranchus cf. ianthobapsus (Gastropoda, Sacoglossa) host use: Diverse algal-animal interactions revealed by NGS with implications for invasive species management.}, journal = {Molecular phylogenetics and evolution}, volume = {128}, number = {}, pages = {172-181}, doi = {10.1016/j.ympev.2018.07.010}, pmid = {30031771}, issn = {1095-9513}, mesh = {Animals ; Biodiversity ; DNA Barcoding, Taxonomic ; Gastropoda/*genetics/*parasitology ; Hawaii ; *High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing ; *Host-Parasite Interactions ; *Introduced Species ; Likelihood Functions ; Metagenomics ; Phylogeny ; Principal Component Analysis ; }, abstract = {Sacoglossa, the &quot;sap sucking&quot; sea slugs, are highly specialized herbivores and the only metazoans that exhibit kleptoplasty, the sequestration and retention of chloroplasts from algae. Plakobranchus is one of the most generalistic herbivores within this order, with as many as 12 reported &quot;algal host&quot; (i.e. kleptoplast source) species. However, kleptoplast diversity studies conducted on Plakobranchus to date most likely underestimated the full diversity of kleptoplast sources within the studied populations due to limitations of the molecular techniques employed. Here, we apply a high throughput sequencing technique to assess kleptoplast diversity of Plakobranchus cf. ianthobapsus' from 10 sites across the Main Hawaiian Islands during winter and summer seasons. In so doing, we effectively used P. cf. ianthobapsus as a novel sampling tool to explore diminutive algal communities, including the current distribution of the invasive alga &quot;Avrainvillea amadelpha.&quot; Our results show that P. cf. ianthobapsus sequesters chloroplasts from 23 algal species from across the siphonous green algal order Bryopsidales. We identified &quot;Avrainvillea amadelpha&quot; and Codium edule as new host species for P. cf. ianthobapusus, but their rarity among the data suggests they were most likely less preferential as hosts and were possibly utilized due to low abundance or unavailability of more preferable species, and therefore a response to starvation risk. Additionally, the identification of the highly invasive siphonous green alga &quot;A. amadelpha&quot; as a kleptoplast source provides new fine-scale range and distribution data for this problematic species. Overall kleptoplast diversity does not differ among sites, except in a coral-dominated, (i.e. not algal dominated) environment, suggesting that siphonous algal assemblages are common in algal-dominated ecosystems in the Hawaiian Islands. Diversity dissimilarity among seasons was recovered from the majority of sites sampled, supporting the need for seasonal data collection in algal diversity assessments. This case study using metabarcoding of sacoglossan kleptoplasts provides deeper insights into these plant-animal interactions with a better understanding of host use than previous studies using traditional molecular methods and illustrates how algal diversity studies on the scale of plastids can have implications for understanding algal community structure and invasive species dynamics.}, }
@article {pmid30021874, year = {2018}, author = {Glassman, SI and Martiny, JBH}, title = {Broadscale Ecological Patterns Are Robust to Use of Exact Sequence Variants versus Operational Taxonomic Units.}, journal = {mSphere}, volume = {3}, number = {4}, pages = {}, pmid = {30021874}, issn = {2379-5042}, mesh = {Bacteria/*classification/*genetics ; *Biota ; Cluster Analysis ; DNA, Bacterial/chemistry/genetics ; DNA, Fungal/chemistry/genetics ; DNA, Ribosomal/chemistry/genetics ; DNA, Ribosomal Spacer/chemistry/genetics ; *Environmental Microbiology ; Fungi/*classification/*genetics ; Metagenomics/*methods ; Phylogeny ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Sequence Analysis, DNA ; }, abstract = {Recent discussion focuses on the best method for delineating microbial taxa, based on either exact sequence variants (ESVs) or traditional operational taxonomic units (OTUs) of marker gene sequences. We sought to test if the binning approach (ESVs versus 97% OTUs) affected the ecological conclusions of a large field study. The data set included sequences targeting all bacteria (16S rRNA) and fungi (internal transcribed spacer [ITS]), across multiple environments diverging markedly in abiotic conditions, over three collection times. Despite quantitative differences in microbial richness, we found that all α and β diversity metrics were highly positively correlated (r > 0.90) between samples analyzed with both approaches. Moreover, the community composition of the dominant taxa did not vary between approaches. Consequently, statistical inferences were nearly indistinguishable. Furthermore, ESVs only moderately increased the genetic resolution of fungal and bacterial diversity (1.3 and 2.1 times OTU richness, respectively). We conclude that for broadscale (e.g., all bacteria or all fungi) α and β diversity analyses, ESV or OTU methods will often reveal similar ecological results. Thus, while there are good reasons to employ ESVs, we need not question the validity of results based on OTUs.IMPORTANCE Microbial ecologists have made exceptional improvements in our understanding of microbiomes in the last decade due to breakthroughs in sequencing technologies. These advances have wide-ranging implications for fields ranging from agriculture to human health. Due to limitations in databases, the majority of microbial ecology studies use a binning approach to approximate taxonomy based on DNA sequence similarity. There remains extensive debate on the best way to bin and approximate this taxonomy. Here we examine two popular approaches using a large field-based data set examining both bacteria and fungi and conclude that there are not major differences in the ecological outcomes. Thus, it appears that standard microbial community analyses are not overly sensitive to the particulars of binning approaches.}, }
@article {pmid30018874, year = {2018}, author = {Colabella, C and Corte, L and Roscini, L and Bassetti, M and Tascini, C and Mellor, JC and Meyer, W and Robert, V and Vu, D and Cardinali, G}, title = {NGS barcode sequencing in taxonomy and diagnostics, an application in &quot;Candida&quot; pathogenic yeasts with a metagenomic perspective.}, journal = {IMA fungus}, volume = {9}, number = {1}, pages = {91-105}, pmid = {30018874}, issn = {2210-6340}, abstract = {Species identification of yeasts and other Fungi is currently carried out with Sanger sequences of selected molecular markers, mainly from the ribosomal DNA operon, characterized by hundreds of tandem repeats of the 18S, ITS1, 5.8S, ITS2 and LSU loci. The ITS region has been recently proposed as a primary barcode marker making this region the most used one in taxonomy, phylogeny and diagnostics. The introduction of NGS is providing tools of high efficacy and relatively low cost to amplify two or more markers simultaneously with great sequencing depth. However, the presence of intra-genomic variability between the repeats requires specific analytical procedures and pipelines. In this study, 286 strains belonging to 11 pathogenic yeasts species were analysed with NGS of the region spanning from ITS1 to the D1/D2 domain of the LSU encoding ribosomal DNA. Results showed that relatively high heterogeneity can hamper the use of these sequences for the identification of single strains and even more of complex microbial mixtures. These observations point out that the metagenomics studies could be affected by species inflection at levels higher than currently expected.}, }
@article {pmid30017197, year = {2018}, author = {He, F and Liu, D and Zhai, J and Zhang, L and Ma, Y and Xu, Y and Rong, K and Ma, J}, title = {Metagenomic analysis revealed the effects of goat milk feeding and breast feeding on the gut microbiome of Amur tiger cubs.}, journal = {Biochemical and biophysical research communications}, volume = {503}, number = {4}, pages = {2590-2596}, doi = {10.1016/j.bbrc.2018.07.020}, pmid = {30017197}, issn = {1090-2104}, mesh = {Animals ; Animals, Newborn ; Bacteria/isolation &amp; purification ; Feeding Behavior ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; *Goats/microbiology ; Metagenomics/*methods ; *Milk ; *Tigers/microbiology ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: Ingredients in breast milk can help establish a healthy community of microorganisms in the infant gut, but no research exists regarding the effects of goat milk feeding and breast feeding on the gut microbiome of the Amur tiger, which is one of the most endangered species in the world.<br><br>METHODS: In this study, we used whole-metagenome shotgun sequencing to analyze the effects of two different feeding patterns, goat milk feeding and breast feeding, on the composition and functional structures of gut microbiota in Amur tiger cubs.<br><br>RESULTS: Goat milk-fed cubs have fewer beneficial bacteria and more pathogenic bacteria and a higher microbial diversity in their gut than breastfed cubs. A total of 15 genera showed statistically significant differences; the relative abundances of Streptomyces scabiei, Streptomyces avermitilis and Streptomyces davawensis were significantly decreased, whereas those of Niabella soli, Aeromonas media and Brochothrix thermosphacta were significantly increased in the goat milk-fed group compared with those in the breastfed group. At the functional level, carbohydrate metabolism, translation and replication and repair decreased, and amino acid metabolism, membrane transport and metabolism of cofactors and vitamins increased in the gut microbiota of goat milk-fed cubs compared with breastfed cubs.<br><br>CONCLUSION: Our results indicate for the first time that the different milk feeding patterns of goat milk feeding and breast feeding can change the composition and functional structures of gut microbiota in Amur tiger cubs and that breastfed tiger cubs and goat milk-fed tiger cubs have distinct microbiotas in their guts.}, }
@article {pmid30014577, year = {2018}, author = {Cordier, T and Forster, D and Dufresne, Y and Martins, CIM and Stoeck, T and Pawlowski, J}, title = {Supervised machine learning outperforms taxonomy-based environmental DNA metabarcoding applied to biomonitoring.}, journal = {Molecular ecology resources}, volume = {18}, number = {6}, pages = {1381-1391}, doi = {10.1111/1755-0998.12926}, pmid = {30014577}, issn = {1755-0998}, support = {316030_150817//Swiss Network for International Studies/ ; 31003A_179125//Swiss National Science Foundation/ ; STO414/15-1//Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft/ ; //Carl Zeiss Foundation/ ; //NVIDIA GPU grant program/ ; }, mesh = {Bacteria/*classification ; *Biodiversity ; Biomarkers/analysis ; Computer Simulation ; DNA Barcoding, Taxonomic/*methods ; Environmental Monitoring/*methods ; Eukaryota/*classification ; Metagenomics/*methods ; RNA, Ribosomal/genetics ; *Supervised Machine Learning ; }, abstract = {Biodiversity monitoring is the standard for environmental impact assessment of anthropogenic activities. Several recent studies showed that high-throughput amplicon sequencing of environmental DNA (eDNA metabarcoding) could overcome many limitations of the traditional morphotaxonomy-based bioassessment. Recently, we demonstrated that supervised machine learning (SML) can be used to predict accurate biotic indices values from eDNA metabarcoding data, regardless of the taxonomic affiliation of the sequences. However, it is unknown to which extent the accuracy of such models depends on taxonomic resolution of molecular markers or how SML compares with metabarcoding approaches targeting well-established bioindicator species. In this study, we address these issues by training predictive models upon five different ribosomal bacterial and eukaryotic markers and measuring their performance to assess the environmental impact of marine aquaculture on independent data sets. Our results show that all tested markers are yielding accurate predictive models and that they all outperform the assessment relying solely on taxonomically assigned sequences. Remarkably, we did not find any significant difference in the performance of the models built using universal eukaryotic or prokaryotic markers. Using any molecular marker with a taxonomic range broad enough to comprise different potential bioindicator taxa, SML approach can overcome the limits of taxonomy-based eDNA bioassessment.}, }
@article {pmid30010734, year = {2018}, author = {Geng, S and Cheng, S and Li, Y and Wen, Z and Ma, X and Jiang, X and Wang, Y and Han, X}, title = {Faecal Microbiota Transplantation Reduces Susceptibility to Epithelial Injury and Modulates Tryptophan Metabolism of the Microbial Community in a Piglet Model.}, journal = {Journal of Crohn's &amp; colitis}, volume = {12}, number = {11}, pages = {1359-1374}, doi = {10.1093/ecco-jcc/jjy103}, pmid = {30010734}, issn = {1876-4479}, mesh = {Animals ; Colitis/chemically induced/pathology/*prevention &amp; control ; *Fecal Microbiota Transplantation ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/*physiology ; Homeostasis ; Indoleacetic Acids/metabolism ; Interleukins/metabolism ; Intestinal Mucosa/metabolism/*pathology ; Lipopolysaccharides ; Mass Spectrometry ; Metabolome ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/analysis ; Receptors, Aryl Hydrocarbon/metabolism ; Swine ; Tryptophan/*metabolism ; }, abstract = {Background and Aims: Faecal microbiota transplantation [FMT] has shown promise as a treatment for inflammatory bowel disease [IBD]. Using a piglet model, our previous study indicated that exogenous faecal microbiota can increase the expressions of tight junction proteins, mucin and antimicrobial peptide in the intestinal mucosa, suggesting a beneficial effect of FMT on gut barrier and gastrointestinal health. However, specific connections between FMT-induced microbial changes and modulation of the intestinal barrier remain to be fully illustrated. Here, we aimed to determine the potential role of metabolic function of gut microbiota in the beneficial effects of FMT.<br><br>Methods: The influence of FMT on the maintenance of intestinal homeostasis was assessed by early-life gut microbiota intervention on newborn piglets and subsequent lipopolysaccharide [LPS] challenge. Analysis of the gut microbiome and metabolome was carried out by 16S rRNA gene sequencing and multiple mass spectrometry platforms.<br><br>Results: FMT modulated the diversity and composition of colonic microbiota and reduced the susceptibility to LPS-induced destruction of epithelial integrity and severe inflammatory response. Metabolomic analysis revealed functional changes of the gut metabolome along with a significant increase of the typical microbiota-derived tryptophan catabolite indole-3-acetic acid in the colonic lumen. In concordance with the metabolome data, metagenomics prediction analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequencing also demonstrated that FMT modulated the metabolic functions of gut microbiota associated with indole alkaloid biosynthesis, cytochrome P450 and intestinal homeostasis, which coincided with up-regulation of cytokine interleukin-22 and enhanced activation of aryl hydrocarbon receptor in the recipient colon.<br><br>Conclusions: Our data reveal a regulatory effect of FMT on tryptophan metabolism of gut microbiota in the recipient colon, which may play a potential role in maintenance of the intestinal barrier.}, }
@article {pmid30003485, year = {2018}, author = {Li, M and Zhang, X and Yang, H and Li, X and Cui, Z}, title = {Soil sustainable utilization technology: mechanism of flavonols in resistance process of heavy metal.}, journal = {Environmental science and pollution research international}, volume = {25}, number = {26}, pages = {26669-26681}, pmid = {30003485}, issn = {1614-7499}, mesh = {Arabidopsis/genetics/*metabolism/microbiology ; Drug Resistance/genetics ; Flavonols/genetics/*metabolism ; Metabolic Networks and Pathways/drug effects/genetics ; Metagenome/*drug effects ; Metals, Heavy/*toxicity ; Microbiota/*genetics ; Plant Roots/genetics/metabolism/microbiology ; Rhizosphere ; *Soil Microbiology ; Soil Pollutants/*toxicity ; }, abstract = {The soil ecosystem is critical for agricultural production, affecting many aspects of human health. Soil has more unknown biodiversity and edaphic parameters than any other ecosystem especially when polluted. Metagenomics and metatranscriptomics were applied to research on toxicological characteristics of Pb and resistance mechanism of flavonols. Rhizosphere microorganisms-plants system, a unified system closely related to soil environment was taken as research object. Results emphasize gene expression changes in different test groups. Gene ontology enrichment and eggNOG showed that Pb has a toxic effect on gene and protein function which concentrated on ATPase and ATP-dependent activity. Differentially expressed genes in the flavonols group indicated that flavonols regulate amino acid transport and other transportation process related to Pb stress. Kegg analysis represents that Pb interferences energy production process via not only the upstream like glycolysis and tricarboxylic acid (TCA) circle but also oxidative phosphorylation process, which can also produce reactive oxygen species and impact the eliminating process. Flavonols have shown the ability in alleviating toxic effect of Pb and improving the resistance of plants. Flavonols can recover the electronic transmission and other process in TCA and oxidative phosphorylation via ascorbic acid-glutathione metabolism. Flavonols activated antioxidative process and non-specific immunity via vitamins B2-B6 metabolism.}, }
@article {pmid30001517, year = {2018}, author = {Yassour, M and Jason, E and Hogstrom, LJ and Arthur, TD and Tripathi, S and Siljander, H and Selvenius, J and Oikarinen, S and Hyöty, H and Virtanen, SM and Ilonen, J and Ferretti, P and Pasolli, E and Tett, A and Asnicar, F and Segata, N and Vlamakis, H and Lander, ES and Huttenhower, C and Knip, M and Xavier, RJ}, title = {Strain-Level Analysis of Mother-to-Child Bacterial Transmission during the First Few Months of Life.}, journal = {Cell host &amp; microbe}, volume = {24}, number = {1}, pages = {146-154.e4}, pmid = {30001517}, issn = {1934-6069}, support = {DP3 DK094338/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States ; P30 DK043351/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States ; }, mesh = {Adult ; Bacteroides/*genetics ; Cohort Studies ; DNA, Bacterial/*genetics ; Drug Resistance, Bacterial/genetics ; Feces/microbiology ; Female ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/*genetics ; Humans ; Infant ; Infant, Newborn ; Longitudinal Studies ; Male ; Meconium/microbiology ; Metagenomics ; *Mother-Child Relations ; Prospective Studies ; }, abstract = {Bacterial community acquisition in the infant gut impacts immune education and disease susceptibility. We compared bacterial strains across and within families in a prospective birth cohort of 44 infants and their mothers, sampled longitudinally in the first months of each child's life. We identified mother-to-child bacterial transmission events and describe the incidence of family-specific antibiotic resistance genes. We observed two inheritance patterns across multiple species, where often the mother's dominant strain is transmitted to the child, but occasionally her secondary strains colonize the infant gut. In families where the secondary strain of B. uniformis was inherited, a starch utilization gene cluster that was absent in the mother's dominant strain was identified in the child, suggesting the selective advantage of a mother's secondary strain in the infant gut. Our findings reveal mother-to-child bacterial transmission events at high resolution and give insights into early colonization of the infant gut.}, }
@article {pmid30001516, year = {2018}, author = {Ferretti, P and Pasolli, E and Tett, A and Asnicar, F and Gorfer, V and Fedi, S and Armanini, F and Truong, DT and Manara, S and Zolfo, M and Beghini, F and Bertorelli, R and De Sanctis, V and Bariletti, I and Canto, R and Clementi, R and Cologna, M and Crifò, T and Cusumano, G and Gottardi, S and Innamorati, C and Masè, C and Postai, D and Savoi, D and Duranti, S and Lugli, GA and Mancabelli, L and Turroni, F and Ferrario, C and Milani, C and Mangifesta, M and Anzalone, R and Viappiani, A and Yassour, M and Vlamakis, H and Xavier, R and Collado, CM and Koren, O and Tateo, S and Soffiati, M and Pedrotti, A and Ventura, M and Huttenhower, C and Bork, P and Segata, N}, title = {Mother-to-Infant Microbial Transmission from Different Body Sites Shapes the Developing Infant Gut Microbiome.}, journal = {Cell host &amp; microbe}, volume = {24}, number = {1}, pages = {133-145.e5}, doi = {10.1016/j.chom.2018.06.005}, pmid = {30001516}, issn = {1934-6069}, support = {//European Research Council/International ; }, mesh = {Adult ; DNA, Bacterial/*genetics ; Feces/microbiology ; Female ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/*genetics ; Gastrointestinal Tract/*microbiology ; Humans ; Infant ; Longitudinal Studies ; Metagenomics ; Middle Aged ; *Mother-Child Relations ; Mouth/microbiology ; Skin/microbiology ; Time Factors ; Vagina/microbiology ; }, abstract = {The acquisition and development of the infant microbiome are key to establishing a healthy host-microbiome symbiosis. The maternal microbial reservoir is thought to play a crucial role in this process. However, the source and transmission routes of the infant pioneering microbes are poorly understood. To address this, we longitudinally sampled the microbiome of 25 mother-infant pairs across multiple body sites from birth up to 4 months postpartum. Strain-level metagenomic profiling showed a rapid influx of microbes at birth followed by strong selection during the first few days of life. Maternal skin and vaginal strains colonize only transiently, and the infant continues to acquire microbes from distinct maternal sources after birth. Maternal gut strains proved more persistent in the infant gut and ecologically better adapted than those acquired from other sources. Together, these data describe the mother-to-infant microbiome transmission routes that are integral in the development of the infant microbiome.}, }
@article {pmid29992707, year = {2018}, author = {Ostrensky, A and Horodesky, A and Faoro, H and Balsanelli, E and Sfeir, MZT and Cozer, N and Pie, MR and Dal Pont, G and Castilho-Westphal, GG}, title = {Metagenomic evaluation of the effects of storage conditions on the bacterial microbiota of oysters Crassostrea gasar (Adanson, 1757).}, journal = {Journal of applied microbiology}, volume = {125}, number = {5}, pages = {1435-1443}, doi = {10.1111/jam.14045}, pmid = {29992707}, issn = {1365-2672}, support = {//Serviço Brasileiro de Apoio às Micro e Pequenas Empresas - Sebrae/ ; }, mesh = {Animals ; Brazil ; Crassostrea/*microbiology ; Food Safety ; Food Storage/*methods ; Humans ; Metagenomics ; *Microbiota ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; *Seafood ; Temperature ; }, abstract = {AIMS: To evaluate the influence of storage conditions on the composition of the bacterial microbiota of living oysters Crassostrea gasar.<br><br>METHODS AND RESULTS: The oysters used in this study came from marine farms (Guaratuba Bay, Brazil) and were exposed to two conditions that simulated different storage situations: immersion in water (group I) and exposure to air (group II). The animals were subjected to five different temperatures (5-25°C), for 10 days. The 16S rRNA gene from oysters was amplified and sequenced to determine the taxonomic units and bacterial strains present in the samples. Group I showed higher diversity of bacteria (163 genera) rather than group II (104 genera). In all, 59 bacterial genera potentially pathogenic to humans were identified (n = 56 in group I and n = 45 in group II).<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: The storage conditions having a direct influence on the oyster microbiota. Live C. gasar should be stored exposed to air at 5-25°C, because it favours a lower prevalence of bacteria potentially pathogenic to humans.<br><br>During the oyster commercialization process, some conditions of storage, time and temperature must be followed in order to reduce the prevalence of bacteria potentially pathogenic to humans.}, }
@article {pmid29991350, year = {2018}, author = {Haro-Moreno, JM and López-Pérez, M and de la Torre, JR and Picazo, A and Camacho, A and Rodriguez-Valera, F}, title = {Fine metagenomic profile of the Mediterranean stratified and mixed water columns revealed by assembly and recruitment.}, journal = {Microbiome}, volume = {6}, number = {1}, pages = {128}, pmid = {29991350}, issn = {2049-2618}, mesh = {Archaea/*classification/isolation &amp; purification ; Bacteria/*classification/isolation &amp; purification ; Mediterranean Sea ; Metagenomics/*methods ; Phylogeny ; Seasons ; Water Microbiology ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: The photic zone of aquatic habitats is subjected to strong physicochemical gradients. To analyze the fine-scale variations in the marine microbiome, we collected seven samples from a single offshore location in the Mediterranean at 15 m depth intervals during a period of strong stratification, as well as two more samples during the winter when the photic water column was mixed. We were able to recover 94 new metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) from these metagenomes and examine the distribution of key marine microbes within the photic zone using metagenomic recruitment.<br><br>RESULTS: Our results showed significant differences in the microbial composition of different layers within the stratified photic water column. The majority of microorganisms were confined to discreet horizontal layers of no more than 30 m (stenobathic). Only a few such as members of the SAR11 clade appeared at all depths (eurybathic). During the winter mixing period, only some groups of bloomers such as Pseudomonas were favored. Although most microbes appeared in both seasons, some groups like the SAR116 clade and some Bacteroidetes and Verrucomicrobia seemed to disappear during the mixing period. Furthermore, we found that some microbes previously considered seasonal (e.g., Archaea or Actinobacteria) were living in deeper layers within the photic zone during the stratification period. A strong depth-related specialization was detected, not only at the taxonomic level but also at the functional level, even within the different clades, for the manipulation and uptake of specific polysaccharides. Rhodopsin sequences (green or blue) also showed narrow depth distributions that correlated with the taxonomy of the microbe in which they were found but not with depth.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: Although limited to a single location in the Mediterranean, this study has profound implications for our understanding of how marine microbial communities vary with depth within the photic zone when stratified. Our results highlight the importance of collecting samples at different depths in the water column when comparing seasonal variations and have important ramifications for global marine studies that most often take samples from only one single depth. Furthermore, our perspective and approaches (metagenomic assembly and recruitment) are broadly applicable to other metagenomic studies.}, }
@article {pmid29988102, year = {2018}, author = {Sfanos, KS and Markowski, MC and Peiffer, LB and Ernst, SE and White, JR and Pienta, KJ and Antonarakis, ES and Ross, AE}, title = {Compositional differences in gastrointestinal microbiota in prostate cancer patients treated with androgen axis-targeted therapies.}, journal = {Prostate cancer and prostatic diseases}, volume = {21}, number = {4}, pages = {539-548}, pmid = {29988102}, issn = {1476-5608}, support = {P30 CA006973/CA/NCI NIH HHS/United States ; T32 OD011089/OD/NIH HHS/United States ; 16CHAL13//Prostate Cancer Foundation (PCF)/International ; W81XWH-13-PCRP-CCA//U.S. Department of Defense (DOD)/International ; }, mesh = {Aged ; Aged, 80 and over ; Androgen Antagonists/*pharmacology/therapeutic use ; Androgens/*metabolism ; Antineoplastic Agents, Hormonal/*pharmacology/therapeutic use ; Biodiversity ; Cross-Sectional Studies ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/*drug effects ; Humans ; Male ; Metagenome ; Metagenomics/methods ; Middle Aged ; Molecular Targeted Therapy ; Prostatic Neoplasms/drug therapy/metabolism/*microbiology ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: It is well known that the gastrointestinal (GI) microbiota can influence the metabolism, pharmacokinetics, and toxicity of cancer therapies. Conversely, the effect of cancer treatments on the composition of the GI microbiota is poorly understood. We hypothesized that oral androgen receptor axis-targeted therapies (ATT), including bicalutamide, enzalutamide, and abiraterone acetate, may be associated with compositional differences in the GI microbiota.<br><br>METHODS: We profiled the fecal microbiota in a cross-sectional study of 30 patients that included healthy male volunteers and men with different clinical states of prostate cancer (i.e., localized, biochemically recurrent, and metastatic disease) using 16S rDNA amplicon sequencing. Functional inference of identified taxa was performed using PICRUSt.<br><br>RESULTS: We report a significant difference in alpha diversity in GI microbiota among men with versus without a prostate cancer diagnosis. Further analysis identified significant compositional differences in the GI microbiota of men taking ATT, including a greater abundance of species previously linked to response to anti-PD-1 immunotherapy such as Akkermansia muciniphila and Ruminococcaceae spp. In functional analyses, we found an enriched representation of bacterial gene pathways involved in steroid biosynthesis and steroid hormone biosynthesis in the fecal microbiota of men taking oral ATT.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: There are measurable differences in the GI microbiota of men receiving oral ATT. We speculate that oral hormonal therapies for prostate cancer may alter the GI microbiota, influence clinical responses to ATT, and/or potentially modulate the antitumor effects of future therapies including immunotherapy. Given our findings, larger, longitudinal studies are warranted.}, }
@article {pmid29980437, year = {2018}, author = {Kim, M and Galan, C and Hill, AA and Wu, WJ and Fehlner-Peach, H and Song, HW and Schady, D and Bettini, ML and Simpson, KW and Longman, RS and Littman, DR and Diehl, GE}, title = {Critical Role for the Microbiota in CX3CR1+ Intestinal Mononuclear Phagocyte Regulation of Intestinal T Cell Responses.}, journal = {Immunity}, volume = {49}, number = {1}, pages = {151-163.e5}, pmid = {29980437}, issn = {1097-4180}, support = {R21 AI123945/AI/NIAID NIH HHS/United States ; P30 CA125123/CA/NCI NIH HHS/United States ; T32 AI053831/AI/NIAID NIH HHS/United States ; P30 DK056338/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States ; P30 AI036211/AI/NIAID NIH HHS/United States ; S10 RR024574/RR/NCRR NIH HHS/United States ; R01 AI125264/AI/NIAID NIH HHS/United States ; R01 DK114252/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States ; /HHMI/Howard Hughes Medical Institute/United States ; }, mesh = {Animals ; Antigen Presentation ; Bacterial Adhesion/immunology ; CX3C Chemokine Receptor 1/*metabolism ; Disease Models, Animal ; Female ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/*immunology ; Homeostasis ; Immune Tolerance ; Immunity, Mucosal ; Inflammation/immunology ; Inflammatory Bowel Diseases/immunology ; Interleukin-10/immunology/metabolism ; Intestinal Mucosa/*immunology/microbiology ; Male ; Mice ; Mononuclear Phagocyte System/*immunology ; RAW 264.7 Cells ; T-Lymphocytes, Regulatory/*immunology ; Th1 Cells/*immunology ; }, abstract = {The intestinal barrier is vulnerable to damage by microbiota-induced inflammation that is normally restrained through mechanisms promoting homeostasis. Such disruptions contribute to autoimmune and inflammatory diseases including inflammatory bowel disease. We identified a regulatory loop whereby, in the presence of the normal microbiota, intestinal antigen-presenting cells (APCs) expressing the chemokine receptor CX3CR1 reduced expansion of intestinal microbe-specific T helper 1 (Th1) cells and promoted generation of regulatory T cells responsive to food antigens and the microbiota itself. We identified that disruption of the microbiota resulted in CX3CR1+ APC-dependent inflammatory Th1 cell responses with increased pathology after pathogen infection. Colonization with microbes that can adhere to the epithelium was able to compensate for intestinal microbiota loss, indicating that although microbial interactions with the epithelium can be pathogenic, they can also activate homeostatic regulatory mechanisms. Our results identify a cellular mechanism by which the microbiota limits intestinal inflammation and promotes tissue homeostasis.}, }
@article {pmid29980232, year = {2018}, author = {Hani, J and Abdel Nour, G and Matta, J and Jazzar, B and Pfaffl, MW and Hanna-Wakim, L and Abdel Nour, AM}, title = {Shisha microbiota: the good, the bad and the not so ugly.}, journal = {BMC research notes}, volume = {11}, number = {1}, pages = {446}, pmid = {29980232}, issn = {1756-0500}, mesh = {Adult ; Bacteria/genetics/*isolation &amp; purification ; Equipment Contamination ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; Humans ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S ; Smoking ; Smoking Water Pipes/*microbiology ; Tobacco ; }, abstract = {OBJECTIVE: Over the last decade, there has been a rapid expansion of the trendy water pipe smoking around the world especially among younger adults. The initial objective of this study was to identify the microbiota of the shisha, which may either be of no harm for the smoker or enhance the threat on his well-being. The total DNA for the metagenomics study was conducted on three different shishas from three different delivery shops in Jounieh, Lebanon. The microbiota in two solid parts of the shisha, shaft and hose, were analysed including the fresh tobacco and the water in the bowl. All samples were analysed using high-throughput sequencing of 16S rRNA gene amplicons.<br><br>RESULTS: Overall, more than 40 bacterial genera were found in the three investigated shishas, some are commensal others are pathogenic. All three shishas showed similar microbial content regarding the bacteria inhabiting in water, shaft, or hose. From the results of this study it appears that a very large quantity of bacteria was found in the water pipes, some are harmful and others beneficial. We assume that the presence of gut dependent microbiota is related to the loose hygienic conditions in which the shisha is prepared.}, }
@article {pmid29979780, year = {2018}, author = {Segura-Wang, M and Görzer, I and Jaksch, P and Puchhammer-Stöckl, E}, title = {Temporal dynamics of the lung and plasma viromes in lung transplant recipients.}, journal = {PloS one}, volume = {13}, number = {7}, pages = {e0200428}, pmid = {29979780}, issn = {1932-6203}, mesh = {Adult ; Biodiversity ; Bronchoalveolar Lavage Fluid/virology ; Female ; Follow-Up Studies ; Humans ; Lung/*virology ; *Lung Transplantation ; Male ; Metagenome ; Metagenomics ; Middle Aged ; Phylogeny ; Plasma/*virology ; Retrospective Studies ; Time Factors ; Transplant Recipients ; Young Adult ; }, abstract = {The human virome plays an important role for the clinical outcome of lung transplant recipients (LTRs). While pathogenic viruses may cause severe infections, non-pathogenic viruses may serve as potential markers for the level of immunosuppression. However, neither the complexity of the virome in different compartments nor the dynamics of the virus populations posttransplantation are yet understood. Therefore, in this study the virome was analyzed by metagenomic sequencing in simultaneously withdrawn bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) and plasma samples of 15 LTRs. In seven patients, also follow-up samples were investigated for abundance and dynamics of virus populations posttransplantation. Five eukaryotic and two prokaryotic virus families were identified in BAL, and nine eukaryotic and two prokaryotic families in plasma. Anelloviruses were the most abundant in both compartments, followed by Herpes- and Coronaviruses. Virus abundance was significantly higher in LTRs than in healthy controls (Kruskal-Wallis test, p<0.001). Up to 48 different anellovirus strains were identified within a single LTR. Analyses in the follow-up patients revealed for the first time a highly complex and unique dynamics of individual anellovirus strains in the posttransplantation period. The abundance of anelloviruses in plasma was inversely correlated with that of other eukaryotic viruses (Pearson correlation coefficient r = -0.605; p<0.05). A broad spectrum of virus strains co-exists in BAL and plasma of LTRs. Especially for the anelloviruses, a high degree of co-infections and a highly individual and complex dynamics after transplantation was observed. The biological impact of these findings and their relation to clinical variables remain to be elucidated by future analyses.}, }
@article {pmid29978606, year = {2018}, author = {Xiong, W and Zhan, A}, title = {Testing clustering strategies for metabarcoding-based investigation of community-environment interactions.}, journal = {Molecular ecology resources}, volume = {18}, number = {6}, pages = {1326-1338}, doi = {10.1111/1755-0998.12922}, pmid = {29978606}, issn = {1755-0998}, support = {31572228//National Natural Science Foundation of China/ ; ZDRW-ZS-2016-5-6//The Key Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences/ ; 2015//The Innovation in Cross-functional Team Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences/ ; 2015ZX07201-008-09//Water Pollution Control and Treatment Special Project/ ; 15K01ESPCR//The State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control (RCEES, Chinese Academy of Sciences)/ ; 2017M620927//China Postdoctoral Science Foundation/ ; }, mesh = {Animals ; China ; *Cluster Analysis ; Computational Biology/*methods ; DNA Barcoding, Taxonomic/*methods ; *Environmental Exposure ; Environmental Monitoring/*methods ; Metagenomics/*methods ; Rivers ; Water Pollutants/toxicity ; Zooplankton/drug effects ; }, abstract = {The degradation of freshwater ecosystems has become a common ecological and environmental problem globally. Owing to the complexity of biological communities, there remain tremendous technical challenges for investigating influence of environmental stressors (e.g., chemical pollution) on biological communities. High-throughput sequencing-based metabarcoding provides a powerful tool to reveal complex interactions between environments and biological communities. Among many technical issues, the clustering strategies for operational taxonomic units (OTUs) which are crucial for assessing biodiversity of communities, may affect final conclusions. Here, we used zooplankton communities along an environmental pollution gradient in the Chaobai River in Northern China to test different clustering strategies, including nonclustering and clustering with varied thresholds. Our results showed that though the number of OTUs estimated by nonclustering strategies and clustering strategies with divergence thresholds of 99%-97% largely varied, they were able to identify the same set of significant environmental and spatial variables responsible for geographical distributions of zooplankton communities. In addition, the ecological conclusions obtained by clustering thresholds of 99%-97% were consistent with nonclustering strategies, where for all eight clustering scenarios we detected that species sorting predicted by environmental variables overrode dispersal as the dominant factor in structuring zooplankton communities. However, clustering with the divergence thresholds of <95% affected the environmental and spatial variables identified. We conclude that both newly developed nonclustering methods and traditional clustering methods with divergence thresholds ≥97% were reliable to reveal mechanisms of complex community-environment interactions, although different clustering strategies could lead to largely varied biodiversity estimates such as those for α-diversity.}, }
@article {pmid29976643, year = {2018}, author = {Chaudhary, A and Kauser, I and Ray, A and Poretsky, R}, title = {Taxon-Driven Functional Shifts Associated with Storm Flow in an Urban Stream Microbial Community.}, journal = {mSphere}, volume = {3}, number = {4}, pages = {}, pmid = {29976643}, issn = {2379-5042}, mesh = {*Biota ; Chicago ; Cluster Analysis ; *Cyclonic Storms ; DNA, Ribosomal/chemistry/genetics ; Metagenomics ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Rivers/*microbiology ; Sequence Analysis, DNA ; }, abstract = {Urban streams are susceptible to stormwater and sewage inputs that can impact their ecological health and water quality. Microbial communities in streams play important functional roles, and their composition and metabolic potential can help assess ecological state and water quality. Although these environments are highly heterogenous, little is known about the influence of isolated perturbations, such as those resulting from rain events on urban stream microbiota. Here, we examined the microbial community composition and diversity in an urban stream during dry and wet weather conditions with both 16S rRNA gene sequencing across multiple years and shotgun metagenomics to more deeply analyze a single storm flow event. Metagenomics was used to assess population-level dynamics as well as shifts in the microbial community taxonomic profile and functional potential before and after a substantial rainfall. The results demonstrated general trends present in the stream under storm flow versus base flow conditions and also highlighted the influence of increased effluent flow following rain in shifting the stream microbial community from abundant freshwater taxa to those more associated with urban/anthropogenic settings. Shifts in the taxonomic composition were also linked to changes in functional gene content, particularly for transmembrane transport and organic substance biosynthesis. We also observed an increase in relative abundance of genes encoding degradation of organic pollutants and antibiotic resistance after rain. Overall, this study highlighted some differences in the microbial community of an urban stream under storm flow conditions and showed the impact of a storm flow event on the microbiome from an environmental and public health perspective.IMPORTANCE Urban streams in various parts of the world are facing increased anthropogenic pressure on their water quality, and storm flow events represent one such source of complex physical, chemical, and biological perturbations. Microorganisms are important components of these streams from both ecological and public health perspectives. Analysis of the effect of perturbations on the stream microbial community can help improve current knowledge on the impact such chronic disturbances can have on these water resources. This study examines microbial community dynamics during rain-induced storm flow conditions in an urban stream of the Chicago Area Waterway System. Additionally, using shotgun metagenomics we identified significant shifts in the microbial community composition and functional gene content following a high-rainfall event, with potential environment and public health implications. Previous work in this area has focused on specific genes/organisms or has not assessed immediate storm flow impact.}, }
@article {pmid29976249, year = {2018}, author = {Kayani, MUR and Doyle, SM and Sangwan, N and Wang, G and Gilbert, JA and Christner, BC and Zhu, TF}, title = {Metagenomic analysis of basal ice from an Alaskan glacier.}, journal = {Microbiome}, volume = {6}, number = {1}, pages = {123}, pmid = {29976249}, issn = {2049-2618}, mesh = {Alaska ; Bacteria/*classification/genetics/*isolation &amp; purification/metabolism ; Base Sequence ; Biodiversity ; Ecosystem ; Genome, Bacterial/*genetics ; Geologic Sediments/*microbiology ; Ice Cover/*microbiology ; *Metagenomics ; Microbiota/*genetics ; Nitrification/genetics ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Sequence Analysis, DNA ; Sulfur/metabolism ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: Glaciers cover ~ 10% of land but are among the least explored environments on Earth. The basal portion of glaciers often harbors unique aquatic microbial ecosystems in the absence of sunlight, and knowledge on the microbial community structures and their metabolic potential is very limited. Here, we provide insights into the microbial lifestyle present at the base of the Matanuska Glacier, Alaska.<br><br>RESULTS: DNA and RNA were extracted from samples of the Matanuska Glacier basal ice. Using Illumina MiSeq and HiSeq sequencing, we investigated the microbial diversity with the metagenomic shotgun reads and 16S ribosomal RNA data. We further assembled 9 partial and draft bacterial genomes from the metagenomic assembly, and identified key metabolic pathways such as sulfur oxidation and nitrification. Collectively, our analyses suggest a prevalence of lithotrophic and heterotrophic metabolisms in the subglacial microbiome.<br><br>CONCLUSION: Our results present the first metagenomic assembly and bacterial draft genomes for a subglacial environment. These results extend our understanding of the chemical and biological processes in subglacial environments critically influenced by global climate change.}, }
@article {pmid29974156, year = {2018}, author = {Sharma, S and Grewal, S and Vakhlu, J}, title = {Phylogenetic diversity and metabolic potential of microbiome of natural healing clay from Chamliyal (J&amp;K).}, journal = {Archives of microbiology}, volume = {200}, number = {9}, pages = {1333-1343}, doi = {10.1007/s00203-018-1549-4}, pmid = {29974156}, issn = {1432-072X}, support = {38(1269)/10/EMR-II//Council of Scientific and Industrial Research/ ; }, mesh = {Bacteria/classification/genetics/*isolation &amp; purification/*metabolism ; Clay/*analysis/*chemistry ; Fungi/classification/*isolation &amp; purification/*metabolism ; Humans ; India ; Iron/metabolism ; Metagenome ; Microbiota/*physiology ; Molecular Typing ; Phylogeny ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Skin Diseases/therapy ; Sulfur/metabolism ; }, abstract = {Clay therapy for skin disease treatment is an ancient practice popular worldwide as a cheap alternative to pharmaceutical products. Effectiveness of clay against skin problems has been linked to its mineral composition and to microbial activity. The clay-water paste of a holy shrine Chamliyal in the Jammu region of J&amp;K, India is used as an ointment to treat different skin disorders particularly psoriasis. Using the 16 SrDNA amplicon pyrosequencing and whole-metagenome direct shotgun Illumina sequencing, microbial phylogeny and potential metabolic functions were catalogued for Chamliyal's clay. Microbial diversity profile of the Chamliyal's clay is similar to other medicinal clays, particularly Dead Sea; there is some uniqueness as well. Although Proteobacteria, Actinomycetes and Firmicutes are common inhabitants of all the clay types, sulphur- and iron-reducing bacteria like Deferribacterales are particular to clays used for skin healing. In the present study it is proposed that healing properties of clay may be due to the microbes and microbial genes associated with metabolism of minerals like iron and sulphur, that lead to mineral acquisition in the Chamliyal's clay.}, }
@article {pmid29964641, year = {2017}, author = {Wang, BQ and Li, CY and Lu, W and Fan, H and Zhang, DZ and Wang, Z and Lü, C and Shen, FD}, title = {[Shift of Microbial Communities During the CO2-Brine-Sandstone Interaction Process].}, journal = {Huan jing ke xue= Huanjing kexue}, volume = {38}, number = {7}, pages = {2978-2987}, doi = {10.13227/j.hjkx.201612067}, pmid = {29964641}, issn = {0250-3301}, mesh = {Bacteria/*classification ; *Carbon Dioxide ; *Salts ; Solubility ; }, abstract = {In this study, the dynamic variation of the structure, functionality and biodiversity of indigenous microorganism during the CO2-brine-sandstone interaction process was investigated using MiSeq sequencing techniques. The results indicated that some kinds of indigenous microorganisms could grow well under the extreme condition induced by CO2-injection. After injection of CO2, the species of indigenous microorganisms tended to be single and the relative abundance of Proteobacteria reached up to 99.77% after 6 months. The dominant species varied as follows:Pseudomonas sp., Citrobacter sp. and Brevundimonas sp.. Meanwhile, some special genera such as Bacillus sp., Hydrogenophaga sp. and Rhizobium sp. with functionality of iron-reducing and denitrification were found in this study, which may have a potential effect on the capture and storage of CO2. In addition, the Shannon index decreased from 5.3302 to 1.9465 after injection of CO2, suggesting that the biodiversity reduced significantly. Function and main metabolites analysis of bacteria in the CO2-brine-sandstone interaction process showed that bacteria like Bacillus sp., Citrobacter sp. and Pseudomonas sp. could enhance CO2 solubility-trapping process. Bacteria metabolisms could accelerate the dissolution of feldspar and chlorites, and facilitate the formation of transition-state calcite and siderite. Otherwise, the great variation was mainly attributed to the change of condition driven by CO2-brine-sandstone interactions, such as pH and the chemical composition of brine water(anion and cation), etc.}, }
@article {pmid29961874, year = {2018}, author = {Behzad, H and Mineta, K and Gojobori, T}, title = {Global Ramifications of Dust and Sandstorm Microbiota.}, journal = {Genome biology and evolution}, volume = {10}, number = {8}, pages = {1970-1987}, pmid = {29961874}, issn = {1759-6653}, mesh = {Agriculture ; *Dust ; Ecosystem ; Geography ; Humans ; *Internationality ; Metagenomics ; *Microbiota ; }, abstract = {Dust and sandstorm events inject substantial quantities of foreign microorganisms into global ecosystems, with the ability to impact distant environments. The majority of these microorganisms originate from deserts and drylands where the soil is laden with highly stress-resistant microbes capable of thriving under extreme environmental conditions, and a substantial portion of them survive long journeys through the atmosphere. This large-scale transmission of highly resilient alien microbial contaminants raises concerns with regards to the invasion of sensitive and/or pristine sink environments, and to human health-concerns exacerbated by increases in the rate of desertification. Further increases in the transport of dust-associated microbiota could extend the spread of foreign microbes to new ecosystems, increase their load in present sink environments, disrupt ecosystem balance, and potentially introduce new pathogens. Our present understanding of these microorganisms, their phylogenic affiliations and functional significance, is insufficient to determine their impact. The purpose of this review is to provide an overview of available data regarding dust and sandstorm microbiota and their potential ramifications on human and ecosystem health. We conclude by discussing current gaps in dust and sandstorm microbiota research, and the need for collaborative studies involving high-resolution meta-omic approaches in conjunction with extensive ecological time-series studies to advance the field towards an improved and sufficient understanding of these invisible atmospheric travelers and their global ramifications.}, }
@article {pmid29956164, year = {2018}, author = {Tang, MS and Bowcutt, R and Loke, P}, title = {Assessing the Mouse Intestinal Microbiota in Settings of Type-2 Immune Responses.}, journal = {Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.)}, volume = {1799}, number = {}, pages = {359-370}, doi = {10.1007/978-1-4939-7896-0_26}, pmid = {29956164}, issn = {1940-6029}, mesh = {Animals ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/*immunology ; Helminthiasis/diagnosis/immunology/parasitology ; Helminths/immunology ; Host-Pathogen Interactions ; *Immunity ; Metagenome ; Metagenomics/methods ; Mice ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Sequence Analysis, DNA ; }, abstract = {The microbial communities that reside within the mammalian host play important roles in the development of a robust host immune system. With the advent of sequencing technology and barcoding strategy of the bacterial 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) gene, microbiota studies are becoming more economical but also more important in many immunology studies. Here, we described a representative study protocol to characterize how the microbiota changes during an intestinal helminth infection, with emphasis on subtle aspects of the experimental design that are critical for data interpretation.}, }
@article {pmid29954453, year = {2018}, author = {Parras-Moltó, M and Rodríguez-Galet, A and Suárez-Rodríguez, P and López-Bueno, A}, title = {Evaluation of bias induced by viral enrichment and random amplification protocols in metagenomic surveys of saliva DNA viruses.}, journal = {Microbiome}, volume = {6}, number = {1}, pages = {119}, pmid = {29954453}, issn = {2049-2618}, mesh = {Base Composition/genetics ; DNA Viruses/*genetics ; Genetic Markers/genetics ; Genome, Viral/*genetics ; High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing ; Humans ; Metagenome/*genetics ; *Metagenomics ; Microbiota/genetics ; Nucleic Acid Amplification Techniques/*methods ; Polymerase Chain Reaction ; Saliva/*virology ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: Viruses are key players regulating microbial ecosystems. Exploration of viral assemblages is now possible thanks to the development of metagenomics, the most powerful tool available for studying viral ecology and discovering new viruses. Unfortunately, several sources of bias lead to the misrepresentation of certain viruses within metagenomics workflows, hindering the shift from merely descriptive studies towards quantitative comparisons of communities. Therefore, benchmark studies on virus enrichment and random amplification protocols are required to better understand the sources of bias.<br><br>RESULTS: We assessed the bias introduced by viral enrichment on mock assemblages composed of seven DNA viruses, and the bias from random amplification methods on human saliva DNA viromes, using qPCR and deep sequencing, respectively. While iodixanol cushions and 0.45 μm filtration preserved the original composition of nuclease-protected viral genomes, low-force centrifugation and 0.22 μm filtration removed large viruses. Comparison of unamplified and randomly amplified saliva viromes revealed that multiple displacement amplification (MDA) induced stochastic bias from picograms of DNA template. However, the type of bias shifted to systematic using 1 ng, with only a marginal influence by amplification time. Systematic bias consisted of over-amplification of small circular genomes, and under-amplification of those with extreme GC content, a negative bias that was shared with the PCR-based sequence-independent, single-primer amplification (SISPA) method. MDA based on random priming provided by a DNA primase activity slightly outperformed those based on random hexamers and SISPA, which may reflect differences in ability to handle sequences with extreme GC content. SISPA viromes showed uneven coverage profiles, with high coverage peaks in regions with low linguistic sequence complexity. Despite misrepresentation of certain viruses after random amplification, ordination plots based on dissimilarities among contig profiles showed perfect overlapping of related amplified and unamplified saliva viromes and strong separation from unrelated saliva viromes. This result suggests that random amplification bias has a minor impact on beta diversity studies.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: Benchmark analyses of mock and natural communities of viruses improve understanding and mitigate bias in metagenomics surveys. Bias induced by random amplification methods has only a minor impact on beta diversity studies of human saliva viromes.}, }
@article {pmid29950381, year = {2018}, author = {Jenior, ML and Leslie, JL and Young, VB and Schloss, PD}, title = {Clostridium difficile Alters the Structure and Metabolism of Distinct Cecal Microbiomes during Initial Infection To Promote Sustained Colonization.}, journal = {mSphere}, volume = {3}, number = {3}, pages = {}, pmid = {29950381}, issn = {2379-5042}, mesh = {Animals ; Anti-Bacterial Agents/*administration &amp; dosage/adverse effects ; Cecum/*chemistry/*microbiology ; Clostridium Infections/*microbiology ; Clostridium difficile/*growth &amp; development ; Disease Models, Animal ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; Gene Expression Profiling ; Metabolomics ; Metagenomics ; Mice ; }, abstract = {Susceptibility to Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) is primarily associated with previous exposure to antibiotics, which compromise the structure and function of the gut bacterial community. Specific antibiotic classes correlate more strongly with recurrent or persistent C. difficile infection. As such, we utilized a mouse model of infection to explore the effect of distinct antibiotic classes on the impact that infection has on community-level transcription and metabolic signatures shortly following pathogen colonization and how those changes may associate with persistence of C. difficile Untargeted metabolomic analysis revealed that C. difficile infection had significantly larger impacts on the metabolic environment across cefoperazone- and streptomycin-pretreated mice, which became persistently colonized compared to clindamycin-pretreated mice, where infection quickly became undetectable. Through metagenome-enabled metatranscriptomics, we observed that transcripts for genes associated with carbon and energy acquisition were greatly reduced in infected animals, suggesting that those niches were instead occupied by C. difficile Furthermore, the largest changes in transcription were seen in the least abundant species, indicating that C. difficile may &quot;attack the loser&quot; in gut environments where sustained infection occurs more readily. Overall, our results suggest that C. difficile is able to restructure the nutrient-niche landscape in the gut to promote persistent infection.IMPORTANCEClostridium difficile has become the most common single cause of hospital-acquired infection over the last decade in the United States. Colonization resistance to the nosocomial pathogen is primarily provided by the gut microbiota, which is also involved in clearing the infection as the community recovers from perturbation. As distinct antibiotics are associated with different risk levels for CDI, we utilized a mouse model of infection with 3 separate antibiotic pretreatment regimens to generate alternative gut microbiomes that each allowed for C. difficile colonization but varied in clearance rate. To assess community-level dynamics, we implemented an integrative multi-omics approach that revealed that infection significantly changed many aspects of the gut community. The degree to which the community changed was inversely correlated with clearance during the first 6 days of infection, suggesting that C. difficile differentially modifies the gut environment to promote persistence. This is the first time that metagenome-enabled metatranscriptomics have been employed to study the behavior of a host-associated microbiota in response to an infection. Our results allow for a previously unseen understanding of the ecology associated with C. difficile infection and provide the groundwork for identification of context-specific probiotic therapies.}, }
@article {pmid29941576, year = {2018}, author = {Borton, MA and Hoyt, DW and Roux, S and Daly, RA and Welch, SA and Nicora, CD and Purvine, S and Eder, EK and Hanson, AJ and Sheets, JM and Morgan, DM and Wolfe, RA and Sharma, S and Carr, TR and Cole, DR and Mouser, PJ and Lipton, MS and Wilkins, MJ and Wrighton, KC}, title = {Coupled laboratory and field investigations resolve microbial interactions that underpin persistence in hydraulically fractured shales.}, journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America}, volume = {115}, number = {28}, pages = {E6585-E6594}, pmid = {29941576}, issn = {1091-6490}, mesh = {Bacteria/classification/*metabolism ; *Hydraulic Fracking ; Microbial Consortia/*physiology ; Natural Gas/*microbiology ; United States ; }, abstract = {Hydraulic fracturing is one of the industrial processes behind the surging natural gas output in the United States. This technology inadvertently creates an engineered microbial ecosystem thousands of meters below Earth's surface. Here, we used laboratory reactors to perform manipulations of persisting shale microbial communities that are currently not feasible in field scenarios. Metaproteomic and metabolite findings from the laboratory were then corroborated using regression-based modeling performed on metagenomic and metabolite data from more than 40 produced fluids from five hydraulically fractured shale wells. Collectively, our findings show that Halanaerobium, Geotoga, and Methanohalophilus strain abundances predict a significant fraction of nitrogen and carbon metabolites in the field. Our laboratory findings also exposed cryptic predatory, cooperative, and competitive interactions that impact microorganisms across fractured shales. Scaling these results from the laboratory to the field identified mechanisms underpinning biogeochemical reactions, yielding knowledge that can be harnessed to potentially increase energy yields and inform management practices in hydraulically fractured shales.}, }
@article {pmid29940835, year = {2018}, author = {Devlin, JC and Battaglia, T and Blaser, MJ and Ruggles, KV}, title = {WHAM!: a web-based visualization suite for user-defined analysis of metagenomic shotgun sequencing data.}, journal = {BMC genomics}, volume = {19}, number = {1}, pages = {493}, pmid = {29940835}, issn = {1471-2164}, support = {U01 AI22285//Foundation for the National Institutes of Health/ ; }, mesh = {Computational Biology/*methods ; High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing/methods ; Metagenomics/*methods ; Microbiota/*genetics ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: Exploration of large data sets, such as shotgun metagenomic sequence or expression data, by biomedical experts and medical professionals remains as a major bottleneck in the scientific discovery process. Although tools for this purpose exist for 16S ribosomal RNA sequencing analysis, there is a growing but still insufficient number of user-friendly interactive visualization workflows for easy data exploration and figure generation. The development of such platforms for this purpose is necessary to accelerate and streamline microbiome laboratory research.<br><br>RESULTS: We developed the Workflow Hub for Automated Metagenomic Exploration (WHAM!) as a web-based interactive tool capable of user-directed data visualization and statistical analysis of annotated shotgun metagenomic and metatranscriptomic data sets. WHAM! includes exploratory and hypothesis-based gene and taxa search modules for visualizing differences in microbial taxa and gene family expression across experimental groups, and for creating publication quality figures without the need for command line interface or in-house bioinformatics.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: WHAM! is an interactive and customizable tool for downstream metagenomic and metatranscriptomic analysis providing a user-friendly interface allowing for easy data exploration by microbiome and ecological experts to facilitate discovery in multi-dimensional and large-scale data sets.}, }
@article {pmid29934497, year = {2018}, author = {Ji, Y and Zhang, F and Zhang, R and Shen, Y and Liu, L and Wang, J and Yang, J and Tang, Q and Xun, J and Qi, T and Wang, Z and Song, W and Tang, Y and Chen, J and Lu, H}, title = {Changes in intestinal microbiota in HIV-1-infected subjects following cART initiation: influence of CD4+ T cell count.}, journal = {Emerging microbes &amp; infections}, volume = {7}, number = {1}, pages = {113}, pmid = {29934497}, issn = {2222-1751}, support = {81571977//National Natural Science Foundation of China (National Science Foundation of China)/ ; }, mesh = {Adult ; Antiretroviral Therapy, Highly Active ; Biodiversity ; Biomarkers ; *CD4 Lymphocyte Count ; CD4-CD8 Ratio ; Computational Biology/methods ; Female ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome/drug effects ; HIV Infections/drug therapy/*immunology/virology ; HIV-1/*immunology ; Humans ; Male ; Metagenome ; Metagenomics ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Viral Load ; }, abstract = {The roles of immunodeficiency and combined antiretroviral therapy (cART) in shaping the gut microbiota in HIV-1-infected subjects (HISs) have not been described thoroughly by time-series investigations. In this study, 36 antiretroviral-naïve HISs were enrolled to prospectively assess alterations in the fecal microbiota and plasma markers of microbial translocation and inflammation with cART. At baseline, the species α-diversity of the fecal microbiota was significantly lower in HISs with a CD4+ T cell count <300/mm3 than in HISs with a CD4+ T cell count >300/mm3 (Shannon index: Median 2.557 vs. 2.981, P = 0.006; Simpson index: Median 0.168 vs. 0.096, P = 0.004). Additionally, the baseline α-diversity indices correlated with CD4+ T cell counts (Shannon index: r = 0.474, P = 0.004; Simpson index: r = -0.467, P = 0.004) and the specific plasma biomarkers for microbial translocation and inflammation. After cART introduction, the species α-diversity of fecal microbiota in HISs with CD4+ T cell counts <300/mm3 was significantly restored (Shannon index: Median 2.557 vs. 2.791, P = 0.007; Simpson index: Median 0.168 vs. 0.112, P = 0.004), while the variances were insignificant among HISs with CD4+ T cell counts >300/mm3 (Shannon index: Median 2.981 vs. 2.934, P = 0.179; Simpson index: Median 0.096 vs. 0.119, P = 0.082). Meanwhile, with cART introduction, alterations in the gut microbial composition were more significant in the subgroup with CD4+ T cell counts >300/mm3, corresponding to increases in the specific plasma inflammatory markers. These findings implicated the interactive roles of immunodeficiency and cART for affecting gut microbiota in HIV-1-infected individuals, providing new insights into intestinal microbiome dysbiosis related to HIV-1 infection.}, }
@article {pmid29931479, year = {2018}, author = {Philips, CA and Phadke, N and Ganesan, K and Ranade, S and Augustine, P}, title = {Corticosteroids, nutrition, pentoxifylline, or fecal microbiota transplantation for severe alcoholic hepatitis.}, journal = {Indian journal of gastroenterology : official journal of the Indian Society of Gastroenterology}, volume = {37}, number = {3}, pages = {215-225}, pmid = {29931479}, issn = {0975-0711}, mesh = {Administration, Oral ; Adult ; Aged ; *Fecal Microbiota Transplantation ; Feces/microbiology ; Female ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; Hepatitis, Alcoholic/microbiology/*therapy ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged ; *Nutrition Therapy ; Pentoxifylline/*therapeutic use ; Prednisolone/*administration &amp; dosage ; Severity of Illness Index ; Treatment Outcome ; }, abstract = {INTRODUCTION: Alcohol-induced intestinal dysbiosis is central to the development of the severe alcoholic liver disease. We present the first study to compare outcomes in patients of severe alcoholic hepatitis (SAH) on nutritional therapy, corticosteroids, pentoxifylline, and healthy donor fecal transplantation (FMT) and discuss distinct microbial community and microbiome metabolic functional changes after FMT.<br><br>METHODS: Out of 1271 liver disease patients, 809 (63.7%) were diagnosed to have the alcoholic liver disease, of which 51 patients (8 treated with corticosteroids, 17 with nutritional support only, 10 with pentoxifylline, 16 receiving FMT) were included. Clinical, biochemical parameters, liver disease, and alcoholic hepatitis severity scores at baseline and mortality at the end of 1 and 3 months were analyzed between groups. Stool microbiota (SM) analysis was performed for healthy controls (HC) and respective recipients after FMT.<br><br>RESULTS: All the patients were male. The proportions of patients surviving at the end of 1 and 3 months in the steroids, nutrition, pentoxifylline, and FMT group were 63%, 47%, 40% and 75% [p = 0.179] and 38%, 29%, 30%, and 75% [p = 0.036], respectively. When compared with FMT, relative risk and hazard ratios for death were higher in all the other groups. Following FMT, distinct and beneficial modulation of SM and pathways of dysregulated metabolism, infections, inflammation, and oxidative stress in SAH patients were noted in tandem with improved clinical outcomes.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: Healthy donor FMT for SAH improves survival beyond what is offered by current therapies and can function as a cost-effective bridge to liver transplant (LT) or for improving transplant-free survival. Larger studies and randomized trials are unmet needs.}, }
@article {pmid29925429, year = {2018}, author = {Tschitschko, B and Erdmann, S and DeMaere, MZ and Roux, S and Panwar, P and Allen, MA and Williams, TJ and Brazendale, S and Hancock, AM and Eloe-Fadrosh, EA and Cavicchioli, R}, title = {Genomic variation and biogeography of Antarctic haloarchaea.}, journal = {Microbiome}, volume = {6}, number = {1}, pages = {113}, pmid = {29925429}, issn = {2049-2618}, mesh = {Antarctic Regions ; Archaeal Viruses/*genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Base Sequence ; Genetic Variation/genetics ; Genome, Archaeal/*genetics ; Genomic Islands/genetics ; Geography ; Halorubrum/classification/*genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Lakes/microbiology ; Metagenome/genetics ; Microbiota/*genetics ; Sequence Analysis, DNA ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: The genomes of halophilic archaea (haloarchaea) often comprise multiple replicons. Genomic variation in haloarchaea has been linked to viral infection pressure and, in the case of Antarctic communities, can be caused by intergenera gene exchange. To expand understanding of genome variation and biogeography of Antarctic haloarchaea, here we assessed genomic variation between two strains of Halorubrum lacusprofundi that were isolated from Antarctic hypersaline lakes from different regions (Vestfold Hills and Rauer Islands). To assess variation in haloarchaeal populations, including the presence of genomic islands, metagenomes from six hypersaline Antarctic lakes were characterised.<br><br>RESULTS: The sequence of the largest replicon of each Hrr. lacusprofundi strain (primary replicon) was highly conserved, while each of the strains' two smaller replicons (secondary replicons) were highly variable. Intergenera gene exchange was identified, including the sharing of a type I-B CRISPR system. Evaluation of infectivity of an Antarctic halovirus provided experimental evidence for the differential susceptibility of the strains, bolstering inferences that strain variation is important for modulating interactions with viruses. A relationship was found between genomic structuring and the location of variation within replicons and genomic islands, demonstrating that the way in which haloarchaea accommodate genomic variability relates to replicon structuring. Metagenome read and contig mapping and clustering and scaling analyses demonstrated biogeographical patterning of variation consistent with environment and distance effects. The metagenome data also demonstrated that specific haloarchaeal species dominated the hypersaline systems indicating they are endemic to Antarctica.<br><br>CONCLUSION: The study describes how genomic variation manifests in Antarctic-lake haloarchaeal communities and provides the basis for future assessments of Antarctic regional and global biogeography of haloarchaea.}, }
@article {pmid29925423, year = {2018}, author = {Brooks, B and Olm, MR and Firek, BA and Baker, R and Geller-McGrath, D and Reimer, SR and Soenjoyo, KR and Yip, JS and Dahan, D and Thomas, BC and Morowitz, MJ and Banfield, JF}, title = {The developing premature infant gut microbiome is a major factor shaping the microbiome of neonatal intensive care unit rooms.}, journal = {Microbiome}, volume = {6}, number = {1}, pages = {112}, pmid = {29925423}, issn = {2049-2618}, support = {R01 AI092531/AI/NIAID NIH HHS/United States ; S10 OD018174/OD/NIH HHS/United States ; }, mesh = {Aerosols ; Bacteria/*classification/genetics/*isolation &amp; purification ; Base Sequence ; Dust ; Feces/microbiology ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/*genetics ; Gastrointestinal Tract/*microbiology ; Humans ; Infant, Newborn ; Infant, Premature ; Infant, Very Low Birth Weight ; *Intensive Care Units, Neonatal ; Premature Birth ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Sequence Analysis, DNA ; Skin/*microbiology ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: The neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) contains a unique cohort of patients with underdeveloped immune systems and nascent microbiome communities. Patients often spend several months in the same room, and it has been previously shown that the gut microbiomes of these infants often resemble the microbes found in the NICU. Little is known, however, about the identity, persistence, and absolute abundance of NICU room-associated bacteria over long stretches of time. Here, we couple droplet digital PCR (ddPCR), 16S rRNA gene surveys, and recently published metagenomics data from infant gut samples to infer the extent to which the NICU microbiome is shaped by its room occupants.<br><br>RESULTS: Over 2832 swabs, wipes, and air samples were collected from 16 private-style NICU rooms housing very low birth weight (< 1500 g), premature (< 31 weeks' gestation) infants. For each infant, room samples were collected daily, Monday through Friday, for 1 month. The first samples from the first infant and the last samples from the last infant were collected 383 days apart. Twenty-two NICU locations spanning room surfaces, hands, electronics, sink basins, and air were collected. Results point to an incredibly simple room community where 5-10 taxa, mostly skin-associated, account for over 50% of the amplicon reads. Biomass estimates reveal four to five orders of magnitude difference between the least to the most dense microbial communities, air, and sink basins, respectively. Biomass trends from bioaerosol samples and petri dish dust collectors suggest occupancy to be a main driver of suspended biological particles within the NICU. Using a machine learning algorithm to classify the origin of room samples, we show that each room has a unique microbial fingerprint. Several important taxa driving this model were dominant gut colonizers of infants housed within each room.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: Despite regular cleaning of hospital surfaces, bacterial biomass was detectable at varying densities. A room-specific microbiome signature was detected, suggesting microbes seeding NICU surfaces are sourced from reservoirs within the room and that these reservoirs contain actively dividing cells. Collectively, the data suggests that hospitalized infants, in combination with their caregivers, shape the microbiome of NICU rooms.}, }
@article {pmid29921329, year = {2018}, author = {Call, L and Stoll, B and Oosterloo, B and Ajami, N and Sheikh, F and Wittke, A and Waworuntu, R and Berg, B and Petrosino, J and Olutoye, O and Burrin, D}, title = {Metabolomic signatures distinguish the impact of formula carbohydrates on disease outcome in a preterm piglet model of NEC.}, journal = {Microbiome}, volume = {6}, number = {1}, pages = {111}, pmid = {29921329}, issn = {2049-2618}, support = {P30 DK056338/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States ; T15 LM007093/LM/NLM NIH HHS/United States ; T32 GM088129/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/United States ; }, mesh = {Animal Feed/analysis ; Animals ; Bacillus/classification/genetics/*isolation &amp; purification ; Clostridium/classification/genetics/*isolation &amp; purification ; *Dietary Carbohydrates ; *Enteral Nutrition ; Enterocolitis, Necrotizing/etiology/microbiology ; Female ; Gammaproteobacteria/classification/genetics/*isolation &amp; purification ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/*genetics ; Gastrointestinal Tract/*microbiology ; High Fructose Corn Syrup/*administration &amp; dosage ; Lactose/*administration &amp; dosage ; Pregnancy ; Premature Birth ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Risk Factors ; Swine ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: Major risk factors for necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) include premature birth and formula feeding in the context of microbial colonization of the gastrointestinal tract. We previously showed that feeding formula composed of lactose vs. corn syrup solids protects against NEC in preterm pigs; however, the microbial and metabolic effects of these different carbohydrates used in infant formula has not been explored.<br><br>OBJECTIVE: Our objective was to characterize the effects of lactose- and corn syrup solid-based formulas on the metabolic and microbial profiles of preterm piglets and to determine whether unique metabolomic or microbiome signatures correlate with severity or incidence of NEC.<br><br>DESIGN/METHODS: Preterm piglets (103 days gestation) were given total parenteral nutrition (2 days) followed by gradual (5 days) advancement of enteral feeding of formulas matched in nutrient content but containing either lactose (LAC), corn syrup solids (CSS), or 1:1 mix (MIX). Gut contents and mucosal samples were collected and analyzed for microbial profiles by sequencing the V4 region of the 16S rRNA gene. Metabolomic profiles of cecal contents and plasma were analyzed by LC/GC mass spectrometry.<br><br>RESULTS: NEC incidence was 14, 50, and 44% in the LAC, MIX, and CSS groups, respectively. The dominant classes of bacteria were Bacilli, Clostridia, and Gammaproteobacteria. The number of observed OTUs was lowest in colon contents of CSS-fed pigs. CSS-based formula was associated with higher Bacilli and lower Clostridium from clusters XIVa and XI in the colon. NEC was associated with decreased Gammaproteobacteria in the stomach and increased Clostridium sensu stricto in the ileum. Plasma from NEC piglets was enriched with metabolites of purine metabolism, aromatic amino acid metabolism, and bile acids. Markers of glycolysis, e.g., lactate, were increased in the cecal contents of CSS-fed pigs and in plasma of pigs which developed NEC.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: Feeding formula containing lactose is not completely protective against NEC, yet selects for greater microbial richness associated with changes in Bacilli and Clostridium and lower NEC incidence. We conclude that feeding preterm piglets a corn syrup solid vs. lactose-based formula increases the incidence of NEC and produces distinct metabolomic signatures despite modest changes in microbiome profiles.}, }
@article {pmid29920461, year = {2018}, author = {Graham, EB and Crump, AR and Kennedy, DW and Arntzen, E and Fansler, S and Purvine, SO and Nicora, CD and Nelson, W and Tfaily, MM and Stegen, JC}, title = {Multi 'omics comparison reveals metabolome biochemistry, not microbiome composition or gene expression, corresponds to elevated biogeochemical function in the hyporheic zone.}, journal = {The Science of the total environment}, volume = {642}, number = {}, pages = {742-753}, doi = {10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.05.256}, pmid = {29920461}, issn = {1879-1026}, mesh = {Carbon ; Environmental Monitoring/*methods ; Groundwater ; Metabolome/*physiology ; Microbiota ; Rivers ; }, abstract = {Biogeochemical hotspots are pervasive at terrestrial-aquatic interfaces, particularly within groundwater-surface water mixing zones (hyporheic zones), and they are critical to understanding spatiotemporal variation in biogeochemical cycling. Here, we use multi 'omic comparisons of hotspots to low-activity sediments to gain mechanistic insight into hyporheic zone organic matter processing. We hypothesized that microbiome structure and function, as described by metagenomics and metaproteomics, would distinguish hotspots from low-activity sediments by shifting metabolism towards carbohydrate-utilizing pathways and elucidate discrete mechanisms governing organic matter processing in each location. We also expected these differences to be reflected in the metabolome, whereby hotspot carbon (C) pools and metabolite transformations therein would be enriched in sugar-associated compounds. In contrast to expectations, we found pronounced phenotypic plasticity in the hyporheic zone microbiome that was denoted by similar microbiome structure, functional potential, and expression across sediments with dissimilar metabolic rates. Instead, diverse nitrogenous metabolites and biochemical transformations characterized hotspots. Metabolomes also corresponded more strongly to aerobic metabolism than bulk C or N content only (explaining 67% vs. 42% and 37% of variation respectively), and bulk C and N did not improve statistical models based on metabolome composition alone. These results point to organic nitrogen as a significant regulatory factor influencing hyporheic zone organic matter processing. Based on our findings, we propose incorporating knowledge of metabolic pathways associated with different chemical fractions of C pools into ecosystem models will enhance prediction accuracy.}, }
@article {pmid29915700, year = {2018}, author = {Carew, ME and Coleman, RA and Hoffmann, AA}, title = {Can non-destructive DNA extraction of bulk invertebrate samples be used for metabarcoding?.}, journal = {PeerJ}, volume = {6}, number = {}, pages = {e4980}, pmid = {29915700}, issn = {2167-8359}, abstract = {Background: High throughput DNA sequencing of bulk invertebrate samples or metabarcoding is becoming increasingly used to provide profiles of biological communities for environmental monitoring. As metabarcoding becomes more widely applied, new reference DNA barcodes linked to individual specimens identified by taxonomists are needed. This can be achieved through using DNA extraction methods that are not only suitable for metabarcoding but also for building reference DNA barcode libraries.<br><br>Methods: In this study, we test the suitability of a rapid non-destructive DNA extraction method for metabarcoding of freshwater invertebrate samples.<br><br>Results: This method resulted in detection of taxa from many taxonomic groups, comparable to results obtained with two other tissue-based extraction methods. Most taxa could also be successfully used for subsequent individual-based DNA barcoding and taxonomic identification. The method was successfully applied to field-collected invertebrate samples stored for taxonomic studies in 70% ethanol at room temperature, a commonly used storage method for freshwater samples.<br><br>Discussion: With further refinement and testing, non-destructive extraction has the potential to rapidly characterise species biodiversity in invertebrate samples, while preserving specimens for taxonomic investigation.}, }
@article {pmid29911322, year = {2018}, author = {Moon, CD and Young, W and Maclean, PH and Cookson, AL and Bermingham, EN}, title = {Metagenomic insights into the roles of Proteobacteria in the gastrointestinal microbiomes of healthy dogs and cats.}, journal = {MicrobiologyOpen}, volume = {7}, number = {5}, pages = {e00677}, pmid = {29911322}, issn = {2045-8827}, mesh = {Animals ; Bacteria/*classification/*genetics ; Cats ; Dogs ; Feces/*microbiology ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing ; Metagenomics ; }, abstract = {Interests in the impact of the gastrointestinal microbiota on health and wellbeing have extended from humans to that of companion animals. While relatively fewer studies to date have examined canine and feline gut microbiomes, analysis of the metagenomic DNA from fecal communities using next-generation sequencing technologies have provided insights into the microbes that are present, their function, and potential to contribute to overall host nutrition and health. As carnivores, healthy dogs and cats possess fecal microbiomes that reflect the generally higher concentrations of protein and fat in their diets, relative to omnivores and herbivores. The phyla Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes are highly abundant, and Fusobacteria, Actinobacteria, and Proteobacteria also feature prominently. Proteobacteria is the most diverse bacterial phylum and commonly features in the fecal microbiota of healthy dogs and cats, although its reputation is often sullied as its members include a number of well-known opportunistic pathogens, such as Escherichia coli, Salmonella, and Campylobacter, which may impact the health of the host and its owner. Furthermore, in other host species, high abundances of Proteobacteria have been associated with dysbiosis in hosts with metabolic or inflammatory disorders. In this review, we seek to gain further insight into the prevalence and roles of the Proteobacteria within the gastrointestinal microbiomes of healthy dogs and cats. We draw upon the growing number of metagenomic DNA sequence-based studies which now allow us take a culture-independent approach to examine the functions that this more minor, yet important, group contribute to normal microbiome function.}, }
@article {pmid29908593, year = {2018}, author = {Rastrojo, A and Alcamí, A}, title = {Viruses in Polar Lake and Soil Ecosystems.}, journal = {Advances in virus research}, volume = {101}, number = {}, pages = {39-54}, doi = {10.1016/bs.aivir.2018.02.002}, pmid = {29908593}, issn = {1557-8399}, mesh = {Antarctic Regions ; Arctic Regions ; Biological Evolution ; *Ecosystem ; Genetic Variation ; Lakes/*virology ; Metagenomics ; *Soil Microbiology ; Virus Physiological Phenomena ; Viruses/classification/*genetics ; }, abstract = {Viruses play an important role in the control of microbial communities, and it has been suggested that the influence of viruses in polar ecosystems, with low nutrients and under extreme environmental conditions, may be greater. Viral metagenomics allows the genetic characterization of complex viral communities without the need to isolate and grow viruses. Recent investigations in Antarctica and the Arctic are uncovering a great diversity of DNA viruses, including bacteriophages, circular single-stranded DNA viruses, algal-infecting phycodnaviruses, and virophages, adapted to these extreme environments. The limited sequence similarity between viruses in Antarctica and the Arctic suggests that viral communities in the two polar regions have evolved independently since the formation of the Antarctic continent, estimated to occur 25 million years ago. The community of RNA viruses in Antarctica is dominated by the order Picornavirales and their quasispecies composition suggests that higher genetic variability may correlate with viral adaptation to new environmental conditions.}, }
@article {pmid29906449, year = {2018}, author = {Tropini, C and Moss, EL and Merrill, BD and Ng, KM and Higginbottom, SK and Casavant, EP and Gonzalez, CG and Fremin, B and Bouley, DM and Elias, JE and Bhatt, AS and Huang, KC and Sonnenburg, JL}, title = {Transient Osmotic Perturbation Causes Long-Term Alteration to the Gut Microbiota.}, journal = {Cell}, volume = {173}, number = {7}, pages = {1742-1754.e17}, pmid = {29906449}, issn = {1097-4172}, support = {K08 CA184420/CA/NCI NIH HHS/United States ; P50 GM107615/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/United States ; R01 DK085025/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States ; }, mesh = {Animals ; Bacteroidetes/drug effects/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Cecum/chemistry/metabolism/microbiology/pathology ; Colon/chemistry/microbiology/pathology ; Cytokines/metabolism ; Diarrhea/immunology/microbiology/*pathology/veterinary ; Feces/microbiology ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/*drug effects ; Glycoside Hydrolases/metabolism ; Humans ; Immunity, Humoral/drug effects ; Immunoglobulin G/metabolism ; Intestinal Mucosa/microbiology/pathology ; Metagenomics ; Mice ; Osmolar Concentration ; Polyethylene Glycols/metabolism/*pharmacology ; Proteome/analysis ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/chemistry/genetics ; Verrucomicrobia/drug effects/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; }, abstract = {Osmotic diarrhea is a prevalent condition in humans caused by food intolerance, malabsorption, and widespread laxative use. Here, we assess the resilience of the gut ecosystem to osmotic perturbation at multiple length and timescales using mice as model hosts. Osmotic stress caused reproducible extinction of highly abundant taxa and expansion of less prevalent members in human and mouse microbiotas. Quantitative imaging revealed decimation of the mucus barrier during osmotic perturbation, followed by recovery. The immune system exhibited temporary changes in cytokine levels and a lasting IgG response against commensal bacteria. Increased osmolality prevented growth of commensal strains in vitro, revealing one mechanism contributing to extinction. Environmental availability of microbiota members mitigated extinction events, demonstrating how species reintroduction can affect community resilience. Our findings (1) demonstrate that even mild osmotic diarrhea can cause lasting changes to the microbiota and host and (2) lay the foundation for interventions that increase system-wide resilience.}, }
@article {pmid29902438, year = {2018}, author = {Milshteyn, A and Colosimo, DA and Brady, SF}, title = {Accessing Bioactive Natural Products from the Human Microbiome.}, journal = {Cell host &amp; microbe}, volume = {23}, number = {6}, pages = {725-736}, doi = {10.1016/j.chom.2018.05.013}, pmid = {29902438}, issn = {1934-6069}, support = {R01 AT009562/AT/NCCIH NIH HHS/United States ; }, mesh = {Anti-Bacterial Agents/metabolism ; Bacteria/genetics/metabolism ; Biological Products/*metabolism/*pharmacology ; Humans ; Indoles/metabolism ; Metabolomics ; Metagenomics ; Microbial Interactions ; Microbiota/genetics/*physiology ; Multigene Family ; Peptides, Cyclic/metabolism ; Pyrrolidonecarboxylic Acid/metabolism ; Thiazolidines/metabolism ; }, abstract = {Natural products have long played a pivotal role in the development of therapeutics for a variety of diseases. Traditionally, soil and marine environments have provided a rich reservoir from which diverse chemical scaffolds could be discovered. Recently, the human microbiome has been recognized as a promising niche from which secondary metabolites with therapeutic potential have begun to be isolated. In this Review, we address how the expansive history of identifying bacterial natural products in other environments is informing the approaches being brought to bear on the study of the human microbiota. We also touch on how these tools can lead to insights about microbe-microbe and host-microbe interactions and help generate biological hypotheses that may lead to developments of new therapeutic modalities.}, }
@article {pmid29902201, year = {2018}, author = {Li, X and Naser, SA and Khaled, A and Hu, H and Li, X}, title = {When old metagenomic data meet newly sequenced genomes, a case study.}, journal = {PloS one}, volume = {13}, number = {6}, pages = {e0198773}, pmid = {29902201}, issn = {1932-6203}, support = {R15 GM123407/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/United States ; }, mesh = {Colitis/genetics/*microbiology ; Feces/microbiology ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/*genetics ; Humans ; *Metagenome ; *Metagenomics ; *Whole Genome Sequencing ; }, abstract = {Dozens of computational methods are developed to identify species present in a metagenomic dataset. Many of these computational methods depend on available sequenced microbial species, which are still far from being representative. To see how newly sequenced genomes affect the analysis results, we re-analyzed a shotgun metagenomic dataset composed of twelve colitis free metagenomic samples and ten colitis-related metagenomic samples. Unexpectedly, we identified at least two new phyla that may relate to colitis development in patients, together with the phylum identified previously. Compared with the previously identified phylum that differed between the two types of samples, the differences associated with the two new phyla are statistically more significant. Moreover, the abundance of the two new phyla correlates more with the severity of colitis. Surprisingly, even by repeating the analyses implemented in the previous study, we found that at least one main conclusion in the previous study is not supported. Our study indicates the importance of re-analysis of the generated metagenomic datasets and the necessity of considering multiple updated tools in metagenomic studies. It also sheds light on the limitations of the popular tools used currently and the importance to infer the presence of taxa without relying upon available sequenced genomes.}, }
@article {pmid29899109, year = {2018}, author = {Russo, AG and Eden, JS and Enosi Tuipulotu, D and Shi, M and Selechnik, D and Shine, R and Rollins, LA and Holmes, EC and White, PA}, title = {Viral Discovery in the Invasive Australian Cane Toad (Rhinella marina) Using Metatranscriptomic and Genomic Approaches.}, journal = {Journal of virology}, volume = {92}, number = {17}, pages = {}, pmid = {29899109}, issn = {1098-5514}, mesh = {Animals ; Bufo marinus/*virology ; Gene Expression Profiling ; Metagenomics ; Proviruses/*classification/genetics/*isolation &amp; purification ; Viruses/*classification/genetics/*isolation &amp; purification ; Western Australia ; }, abstract = {Cane toads are a notorious invasive species, inhabiting over 1.2 million km2 of Australia and threatening native biodiversity. The release of pathogenic cane toad viruses is one possible biocontrol strategy yet is currently hindered by the poorly described cane toad virome. Metatranscriptomic analysis of 16 cane toad livers revealed the presence of a novel and full-length picornavirus, Rhimavirus A (RhiV-A), a member of a reptile- and amphibian-specific cluster of the Picornaviridae basal to the Kobuvirus-like group. In the combined liver transcriptome, we also identified a complete genome sequence of a distinct epsilonretrovirus, Rhinella marina endogenous retrovirus (RMERV). The recently sequenced cane toad genome contains 8 complete RMERV proviruses as well as 21 additional truncated insertions. The oldest full-length RMERV provirus was estimated to have inserted 1.9 million years ago (MYA). To screen for these viral sequences in additional toads, we analyzed publicly available transcriptomes from six diverse Australian locations. RhiV-A transcripts were identified in toads sampled from three locations across 1,000 km of Australia, stretching to the current Western Australia (WA) invasion front, while RMERV transcripts were observed at all six sites. Finally, we scanned the cane toad genome for nonretroviral endogenous viral elements, finding three sequences related to small DNA viruses in the family Circoviridae This shows ancestral circoviral infection with subsequent genomic integration. The identification of these current and past viral infections enriches our knowledge of the cane toad virome, an understanding of which will facilitate future work on infection and disease in this important invasive species.IMPORTANCE Cane toads are poisonous amphibians that were introduced to Australia in 1935 for insect control. Since then, their population has increased dramatically, and they now threaten many native Australian species. One potential method to control the population is to release a cane toad virus with high mortality rates, yet few cane toad viruses have been characterized. This study samples cane toads from different Australian locations and uses an RNA sequencing and computational approach to find new viruses. We report novel complete picornavirus and retrovirus sequences that were genetically similar to viruses infecting frogs, reptiles, and fish. Using data generated in other studies, we show that these viral sequences are present in cane toads from distinct Australian locations. Three sequences related to circoviruses were also found in the toad genome. The identification of new viral sequences will aid future studies that investigate their prevalence and potential as agents for biocontrol.}, }
@article {pmid29899081, year = {2019}, author = {Aron-Wisnewsky, J and Prifti, E and Belda, E and Ichou, F and Kayser, BD and Dao, MC and Verger, EO and Hedjazi, L and Bouillot, JL and Chevallier, JM and Pons, N and Le Chatelier, E and Levenez, F and Ehrlich, SD and Dore, J and Zucker, JD and Clément, K}, title = {Major microbiota dysbiosis in severe obesity: fate after bariatric surgery.}, journal = {Gut}, volume = {68}, number = {1}, pages = {70-82}, doi = {10.1136/gutjnl-2018-316103}, pmid = {29899081}, issn = {1468-3288}, mesh = {Adult ; *Bariatric Surgery ; Biomarkers/blood ; Chromatography, Liquid ; Comorbidity ; Dysbiosis/*etiology ; Female ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; Humans ; Male ; Mass Spectrometry ; Metagenomics ; Obesity, Morbid/*microbiology/*surgery ; Phenotype ; Prospective Studies ; Risk Factors ; }, abstract = {OBJECTIVES: Decreased gut microbial gene richness (MGR) and compositional changes are associated with adverse metabolism in overweight or moderate obesity, but lack characterisation in severe obesity. Bariatric surgery (BS) improves metabolism and inflammation in severe obesity and is associated with gut microbiota modifications. Here, we characterised severe obesity-associated dysbiosis (ie, MGR, microbiota composition and functional characteristics) and assessed whether BS would rescue these changes.<br><br>DESIGN: Sixty-one severely obese subjects, candidates for adjustable gastric banding (AGB, n=20) or Roux-en-Y-gastric bypass (RYGB, n=41), were enrolled. Twenty-four subjects were followed at 1, 3 and 12 months post-BS. Gut microbiota and serum metabolome were analysed using shotgun metagenomics and liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (LC-MS). Confirmation groups were included.<br><br>RESULTS: Low gene richness (LGC) was present in 75% of patients and correlated with increased trunk-fat mass and comorbidities (type 2 diabetes, hypertension and severity). Seventy-eight metagenomic species were altered with LGC, among which 50% were associated with adverse body composition and metabolic phenotypes. Nine serum metabolites (including glutarate, 3-methoxyphenylacetic acid and L-histidine) and functional modules containing protein families involved in their metabolism were strongly associated with low MGR. BS increased MGR 1 year postsurgery, but most RYGB patients remained with low MGR 1 year post-BS, despite greater metabolic improvement than AGB patients.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: We identified major gut microbiota alterations in severe obesity, which include decreased MGR and related functional pathways linked with metabolic deteriorations. The lack of full rescue post-BS calls for additional strategies to improve the gut microbiota ecosystem and microbiome-host interactions in severe obesity.<br><br>TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: NCT01454232.}, }
@article {pmid29898983, year = {2018}, author = {Zhu, L and Yang, Z and Yao, R and Xu, L and Chen, H and Gu, X and Wu, T and Yang, X}, title = {Potential Mechanism of Detoxification of Cyanide Compounds by Gut Microbiomes of Bamboo-Eating Pandas.}, journal = {mSphere}, volume = {3}, number = {3}, pages = {}, pmid = {29898983}, issn = {2379-5042}, mesh = {Ailuridae/*microbiology/*physiology ; Animals ; Bacteria/classification/genetics/metabolism ; Biotransformation ; Cyanides/*metabolism ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; Metagenomics ; Ursidae/*microbiology/*physiology ; }, abstract = {Gut microbes can enhance the ability of hosts to consume secondary plant compounds and, therefore, expand the dietary niche breadth of mammalian herbivores. The giant and red pandas are bamboo-eating specialists within the mammalian order Carnivora. Bamboo contains abundant plant secondary metabolites (e.g., cyanide-containing compounds). However, Carnivora species, including the giant panda, have deficient levels of rhodanese (one of the essential cyanide detoxification enzymes) in their tissues compared with the same tissues of herbivores. Here, we make a comparative analysis of 94 gut metagenomes, including 25 from bamboo-eating pandas (19 from giant pandas and 6 from red pandas), 30 from Père David's deer, and 39 from published data for other mammals. The bamboo-eating pandas' gut microbiomes had some common features, such as high proportions of Pseudomonas bacteria. The results revealed that bamboo-eating pandas' gut microbiomes were significantly enriched in putative genes coding for enzymes related to cyanide degradation (e.g., rhodanese) compared with the gut microbiomes of typical herbivorous mammals, which might have coevolved with their special bamboo diets. The enrichment of putative cyanide-digesting gut microbes, in combination with adaptations related to morphology (e.g., pseudothumbs) and genomic signatures, show that the giant panda and red panda have evolved some common traits to adapt to their bamboo diet.IMPORTANCE The giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) and red panda (Ailurus fulgens), two obligate bamboo feeders, have distinct phylogenetic positions in the order Carnivora. Bamboo is extraordinarily rich in plant secondary metabolites, such as allied phenolic and polyphenolic compounds and even toxic cyanide compounds. Here, the enrichment of putative cyanide-digesting gut microbes, in combination with adaptations related to morphology (e.g., pseudothumbs) and genomic signatures, show that the giant panda and red panda have evolved some common traits to adapt to their bamboo diet. Thus, here is another story of diet-driven gut microbiota in nature.}, }
@article {pmid29890228, year = {2018}, author = {Poussin, C and Sierro, N and Boué, S and Battey, J and Scotti, E and Belcastro, V and Peitsch, MC and Ivanov, NV and Hoeng, J}, title = {Interrogating the microbiome: experimental and computational considerations in support of study reproducibility.}, journal = {Drug discovery today}, volume = {23}, number = {9}, pages = {1644-1657}, doi = {10.1016/j.drudis.2018.06.005}, pmid = {29890228}, issn = {1878-5832}, mesh = {Animals ; Computational Biology/*methods ; Crowdsourcing ; Data Accuracy ; Humans ; *Metagenome/genetics ; Metagenomics/*methods ; *Microbiota/genetics ; Reproducibility of Results ; *Research Design ; Workflow ; }, abstract = {The microbiome is an important factor in human health and disease and is investigated to develop novel therapeutics. Metagenomics leverages advances in sequencing technologies and computational analysis to identify and quantify the microorganisms present in a sample. This field has, however, not yet reached maturity and the international metagenomics community, aware of the current limitations and of the necessity for standardization, has started investigating sources of variability in experimental and computational workflows. The first studies have already resulted in the identification of crucial steps and factors affecting metagenomics data quality, quantification and interpretation. This review summarizes experimental and computational considerations for interrogating the microbiome and establishing reproducible and robust analysis workflows.}, }
@article {pmid29882154, year = {2019}, author = {Kerfahi, D and Tripathi, BM and Dong, K and Kim, M and Kim, H and Ferry Slik, JW and Go, R and Adams, JM}, title = {From the High Arctic to the Equator: Do Soil Metagenomes Differ According to Our Expectations?.}, journal = {Microbial ecology}, volume = {77}, number = {1}, pages = {168-185}, doi = {10.1007/s00248-018-1215-z}, pmid = {29882154}, issn = {1432-184X}, support = {0409-20140091//Korea Polar Research Institute/ ; NRF-0409-20150076//National Research Foundation of Korea/ ; }, mesh = {Arctic Regions ; Bacteria/genetics/metabolism ; Biodiversity ; Biota/*genetics/*physiology ; Brunei ; Canada ; Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats/genetics ; DNA Barcoding, Taxonomic ; Ecosystem ; Eukaryota/genetics/metabolism ; Greenland ; Hydrogen-Ion Concentration ; Malaysia ; Metabolic Networks and Pathways/genetics ; Metagenome/*genetics/*physiology ; Metagenomics/methods ; Microbiota/genetics/physiology ; Rainforest ; Secondary Metabolism/genetics ; Sequence Analysis, DNA ; Soil/chemistry ; *Soil Microbiology ; Stress, Physiological ; Svalbard ; }, abstract = {Comparing the functional gene composition of soils at opposite extremes of environmental gradients may allow testing of hypotheses about community and ecosystem function. Here, we were interested in comparing how tropical microbial ecosystems differ from those of polar climates. We sampled several sites in the equatorial rainforest of Malaysia and Brunei, and the high Arctic of Svalbard, Canada, and Greenland, comparing the composition and the functional attributes of soil biota between the two extremes of latitude, using shotgun metagenomic Illumina HiSeq2000 sequencing. Based upon &quot;classical&quot; views of how tropical and higher latitude ecosystems differ, we made a series of predictions as to how various gene function categories would differ in relative abundance between tropical and polar environments. Results showed that in some respects our predictions were correct: the polar samples had higher relative abundance of dormancy related genes, and lower relative abundance of genes associated with respiration, and with metabolism of aromatic compounds. The network complexity of the Arctic was also lower than the tropics. However, in various other respects, the pattern was not as predicted; there were no differences in relative abundance of stress response genes or in genes associated with secondary metabolism. Conversely, CRISPR genes, phage-related genes, and virulence disease and defense genes, were unexpectedly more abundant in the Arctic, suggesting more intense biotic interaction. Also, eukaryote diversity and bacterial diversity were higher in the Arctic of Svalbard compared to tropical Brunei, which is consistent with what may expected from amplicon studies in terms of the higher pH of the Svalbard soil. Our results in some respects confirm expectations of how tropical versus polar nature may differ, and in other respects challenge them.}, }
@article {pmid29877042, year = {2018}, author = {Schnell, IB and Bohmann, K and Schultze, SE and Richter, SR and Murray, DC and Sinding, MS and Bass, D and Cadle, JE and Campbell, MJ and Dolch, R and Edwards, DP and Gray, TNE and Hansen, T and Hoa, ANQ and Noer, CL and Heise-Pavlov, S and Sander Pedersen, AF and Ramamonjisoa, JC and Siddall, ME and Tilker, A and Traeholt, C and Wilkinson, N and Woodcock, P and Yu, DW and Bertelsen, MF and Bunce, M and Gilbert, MTP}, title = {Debugging diversity - a pan-continental exploration of the potential of terrestrial blood-feeding leeches as a vertebrate monitoring tool.}, journal = {Molecular ecology resources}, volume = {18}, number = {6}, pages = {1282-1298}, doi = {10.1111/1755-0998.12912}, pmid = {29877042}, issn = {1755-0998}, support = {DNRF94//Danish National Research Foundation/ ; //University of Copenhagen/ ; FT0991741//Australian Research Council Future Fellowship/ ; //KfW Bankengruppe/ ; //WWF Germany/ ; DFF-5051-00140//The Danish Council for Independent Research/ ; 31400470//National Natural Science Foundation of China/ ; 41661144002//National Natural Science Foundation of China/ ; 2012FY110800//Ministry of Science and Technology of China/ ; GREKF13-13//State Key Laboratory of Genetic Resources and Evolution at the Kunming Institute of Zoology/ ; GREKF14-13//State Key Laboratory of Genetic Resources and Evolution at the Kunming Institute of Zoology/ ; GREKF16-09//State Key Laboratory of Genetic Resources and Evolution at the Kunming Institute of Zoology/ ; }, mesh = {Amphibians/parasitology ; Animals ; Birds/parasitology ; Blood Chemical Analysis/*methods ; DNA Barcoding, Taxonomic/*methods ; Environmental Monitoring/*methods ; High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing/methods ; Leeches/*growth &amp; development ; Mammals/parasitology ; Metagenomics/*methods ; Reptiles/parasitology ; }, abstract = {The use of environmental DNA (eDNA) has become an applicable noninvasive tool with which to obtain information about biodiversity. A subdiscipline of eDNA is iDNA (invertebrate-derived DNA), where genetic material ingested by invertebrates is used to characterize the biodiversity of the species that served as hosts. While promising, these techniques are still in their infancy, as they have only been explored on limited numbers of samples from only a single or a few different locations. In this study, we investigate the suitability of iDNA extracted from more than 3,000 haematophagous terrestrial leeches as a tool for detecting a wide range of terrestrial vertebrates across five different geographical regions on three different continents. These regions cover almost the full geographical range of haematophagous terrestrial leeches, thus representing all parts of the world where this method might apply. We identify host taxa through metabarcoding coupled with high-throughput sequencing on Illumina and IonTorrent sequencing platforms to decrease economic costs and workload and thereby make the approach attractive for practitioners in conservation management. We identified hosts in four different taxonomic vertebrate classes: mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians, belonging to at least 42 different taxonomic families. We find that vertebrate blood ingested by haematophagous terrestrial leeches throughout their distribution is a viable source of DNA with which to examine a wide range of vertebrates. Thus, this study provides encouraging support for the potential of haematophagous terrestrial leeches as a tool for detecting and monitoring terrestrial vertebrate biodiversity.}, }
@article {pmid29874232, year = {2018}, author = {Higashi, K and Suzuki, S and Kurosawa, S and Mori, H and Kurokawa, K}, title = {Latent environment allocation of microbial community data.}, journal = {PLoS computational biology}, volume = {14}, number = {6}, pages = {e1006143}, pmid = {29874232}, issn = {1553-7358}, mesh = {Computational Biology/*methods ; Databases, Genetic ; Environmental Microbiology ; Humans ; Metagenomics ; *Microbiota/genetics/physiology ; Models, Statistical ; Rivers/microbiology ; }, abstract = {As data for microbial community structures found in various environments has increased, studies have examined the relationship between environmental labels given to retrieved microbial samples and their community structures. However, because environments continuously change over time and space, mixed states of some environments and its effects on community formation should be considered, instead of evaluating effects of discrete environmental categories. Here we applied a hierarchical Bayesian model to paired datasets containing more than 30,000 samples of microbial community structures and sample description documents. From the training results, we extracted latent environmental topics that associate co-occurring microbes with co-occurring word sets among samples. Topics are the core elements of environmental mixtures and the visualization of topic-based samples clarifies the connections of various environments. Based on the model training results, we developed a web application, LEA (Latent Environment Allocation), which provides the way to evaluate typicality and heterogeneity of microbial communities in newly obtained samples without confining environmental categories to be compared. Because topics link words and microbes, LEA also enables to search samples semantically related to the query out of 30,000 microbiome samples.}, }
@article {pmid29866485, year = {2018}, author = {Garin-Fernandez, A and Pereira-Flores, E and Glöckner, FO and Wichels, A}, title = {The North Sea goes viral: Occurrence and distribution of North Sea bacteriophages.}, journal = {Marine genomics}, volume = {41}, number = {}, pages = {31-41}, doi = {10.1016/j.margen.2018.05.004}, pmid = {29866485}, issn = {1876-7478}, mesh = {Bacteriophages/classification/*physiology ; *Biodiversity ; Metagenomics ; North Sea ; Water Movements ; }, abstract = {Marine viruses are dominated by phages and have an enormous influence on microbial population dynamics, due to lysis and horizontal gene transfer. The aim of this study is to analyze the occurrence and diversity of phages in the North Sea, considering the virus-host interactions and biogeographic factors. The virus community of four sampling stations were described using virus metagenomics (viromes). The results show that the virus community was not evenly distributed throughout the North Sea. The dominant phage members were identified as unclassified phage group, followed by Caudovirales order. Myoviridae was the dominant phage family in the North Sea, which occurrence decreased from the coast to the open sea. In contrast, the occurrence of Podoviridae increased and the occurrence of Siphoviridae was low throughout the North Sea. The occurrence of other groups such as Phycodnaviridae decreased from the coast to the open sea. The coastal virus community was genetically more diverse than the open sea community. The influence of riverine inflow and currents, for instance the English Channel flow affects the genetic virus diversity with the community carrying genes from a variety of metabolic pathways and other functions. The present study offers the first insights in the virus community in the North Sea using viromes and shows the variation in virus diversity and the genetic information moved from coastal to open sea areas.}, }
@article {pmid29860637, year = {2019}, author = {Torres, PJ and Thompson, J and McLean, JS and Kelley, ST and Edlund, A}, title = {Discovery of a Novel Periodontal Disease-Associated Bacterium.}, journal = {Microbial ecology}, volume = {77}, number = {1}, pages = {267-276}, pmid = {29860637}, issn = {1432-184X}, support = {R00 DE024543/DE/NIDCR NIH HHS/United States ; R01 DE023810/DE/NIDCR NIH HHS/United States ; U26IHS300292//National Institutes of Health/ ; }, mesh = {Alaska Natives ; Bacteroidetes/*classification/genetics/*isolation &amp; purification/*pathogenicity ; California ; Dental Plaque/microbiology ; Genes, Bacterial/genetics ; Genome, Bacterial/genetics ; Humans ; Indians, North American ; Metagenomics ; Microbiota ; Multigene Family ; Periodontal Diseases/*microbiology ; Periodontitis/microbiology ; *Phylogeny ; Sequence Analysis, DNA ; Virulence Factors/genetics ; }, abstract = {One of the world's most common infectious disease, periodontitis (PD), derives from largely uncharacterized communities of oral bacteria growing as biofilms (a.k.a. plaque) on teeth and gum surfaces in periodontal pockets. Bacteria associated with periodontal disease trigger inflammatory responses in immune cells, which in later stages of the disease cause loss of both soft and hard tissue structures supporting teeth. Thus far, only a handful of bacteria have been characterized as infectious agents of PD. Although deep sequencing technologies, such as whole community shotgun sequencing have the potential to capture a detailed picture of highly complex bacterial communities in any given environment, we still lack major reference genomes for the oral microbiome associated with PD and other diseases. In recent work, by using a combination of supervised machine learning and genome assembly, we identified a genome from a novel member of the Bacteroidetes phylum in periodontal samples. Here, by applying a comparative metagenomics read-classification approach, including 272 metagenomes from various human body sites, and our previously assembled draft genome of the uncultivated Candidatus Bacteroides periocalifornicus (CBP) bacterium, we show CBP's ubiquitous distribution in dental plaque, as well as its strong association with the well-known pathogenic &quot;red complex&quot; that resides in deep periodontal pockets.}, }
@article {pmid29858829, year = {2018}, author = {Gupta, SK and Shin, H and Han, D and Hur, HG and Unno, T}, title = {Metagenomic analysis reveals the prevalence and persistence of antibiotic- and heavy metal-resistance genes in wastewater treatment plant.}, journal = {Journal of microbiology (Seoul, Korea)}, volume = {56}, number = {6}, pages = {408-415}, pmid = {29858829}, issn = {1976-3794}, mesh = {Anti-Bacterial Agents/*toxicity ; Bacteria/*classification/drug effects/*genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; DNA, Bacterial/genetics ; Drug Resistance, Microbial/*genetics ; Genes, Bacterial ; High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing ; Metagenomics/*methods ; Metals, Heavy/*toxicity ; Microbial Consortia/genetics ; Phylogeny ; Republic of Korea ; Sequence Analysis ; Sewage/microbiology ; Waste Water/*microbiology ; Water Purification ; }, abstract = {The increased antibiotic resistance among microorganisms has resulted into growing interest for investigating the wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) as they are reported to be the major source in the dissemination of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) and heavy metal resistance genes (HMRGs) in the environment. In this study, we investigated the prevalence and persistence of ARGs and HMRGs as well as bacterial diversity and mobile genetic elements (MGEs) in influent and effluent at the WWTP in Gwangju, South Korea, using high-throughput sequencing based metagenomic approach. A good number of broad-spectrum of resistance genes (both ARG and HMRG) were prevalent and likely persistent, although large portion of them were successfully removed at the wastewater treatment process. The relative abundance of ARGs and MGEs was higher in effluent as compared to that of influent. Our results suggest that the resistance genes with high abundance and bacteria harbouring ARGs and MGEs are likely to persist more through the treatment process. On analyzing the microbial community, the phylum Proteobacteria, especially potentially pathogenic species belonging to the genus Acinetobacter, dominated in WWTP. Overall, our study demonstrates that many ARGs and HMRGs may persist the treatment processes in WWTPs and their association to MGEs may contribute to the dissemination of resistance genes among microorganisms in the environment.}, }
@article {pmid29850933, year = {2019}, author = {Gołębiewski, M and Tarasek, A and Sikora, M and Deja-Sikora, E and Tretyn, A and Niklińska, M}, title = {Rapid Microbial Community Changes During Initial Stages of Pine Litter Decomposition.}, journal = {Microbial ecology}, volume = {77}, number = {1}, pages = {56-75}, doi = {10.1007/s00248-018-1209-x}, pmid = {29850933}, issn = {1432-184X}, support = {UMO-2012/05/NZ8/001362//Narodowe Centrum Nauki/ ; DS758//Uniwersytet Jagielloński w Krakowie/ ; DS759//Uniwersytet Jagielloński w Krakowie/ ; DSC//Uniwersytet Jagielloński w Krakowie/ ; }, mesh = {Archaea/classification/genetics ; Bacteria/classification/genetics/metabolism ; *Biodiversity ; DNA/isolation &amp; purification ; DNA, Ribosomal/genetics ; *Decompression ; Ecosystem ; Eukaryota/classification/genetics ; Fungi/classification/genetics ; Metagenomics ; *Microbiota/genetics/physiology ; Pinus/*microbiology ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; RNA, Ribosomal, 18S/genetics ; *Soil Microbiology ; Trees/microbiology ; }, abstract = {Plant litter decomposition is a process enabling biogeochemical cycles closing in ecosystems, and decomposition in forests constitutes the largest part of this process taking place in terrestrial biomes. Microbial communities during litter decomposition were studied mainly with low-throughput techniques not allowing detailed insight, particularly into coniferous litter, as it is more difficult to obtain high quality DNA required for analyses. Motivated by these problems, we analyzed archaeal, bacterial, and eukaryotic communities at three decomposition stages: fresh, 3- and 8-month-old litter by 16/18S rDNA pyrosequencing, aiming at detailed insight into early stages of pine litter decomposition. Archaea were absent from our libraries. Bacterial and eukaryotic diversity was greatest in 8-month-old litter and the same applied to bacterial and fungal rDNA content. Community structure was different at various stages of decomposition, and phyllospheric organisms (bacteria: Acetobacteraceae and Pseudomonadaceae members, fungi: Lophodermium, Phoma) were replaced by communities with metabolic capabilities adapted to the particular stage of decomposition. Sphingomonadaceae and Xanthomonadaceae and fungal genera Sistotrema, Ceuthospora, and Athelia were characteristic for 3-month-old samples, while 8-month-old ones were characterized by Bradyrhizobiaceae and nematodes (Plectus). We suggest that bacterial and eukaryotic decomposer communities change at different stages of pine litter decomposition in a way similar to that in broadleaf litter. Interactions between bacteria and eukaryotes appear to be one of the key drivers of microbial community structure.}, }
@article {pmid29848762, year = {2018}, author = {Garcia, SL and Buck, M and Hamilton, JJ and Wurzbacher, C and Grossart, HP and McMahon, KD and Eiler, A}, title = {Model Communities Hint at Promiscuous Metabolic Linkages between Ubiquitous Free-Living Freshwater Bacteria.}, journal = {mSphere}, volume = {3}, number = {3}, pages = {}, pmid = {29848762}, issn = {2379-5042}, mesh = {Bacteria/*metabolism ; Fresh Water/*microbiology ; *Metabolism ; *Microbial Consortia ; Microbial Interactions ; }, abstract = {Genome streamlining is frequently observed in free-living aquatic microorganisms and results in physiological dependencies between microorganisms. However, we know little about the specificity of these microbial associations. In order to examine the specificity and extent of these associations, we established mixed cultures from three different freshwater environments and analyzed the cooccurrence of organisms using a metagenomic time series. Free-living microorganisms with streamlined genomes lacking multiple biosynthetic pathways showed no clear recurring pattern in their interaction partners. Free-living freshwater bacteria form promiscuous cooperative associations. This notion contrasts with the well-documented high specificities of interaction partners in host-associated bacteria. Considering all data together, we suggest that highly abundant free-living bacterial lineages are functionally versatile in their interactions despite their distinct streamlining tendencies at the single-cell level. This metabolic versatility facilitates interactions with a variable set of community members.}, }
@article {pmid29806626, year = {2018}, author = {Mihara, T and Koyano, H and Hingamp, P and Grimsley, N and Goto, S and Ogata, H}, title = {Taxon Richness of &quot;Megaviridae&quot; Exceeds those of Bacteria and Archaea in the Ocean.}, journal = {Microbes and environments}, volume = {33}, number = {2}, pages = {162-171}, pmid = {29806626}, issn = {1347-4405}, mesh = {Archaea/*classification/genetics ; Bacteria/*classification/genetics ; *Biodiversity ; Databases, Genetic ; Evolution, Molecular ; Giant Viruses/*classification/genetics ; Metagenomics ; *Oceans and Seas ; *Phylogeny ; RNA Polymerase II/genetics ; }, abstract = {Since the discovery of the giant mimivirus, evolutionarily related viruses have been isolated or identified from various environments. Phylogenetic analyses of this group of viruses, tentatively referred to as the family &quot;Megaviridae&quot;, suggest that it has an ancient origin that may predate the emergence of major eukaryotic lineages. Environmental genomics has since revealed that Megaviridae represents one of the most abundant and diverse groups of viruses in the ocean. In the present study, we compared the taxon richness and phylogenetic diversity of Megaviridae, Bacteria, and Archaea using DNA-dependent RNA polymerase as a common marker gene. By leveraging existing microbial metagenomic data, we found higher richness and phylogenetic diversity in this single viral family than in the two prokaryotic domains. We also obtained results showing that the evolutionary rate alone cannot account for the observed high diversity of Megaviridae lineages. These results suggest that the Megaviridae family has a deep co-evolutionary history with diverse marine protists since the early &quot;Big-Bang&quot; radiation of the eukaryotic tree of life.}, }
@article {pmid29803114, year = {2018}, author = {Wilcox, JJS and Hollocher, H}, title = {Unprecedented Symbiont Eukaryote Diversity Is Governed by Internal Trophic Webs in a Wild Non-Human Primate.}, journal = {Protist}, volume = {169}, number = {3}, pages = {307-320}, doi = {10.1016/j.protis.2018.03.001}, pmid = {29803114}, issn = {1618-0941}, mesh = {Animals ; *Biota ; DNA Barcoding, Taxonomic ; Feces/*parasitology ; Food Chain ; High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing ; Macaca fascicularis/*parasitology ; Metagenomics ; Parasites/*classification/*genetics ; Symbiosis ; }, abstract = {Research on host-associated microbiomes has highlighted major divisions between the role of eukaryotes in free-living and symbiont systems. These trends call into question the relevance of macroecological processes to host-associated systems and the relative importance of parasitism, commensalism, and mutualism as evolutionary patterns across the domains of life. However, it is unclear as to whether these apparent differences reflect biological realities or methodologies in community characterization: free-living eukaryotes tend to be characterized using metabarcoding whereas symbiont eukaryotes are typically characterized with microscopy. Here, we utilize an Illumina high-throughput metabarcoding approach to characterize the diversity and dynamics of eukaryotic symbiont communities in the feces of a wild non-human primate, Macaca fascicularis, revealing functionally and taxonomically diverse communities of eukaryotes hitherto unreported from any vertebrate. Importantly, community assembly was consistent with top-down and bottom-up trophic food web dynamics, highlighting the applicability of macroecological principles to these communities. Ultimately, our findings highlight vertebrate-associated symbiont communities of the gut that are much more similar to free-living systems than previously realized. Additionally, our results support a role for symbiosis as a major recurrent life strategy among eukaryotes and highlight the potential for vertebrates to host vast reservoirs of unexplored eukaryotic diversity.}, }
@article {pmid29800679, year = {2018}, author = {Feranchuk, S and Belkova, N and Potapova, U and Kuzmin, D and Belikov, S}, title = {Evaluating the use of diversity indices to distinguish between microbial communities with different traits.}, journal = {Research in microbiology}, volume = {169}, number = {4-5}, pages = {254-261}, doi = {10.1016/j.resmic.2018.03.004}, pmid = {29800679}, issn = {1769-7123}, mesh = {*Algorithms ; Bacteria/*classification/*genetics ; *Biodiversity ; Coral Reefs ; DNA, Bacterial/genetics ; Ecosystem ; Metagenomics/*methods ; Microbial Consortia/*genetics ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Soil Microbiology ; }, abstract = {Several measures of biodiversity are commonly used to describe microbial communities, analyzed using 16S gene sequencing. A wide range of available experiments on 16S gene sequencing allows us to present a framework for a comparison of various diversity indices. The criterion for the comparison is the statistical significance of the difference in index values for microbial communities with different traits, within the same experiment. The results of the evaluation indicate that Shannon diversity is the most effective measure among the commonly used diversity indices. The results also indicate that, within the present framework, the Gini coefficient as a diversity index is comparable to Shannon diversity, despite the fact that the Gini coefficient, as a diversity estimator, is far less popular in microbiology than several other measures.}, }
@article {pmid29800328, year = {2018}, author = {Birkl, P and Bharwani, A and Kjaer, JB and Kunze, W and McBride, P and Forsythe, P and Harlander-Matauschek, A}, title = {Differences in cecal microbiome of selected high and low feather-pecking laying hens.}, journal = {Poultry science}, volume = {97}, number = {9}, pages = {3009-3014}, pmid = {29800328}, issn = {1525-3171}, mesh = {*Aggression ; Animals ; Bacteria/classification ; Cecum/*microbiology ; Chickens/genetics/*microbiology/*physiology ; Feathers ; Feces/microbiology ; Female ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; RNA, Bacterial/analysis ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/analysis ; *Selection, Genetic ; Sequence Analysis, RNA/veterinary ; }, abstract = {In mammals, it has become increasingly clear that the gut microbiota influences not only gastrointestinal physiology but also modulates behavior. In domestic birds, ceca have the greatest gastrointestinal microbial population. Feather-pecking (FP) behavior in laying hens is one of the most important unsolved behavioral issues in modern agriculture. The aim of the present study was to assess the cecal microbial community of divergently selected high (HFP; n = 20) and low (LFP; n = 20) feather-pecking birds at 60 wk of age. The cecal samples were subjected to community profiling of 16S rRNA and in silico metagenomics using a modified bar-coded Illumina sequencing method on a MiSeq Illumina sequencer. Our results revealed that compared to HFP birds, LFP birds are characterized by an increased overall microbial diversity (beta diversity) shown by a difference in the Bray-Curtis index (R2 = 0.171, P < 0.05). Furthermore, operational taxonomic unit comparisons showed an increased presence of Clostridiae and decreased presence of Lactobaccillacae in HFP birds when compared to LFP birds (False Discovery Rate < 0.05, Mann-Whitney comparisons). Our data indicate that there may be differences in the cecal profile between these 2 lines of laying hens. More research, building on this first study using sequencing technology for profiling the chicken cecal microbiome, will be needed in order to reveal if and how there exists a functional link between the performance of FP and the cecal microbial community.}, }
@article {pmid29794413, year = {2018}, author = {Hu, Y and Bai, C and Cai, J and Dai, J and Shao, K and Tang, X and Gao, G}, title = {Co-occurrence Network Reveals the Higher Fragmentation of the Bacterial Community in Kaidu River Than Its Tributaries in Northwestern China.}, journal = {Microbes and environments}, volume = {33}, number = {2}, pages = {127-134}, pmid = {29794413}, issn = {1347-4405}, mesh = {Bacteria/*classification/genetics ; *Biodiversity ; China ; Computational Biology ; DNA, Bacterial ; Ecosystem ; Metagenomics ; *Microbial Interactions ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Rivers/*microbiology ; *Water Microbiology ; }, abstract = {Rivers and their tributaries sculpt the earth's surface, and play an important role in substance circulation and energy flow. Bacteria are involved in most biogeochemical processes in the fluvial ecosystem; however, their pattern distribution in a river and its tributaries has not yet been investigated in detail. In the present study, high-throughput sequencing was employed to examine bacterial communities and their co-occurrence networks between Kaidu River and its nine tributaries in northwestern China. The results obtained demonstrated that both bacterial communities shared a similar dominant sub-community, mainly consisting of Actinobacteria, Bacteroidetes, and Proteobacteria, with Limnohabitans and Variovorax as the dominant genera. In spite of these commonalities, bacterial community structures still significantly differed between these two habitats, which may be related to the distance-related dispersal limitation. Their co-occurrence networks were generally both positively structured. The structural analysis showed that OTUs from the same phyla were more likely to co-occur. Although the keystone genera were taxonomically different between Kaidu River and its tributaries, they both shared common trophic properties in exploiting niches under oligotrophic conditions. We noted that their relative abundances were less than 1%, indicating the over-proportional roles of rare genera in the bacterial community. In addition, the inferred networks showed less nodes and edges, but higher modularity in Kaidu River than its tributaries, suggesting the higher fragmentation of the bacterial community in the mainstream.}, }
@article {pmid29793542, year = {2018}, author = {Li, LG and Yin, X and Zhang, T}, title = {Tracking antibiotic resistance gene pollution from different sources using machine-learning classification.}, journal = {Microbiome}, volume = {6}, number = {1}, pages = {93}, pmid = {29793542}, issn = {2049-2618}, support = {172099/14E//Hong Kong General Research Fund/International ; }, mesh = {Animals ; Anti-Bacterial Agents/*pharmacology ; Bacteria/*drug effects/*genetics ; China ; Drug Resistance, Microbial/*genetics ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/*genetics ; High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing ; Humans ; *Machine Learning ; Metagenomics ; Sewage/*microbiology ; Soil Microbiology ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has been a worldwide public health concern. Current widespread AMR pollution has posed a big challenge in accurately disentangling source-sink relationship, which has been further confounded by point and non-point sources, as well as endogenous and exogenous cross-reactivity under complicated environmental conditions. Because of insufficient capability in identifying source-sink relationship within a quantitative framework, traditional antibiotic resistance gene (ARG) signatures-based source-tracking methods would hardly be a practical solution.<br><br>RESULTS: By combining broad-spectrum ARG profiling with machine-learning classification SourceTracker, here we present a novel way to address the question in the era of high-throughput sequencing. Its potential in extensive application was firstly validated by 656 global-scale samples covering diverse environmental types (e.g., human/animal gut, wastewater, soil, ocean) and broad geographical regions (e.g., China, USA, Europe, Peru). Its potential and limitations in source prediction as well as effect of parameter adjustment were then rigorously evaluated by artificial configurations with representative source proportions. When applying SourceTracker in region-specific analysis, excellent performance was achieved by ARG profiles in two sample types with obvious different source compositions, i.e., influent and effluent of wastewater treatment plant. Two environmental metagenomic datasets of anthropogenic interference gradient further supported its potential in practical application. To complement general-profile-based source tracking in distinguishing continuous gradient pollution, a few generalist and specialist indicator ARGs across ecotypes were identified in this study.<br><br>CONCLUSION: We demonstrated for the first time that the developed source-tracking platform when coupling with proper experiment design and efficient metagenomic analysis tools will have significant implications for assessing AMR pollution. Following predicted source contribution status, risk ranking of different sources in ARG dissemination will be possible, thereby paving the way for establishing priority in mitigating ARG spread and designing effective control strategies.}, }
@article {pmid29793532, year = {2018}, author = {Bilen, M and Dufour, JC and Lagier, JC and Cadoret, F and Daoud, Z and Dubourg, G and Raoult, D}, title = {The contribution of culturomics to the repertoire of isolated human bacterial and archaeal species.}, journal = {Microbiome}, volume = {6}, number = {1}, pages = {94}, pmid = {29793532}, issn = {2049-2618}, mesh = {Actinobacteria/isolation &amp; purification ; Archaea/*classification/genetics/*isolation &amp; purification ; Bacteria/*classification/genetics/*isolation &amp; purification ; Bacteroidetes/isolation &amp; purification ; DNA, Archaeal/genetics ; DNA, Bacterial/genetics ; Firmicutes/isolation &amp; purification ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/*genetics ; Humans ; Metagenomics ; Proteobacteria/isolation &amp; purification ; }, abstract = {After a decade of research and metagenomic analyses, our knowledge of the human microbiota appears to have reached a plateau despite promising results. In many studies, culture has proven to be essential in describing new prokaryotic species and filling metagenomic gaps. In 2015, only 2172 different prokaryotic species were reported to have been isolated at least once from the human body as pathogens or commensals. In this review, we update the previous repertoire by reporting the different species isolated from the human body to date, increasing it by 28% to reach a total of 2776 species associated with human beings. They have been classified into 11 different phyla, mostly the Firmicutes, Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, and Actinobacteria. Finally, culturomics contributed up to 66.2% towards updating this repertoire by reporting 400 species, of which 288 were novel. This demonstrates the need to continue the culturing work, which seems essential in order to decipher the hidden human microbial content.}, }
@article {pmid29790949, year = {2018}, author = {Salas-Mani, A and Jeusette, I and Castillo, I and Manuelian, CL and Lionnet, C and Iraculis, N and Sanchez, N and Fernández, S and Vilaseca, L and Torre, C}, title = {Fecal microbiota composition changes after a BW loss diet in Beagle dogs.}, journal = {Journal of animal science}, volume = {96}, number = {8}, pages = {3102-3111}, pmid = {29790949}, issn = {1525-3163}, mesh = {Animals ; Bacteria/*classification/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Body Composition ; Body Weight ; Caloric Restriction/*veterinary ; Diet, Fat-Restricted/*veterinary ; Dietary Fiber ; Dogs/*physiology ; Feces/microbiology ; Female ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; Male ; *Metagenomics ; Obesity/prevention &amp; control/veterinary ; }, abstract = {In developed countries, dogs and cats frequently suffer from obesity. Recently, gut microbiota composition in humans has been related to obesity and metabolic diseases. This study aimed to evaluate changes in body composition, and gut microbiota composition in obese Beagle dogs after a 17-wk BW loss program. A total of six neutered adult Beagle dogs with an average initial BW of 16.34 ± 1.52 kg and BCS of 7.8 ± 0.1 points (9-point scale) were restrictedly fed with a hypocaloric, low-fat and high-fiber dry-type diet. Body composition was assessed with dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry scan, before (T0) and after (T1) BW loss program. Individual stool samples were collected at T0 and T1 for the 16S rRNA analyses of gut microbiota. Taxonomic analysis was done with amplicon-based metagenomic results, and functional analysis of the metabolic potential of the microbial community was done with shotgun metagenomic results. All dogs reached their ideal BW at T1, with an average weekly proportion of BW loss of -1.07 ± 0.03% of starting BW. Body fat (T0, 7.02 ± 0.76 kg) was reduced by half (P < 0.001), while bone (T0, 0.56 ± 0.06 kg) and muscle mass (T0, 8.89 ± 0.80 kg) remained stable (P > 0.05). The most abundant identified phylum was Firmicutes (T0, 74.27 ± 0.08%; T1, 69.38 ± 0.07%), followed by Bacteroidetes (T0, 12.68 ± 0.08%; T1, 16.68 ± 0.05%), Fusobacteria (T0, 7.45 ± 0.02%; T1, 10.18 ± 0.03%), Actinobacteria (T0, 4.53 ± 0.02%; T1, 3.34 ± 0.01%), and Proteobacteria (T0, 1.06 ± 0.01%; T1, 1.40 ± 0.00%). At genus level, the presence of Clostridium, Lactobacillus, and Dorea, at T1 decreased (P = 0.028), while Allobaculum increased (P = 0.046). Although the microbiota communities at T0 and T1 showed a low separation level when compared (Anosim's R value = 0.39), they were significantly biodiverse (P = 0.01). Those differences on microbiota composition could be explained by 13 genus (α = 0.05, linear discriminant analysis (LDA) score > 2.0). Additionally, differences between both communities could also be explained by the expression of 18 enzymes and 27 pathways (α = 0.05, LDA score > 2.0). In conclusion, restricted feeding of a low-fat and high-fiber dry-type diet successfully modifies gut microbiota in obese dogs, increasing biodiversity with a different representation of microbial genus and metabolic pathways.}, }
@article {pmid29790941, year = {2018}, author = {Batut, B and Gravouil, K and Defois, C and Hiltemann, S and Brugère, JF and Peyretaillade, E and Peyret, P}, title = {ASaiM: a Galaxy-based framework to analyze microbiota data.}, journal = {GigaScience}, volume = {7}, number = {6}, pages = {}, pmid = {29790941}, issn = {2047-217X}, mesh = {Base Sequence ; Metagenomics ; *Microbiota ; *Software ; *Statistics as Topic ; }, abstract = {Background: New generations of sequencing platforms coupled to numerous bioinformatics tools have led to rapid technological progress in metagenomics and metatranscriptomics to investigate complex microorganism communities. Nevertheless, a combination of different bioinformatic tools remains necessary to draw conclusions out of microbiota studies. Modular and user-friendly tools would greatly improve such studies.<br><br>Findings: We therefore developed ASaiM, an Open-Source Galaxy-based framework dedicated to microbiota data analyses. ASaiM provides an extensive collection of tools to assemble, extract, explore, and visualize microbiota information from raw metataxonomic, metagenomic, or metatranscriptomic sequences. To guide the analyses, several customizable workflows are included and are supported by tutorials and Galaxy interactive tours, which guide users through the analyses step by step. ASaiM is implemented as a Galaxy Docker flavour. It is scalable to thousands of datasets but also can be used on a normal PC. The associated source code is available under Apache 2 license at https://github.com/ASaiM/framework and documentation can be found online (http://asaim.readthedocs.io).<br><br>Conclusions: Based on the Galaxy framework, ASaiM offers a sophisticated environment with a variety of tools, workflows, documentation, and training to scientists working on complex microorganism communities. It makes analysis and exploration analyses of microbiota data easy, quick, transparent, reproducible, and shareable.}, }
@article {pmid29789624, year = {2018}, author = {Vázquez-Castellanos, JF and Serrano-Villar, S and Jiménez-Hernández, N and Soto Del Rio, MD and Gayo, S and Rojo, D and Ferrer, M and Barbas, C and Moreno, S and Estrada, V and Rattei, T and Latorre, A and Moya, A and Gosalbes, MJ}, title = {Interplay between gut microbiota metabolism and inflammation in HIV infection.}, journal = {The ISME journal}, volume = {12}, number = {8}, pages = {1964-1976}, pmid = {29789624}, issn = {1751-7370}, mesh = {Bacteria/genetics/isolation &amp; purification/*metabolism ; Bayes Theorem ; Digestive System Diseases/microbiology ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; HIV Infections/*microbiology ; Humans ; Inflammation/microbiology ; Metabolic Networks and Pathways ; Metagenomics ; Transcriptome ; }, abstract = {HIV infection causes a disruption of gut-associated lymphoid tissue, driving a shift in the composition of gut microbiota. A deeper understanding of the metabolic changes and how they affect the interplay with the host is needed. Here, we assessed functional modifications of HIV-associated microbiota by combining metagenomic and metatranscriptomic analyses. The transcriptionally active microbiota was well-adapted to the inflamed environment, overexpressing pathways related to resistance to oxidative stress. Furthermore, gut inflammation was maintained by the Gram-negative nature of the HIV-associated microbiota and underexpression of anti-inflammatory processes, such as short chain fatty acid biosynthesis or indole production. We performed co-occurrence and metabolic network analyses that showed relevance in the microbiota structure of both taxonomic and metabolic HIV-associated biomarkers. The Bayesian network revealed the most determinant pathways for maintaining the structure stability of the bacterial community. In addition, we identified the taxa's contribution to metabolic activities and their interactions with host health.}, }
@article {pmid29789015, year = {2018}, author = {Panebianco, C and Andriulli, A and Pazienza, V}, title = {Pharmacomicrobiomics: exploiting the drug-microbiota interactions in anticancer therapies.}, journal = {Microbiome}, volume = {6}, number = {1}, pages = {92}, pmid = {29789015}, issn = {2049-2618}, support = {RC1703GA31//Ministero della Salute/International ; RC1503GA40//Ministero della Salute/International ; }, mesh = {Antineoplastic Agents/*metabolism/*therapeutic use ; Bacteria/*metabolism ; Dysbiosis/*chemically induced ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/*physiology ; Humans ; Intestines/microbiology ; Neoplasms/*drug therapy/microbiology ; Prebiotics ; Probiotics/*therapeutic use ; Synbiotics ; }, abstract = {Cancer is a major health burden worldwide, and despite continuous advances in medical therapies, resistance to standard drugs and adverse effects still represent an important cause of therapeutic failure. There is a growing evidence that gut bacteria can affect the response to chemo- and immunotherapeutic drugs by modulating either efficacy or toxicity. Moreover, intratumor bacteria have been shown to modulate chemotherapy response. At the same time, anticancer treatments themselves significantly affect the microbiota composition, thus disrupting homeostasis and exacerbating discomfort to the patient. Here, we review the existing knowledge concerning the role of the microbiota in mediating chemo- and immunotherapy efficacy and toxicity and the ability of these therapeutic options to trigger dysbiotic condition contributing to the severity of side effects. In addition, we discuss the use of probiotics, prebiotics, synbiotics, postbiotics, and antibiotics as emerging strategies for manipulating the microbiota in order to improve therapeutic outcome or at least ensure patients a better quality of life all along of anticancer treatments.}, }
@article {pmid29788417, year = {2018}, author = {Patil, RD and Ellison, MJ and Wolff, SM and Shearer, C and Wright, AM and Cockrum, RR and Austin, KJ and Lamberson, WR and Cammack, KM and Conant, GC}, title = {Poor feed efficiency in sheep is associated with several structural abnormalities in the community metabolic network of their ruminal microbes.}, journal = {Journal of animal science}, volume = {96}, number = {6}, pages = {2113-2124}, pmid = {29788417}, issn = {1525-3163}, mesh = {Animal Feed/*analysis ; Animals ; Female ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; *Metabolic Networks and Pathways ; *Metagenomics ; Rumen/metabolism/microbiology ; Sheep/microbiology/*physiology ; }, abstract = {Ruminant animals have a symbiotic relationship with the microorganisms in their rumens. In this relationship, rumen microbes efficiently degrade complex plant-derived compounds into smaller digestible compounds, a process that is very likely associated with host animal feed efficiency. The resulting simpler metabolites can then be absorbed by the host and converted into other compounds by host enzymes. We used a microbial community metabolic network inferred from shotgun metagenomics data to assess how this metabolic system differs between animals that are able to turn ingested feedstuffs into body mass with high efficiency and those that are not. We conducted shotgun sequencing of microbial DNA from the rumen contents of 16 sheep that differed in their residual feed intake (RFI), a measure of feed efficiency. Metagenomic reads from each sheep were mapped onto a database-derived microbial metabolic network, which was linked to the sheep metabolic network by interface metabolites (metabolites transferred from microbes to host). No single enzyme was identified as being significantly different in abundance between the low and high RFI animals (P > 0.05, Wilcoxon test). However, when we analyzed the metabolic network as a whole, we found several differences between efficient and inefficient animals. Microbes from low RFI (efficient) animals use a suite of enzymes closer in network space to the host's reactions than those of the high RFI (inefficient) animals. Similarly, low RFI animals have microbial metabolic networks that, on average, contain reactions using shorter carbon chains than do those of high RFI animals, potentially allowing the host animals to extract metabolites more efficiently. Finally, the efficient animals possess community networks with greater Shannon diversity among their enzymes than do inefficient ones. Thus, our system approach to the ruminal microbiome identified differences attributable to feed efficiency in the structure of the microbes' community metabolic network that were undetected at the level of individual microbial taxa or reactions.}, }
@article {pmid29786880, year = {2018}, author = {Sánchez-Sanhueza, G and Bello-Toledo, H and González-Rocha, G and Gonçalves, AT and Valenzuela, V and Gallardo-Escárate, C}, title = {Metagenomic study of bacterial microbiota in persistent endodontic infections using Next-generation sequencing.}, journal = {International endodontic journal}, volume = {51}, number = {12}, pages = {1336-1348}, doi = {10.1111/iej.12953}, pmid = {29786880}, issn = {1365-2591}, support = {folio 21130022//CONICYT-PCHA/Doctorado Nacional/2013/ ; N°214.102.016-1 IN//VRID UDEC/ ; }, mesh = {Adult ; Bacteria/*classification/*genetics/*pathogenicity ; Biodiversity ; Chile ; DNA, Bacterial/analysis ; Dental Pulp Cavity/*microbiology ; Female ; High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing/*methods ; Humans ; Male ; Metagenomics/*methods ; Microbiota/*genetics ; Middle Aged ; Periapical Periodontitis/*microbiology ; Phylogeny ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Root Canal Therapy ; }, abstract = {AIM: To determine the bacterial microbiota in root canals associated with persistent apical periodontitis and their relationship with the clinical characteristics of patients using next-generation sequencing (NGS).<br><br>METHODOLOGY: Bacterial samples from root canals associated with teeth having persistent apical periodontitis were taken from 24 patients undergoing root canal retreatment. Bacterial DNA was extracted, and V3-V4 variable regions of the 16S rRNA gene were amplified. The amplification was deep sequenced by Illumina technology to establish the metagenetic relationships among the bacterial species identified. The composition and diversity of microbial communities in the root canal and their relationships with clinical features were analysed. Parametric and nonparametric tests were used to analyse differences between patient characteristics and microbial data.<br><br>RESULTS: A total of 86 different operational taxonomic units (OTUs) were identified and Good's nonparametric coverage estimator method indicated that 99.9 ± 0.00001% diversity was recovered per sample. The largest number of bacteria belonged to the phylum Proteobacteria. According to the medical history from the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) Classification System, ASA II-III had higher richness estimates and distinct phylogenetic relationships compared to ASA I individuals (P < 0.05). Periapical index (PAI) score 5 was associated with increased microbiota diversity in comparison to PAI score 4, and this index was reduced in symptomatic patients.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: Based on the findings of this study, it is possible to suggest a close relationship between several clinical features and greater microbiota diversity with persistent endodontic infections. This work provides a better understanding on how microbial communities interact with their host and vice versa.}, }
@article {pmid29784074, year = {2018}, author = {Korte, SW and Franklin, CL and Dorfmeyer, RA and Ericsson, AC}, title = {Effects of Fenbendazole-impregnated Feed and Topical Moxidectin during Quarantine on the Gut Microbiota of C57BL/6 Mice.}, journal = {Journal of the American Association for Laboratory Animal Science : JAALAS}, volume = {57}, number = {3}, pages = {229-235}, pmid = {29784074}, issn = {1559-6109}, support = {U42 OD010918/OD/NIH HHS/United States ; }, mesh = {Administration, Oral ; Animal Feed ; Animals ; Antinematodal Agents/administration &amp; dosage/pharmacology ; Feces/microbiology ; Fenbendazole/administration &amp; dosage/*pharmacology ; Food, Fortified ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/*drug effects ; Laboratory Animal Science ; Macrolides/administration &amp; dosage/*pharmacology ; Mice ; Mice, Inbred C57BL ; Microbiota ; Quarantine ; Random Allocation ; Reproducibility of Results ; Rodent Diseases/parasitology/prevention &amp; control ; }, abstract = {To protect the biosecurity of research rodent colonies, research institutions frequently require a quarantine period for live animals transferred into their facilities. Quarantine practices often include antibiotic and antiparasitic treatment with drugs such as fenbendazole and macrolide lactones. The influence of these compounds on the resident gut microbiota of mice is unknown, and any effects might subsequently affect model reproducibility. To test the influence of standard quarantine procedures on the composition of the microbiota, C57BL/6 mice, purchased from 2 different commercial suppliers, were randomly assigned to treatment groups (n = 12) by vendor and treated with fenbendazole-supplemented feed, topical moxidectin, both treatments, or no treatment (control), according to our institution's standard treatment regimen and duration. Feces were collected on arrival, immediately after completing the 8-wk treatment, and at 2 and 4 wk after treatment. Fecal DNA was extracted, sequenced, and analyzed to compare the changes in the microbiota of treated and control groups. Although significant main effects of time and treatment and interactions between those variables were detected in comparisons of richness, α-diversity, and β-diversity, the effect sizes associated with any particular treatment were consistently much smaller than that associated with acclimation to a new facility in the absence of any quarantine treatments. This outcome, along with the visual evaluation of principal coordinate analysis based on multiple similarity indices, suggests that time or institution plays a larger role in alterations of the murine gut microbiota than do quarantine treatments on its composition.}, }
@article {pmid29783653, year = {2018}, author = {Li, H and Liu, X and Chen, F and Zuo, K and Wu, C and Yan, Y and Chen, W and Lin, W and Xie, Q}, title = {Avian Influenza Virus Subtype H9N2 Affects Intestinal Microbiota, Barrier Structure Injury, and Inflammatory Intestinal Disease in the Chicken Ileum.}, journal = {Viruses}, volume = {10}, number = {5}, pages = {}, pmid = {29783653}, issn = {1999-4915}, mesh = {Animals ; Chickens/*virology ; Cytokines/genetics/metabolism ; DNA, Bacterial/genetics ; Enteritis/metabolism ; Escherichia coli/metabolism ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; Influenza A Virus, H9N2 Subtype/*physiology ; Influenza in Birds/immunology/metabolism/*microbiology ; Intestinal Mucosa/*injuries ; Metagenomics ; RNA, Messenger/metabolism ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Specific Pathogen-Free Organisms ; }, abstract = {Avian influenza virus subtype H9N2 (H9N2 AIV) has caused significant losses to the poultry industry due to the high mortality associated with secondary infections attributable to E. coli. This study tries to address the underlying secondary mechanisms after H9N2 AIV infection. Initially, nine day-old specific pathogen-free chickens were assigned to control (uninfected) and H9N2-infected groups, respectively. Using Illumina sequencing, histological examination, and quantitative real-time PCR, it was found that H9N2 AIV caused intestinal microbiota disorder, injury, and inflammatory damage to the intestinal mucosa. Notably, the genera Escherichia, especially E. coli, significantly increased (p < 0.01) at five days post-infection (dpi), while Lactobacillus, Enterococcus, and other probiotic organisms were significantly reduced (p < 0.01). Simultaneously, the mRNA expression of tight junction proteins (ZO-1, claudin 3, and occludin), TFF2, and Muc2 were significantly reduced (p < 0.01), indicating the destruction of the intestinal epithelial cell tight junctions and the damage of mucin layer construction. Moreover, the mRNA expression of proinflammatory cytokines IFN-γ, IL-22, IFN-α, and IL-17A in intestinal epithelial cells were significantly upregulated, resulting in the inflammatory response and intestinal injury. Our findings may provide a theoretical basis for observed gastroenteritis-like symptoms such as diarrhea and secondary E. coli infection following H9N2 AIV infection.}, }
@article {pmid29777052, year = {2018}, author = {Hodgetts, T and Grenyer, R and Greenhough, B and McLeod, C and Dwyer, A and Lorimer, J}, title = {The microbiome and its publics: A participatory approach for engaging publics with the microbiome and its implications for health and hygiene.}, journal = {EMBO reports}, volume = {19}, number = {6}, pages = {}, pmid = {29777052}, issn = {1469-3178}, mesh = {*Community Participation ; Humans ; *Hygiene Hypothesis ; Metagenomics ; Microbiota/*genetics ; *Public Health ; Stakeholder Participation ; }, }
@article {pmid29773467, year = {2018}, author = {Daliri, EB and Tango, CN and Lee, BH and Oh, DH}, title = {Human microbiome restoration and safety.}, journal = {International journal of medical microbiology : IJMM}, volume = {308}, number = {5}, pages = {487-497}, doi = {10.1016/j.ijmm.2018.05.002}, pmid = {29773467}, issn = {1618-0607}, mesh = {Anti-Bacterial Agents ; Bacteria/classification/isolation &amp; purification ; Diet ; Dysbiosis/*therapy ; Fecal Microbiota Transplantation/*adverse effects/methods ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/*physiology ; Humans ; Probiotics/*administration &amp; dosage ; }, abstract = {The human gut microbiome consists of many bacteria which are in symbiotic relationship with human beings. The gut microbial metabolism, as well as the microbial-host co-metabolism, has been found to greatly influence health and disease. Factors such as diet, antibiotic use and lifestyle have been associated with alterations in the gut microbial community and may result in several pathological conditions. For this reason, several strategies including fecal microbiota transplant and probiotic administration have been applied and proven to be feasible and effective in restoring the gut microbiota in humans. Yet, safety concerns such as potential health risks that may arise from such interventions and how these strategies are regulated need to be addressed. Also, it will be important to know if these microbiome restoration strategies can have a profound impact on health. This review provides an overview of our current knowledge of the microbiome restoration strategies and safety issues on how these strategies are regulated.}, }
@article {pmid29768738, year = {2019}, author = {Cilleros, K and Valentini, A and Allard, L and Dejean, T and Etienne, R and Grenouillet, G and Iribar, A and Taberlet, P and Vigouroux, R and Brosse, S}, title = {Unlocking biodiversity and conservation studies in high-diversity environments using environmental DNA (eDNA): A test with Guianese freshwater fishes.}, journal = {Molecular ecology resources}, volume = {19}, number = {1}, pages = {27-46}, doi = {10.1111/1755-0998.12900}, pmid = {29768738}, issn = {1755-0998}, mesh = {Animals ; *Biodiversity ; DNA/chemistry/*genetics/*isolation &amp; purification ; DNA Barcoding, Taxonomic/*methods ; Fishes/*classification/genetics ; Fresh Water/*chemistry ; Guyana ; Metagenomics/*methods ; }, abstract = {Determining the species compositions of local assemblages is a prerequisite to understanding how anthropogenic disturbances affect biodiversity. However, biodiversity measurements often remain incomplete due to the limited efficiency of sampling methods. This is particularly true in freshwater tropical environments that host rich fish assemblages, for which assessments are uncertain and often rely on destructive methods. Developing an efficient and nondestructive method to assess biodiversity in tropical freshwaters is highly important. In this study, we tested the efficiency of environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding to assess the fish diversity of 39 Guianese sites. We compared the diversity and composition of assemblages obtained using traditional and metabarcoding methods. More than 7,000 individual fish belonging to 203 Guianese fish species were collected by traditional sampling methods, and ~17 million reads were produced by metabarcoding, among which ~8 million reads were assigned to 148 fish taxonomic units, including 132 fish species. The two methods detected a similar number of species at each site, but the species identities partially matched. The assemblage compositions from the different drainage basins were better discriminated using metabarcoding, revealing that while traditional methods provide a more complete but spatially limited inventory of fish assemblages, metabarcoding provides a more partial but spatially extensive inventory. eDNA metabarcoding can therefore be used for rapid and large-scale biodiversity assessments, while at a local scale, the two approaches are complementary and enable an understanding of realistic fish biodiversity.}, }
@article {pmid29768437, year = {2018}, author = {Willmann, C and Mata, X and Hanghoej, K and Tonasso, L and Tisseyre, L and Jeziorski, C and Cabot, E and Chevet, P and Crubézy, E and Orlando, L and Esclassan, R and Thèves, C}, title = {Oral health status in historic population: Macroscopic and metagenomic evidence.}, journal = {PloS one}, volume = {13}, number = {5}, pages = {e0196482}, pmid = {29768437}, issn = {1932-6203}, mesh = {DNA, Ancient/isolation &amp; purification ; DNA, Bacterial/genetics/history/isolation &amp; purification ; Dental Caries/history/microbiology/pathology ; Female ; France ; Health Status ; History, 18th Century ; Humans ; Male ; Metagenomics ; Microbiota/genetics ; Oral Health/*history ; Paleodontology ; Periodontitis/history/microbiology/pathology ; Rural Population/history ; }, abstract = {Recent developments in High-Throughput DNA sequencing (HTS) technologies and ancient DNA (aDNA) research have opened access to the characterization of the microbial communities within past populations. Most studies have, however, relied on the analysis of dental calculus as one particular material type particularly prone to the molecular preservation of ancient microbial biofilms and potential of entire teeth for microbial characterization, both of healthy communities and pathogens in ancient individuals, remains overlooked. In this study, we used shotgun sequencing to characterize the bacterial composition from historical subjects showing macroscopic evidence of oral pathologies. We first carried out a macroscopic analysis aimed at identifying carious or periodontal diseases in subjects belonging to a French rural population of the 18th century AD. We next examined radiographically six subjects showing specific, characteristic dental pathologies and applied HTS shotgun sequencing to characterize the microbial communities present in and on the dental material. The presence of Streptococcus mutans and also Rothia dentocariosa, Actinomyces viscosus, Porphyromonas gingivalis, Tannerella forsythia, Pseudoramibacter alactolyticus, Olsenella uli and Parvimonas micra was confirmed through the presence of typical signatures of post-mortem DNA damage at an average depth-of-coverage ranging from 0.5 to 7X, with a minimum of 35% (from 35 to 93%) of the positions in the genome covered at least once. Each sampled tooth showed a specific bacterial signature associated with carious or periodontal pathologies. This work demonstrates that from a healthy independent tooth, without visible macroscopic pathology, we can identify a signature of specific pathogens and deduce the oral health status of an individual.}, }
@article {pmid29762899, year = {2018}, author = {Zhang, X and Chen, Y and Zhu, J and Zhang, M and Ho, CT and Huang, Q and Cao, J}, title = {Metagenomics Analysis of Gut Microbiota in a High Fat Diet-Induced Obesity Mouse Model Fed with (-)-Epigallocatechin 3-O-(3-O-Methyl) Gallate (EGCG3″Me).}, journal = {Molecular nutrition &amp; food research}, volume = {62}, number = {13}, pages = {e1800274}, doi = {10.1002/mnfr.201800274}, pmid = {29762899}, issn = {1613-4133}, mesh = {Animals ; Diet, High-Fat ; Disease Models, Animal ; Gallic Acid/*analogs &amp; derivatives/pharmacology ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; Male ; *Metagenomics ; Mice ; Mice, Inbred C57BL ; Obesity/*microbiology ; }, abstract = {SCOPE: (-)-Epigallocatechin 3-O-(3-O-methyl) gallate (EGCG3″Me) has been shown to have a modulatory effect on human intestinal microbiota, and the relationship between intestinal flora and obesity has attracted more and more attention recently. Here, the potential link between EGCG3″Me and gut microbiota composition, as well as the underlying mechanisms of the anti-obesity activity of EGCG3″Me are investigated.<br><br>METHODS AND RESULTS: EGCG3″Me was prepared from oolong tea by column chromatography, and the influence of EGCG3″Me on intestinal microbiota was analyzed using a human-flora-associated high fat diet (HFD)-induced obesity mouse model by metagenomics. EGCG3″Me showed a weight reducing effect, ameliorated the HFD-induced gut dysbiosis, and significantly decreased the ratio of Firmicutes/Bacteroidetes. Moreover, the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) database provided significant differences in differentially expressed genes in response to EGCG3″Me treatment. The results showed enrichment of genes involved in the biosynthesis of amino acids, the two-component system, ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters, purine metabolism, and carbon metabolism.<br><br>CONCLUSION: An EGCG3″Me supplemented diet produces promising effects on gut microecology by enhancing beneficial microbial populations and by affecting metabolic pathways including amino acids biosynthesis, the two-component system, and ABC transporters, contributing to the improvement of host health.}, }
@article {pmid29760079, year = {2018}, author = {Wang, GD and Zhang, BL and Zhou, WW and Li, YX and Jin, JQ and Shao, Y and Yang, HC and Liu, YH and Yan, F and Chen, HM and Jin, L and Gao, F and Zhang, Y and Li, H and Mao, B and Murphy, RW and Wake, DB and Zhang, YP and Che, J}, title = {Selection and environmental adaptation along a path to speciation in the Tibetan frog Nanorana parkeri.}, journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America}, volume = {115}, number = {22}, pages = {E5056-E5065}, pmid = {29760079}, issn = {1091-6490}, mesh = {Animals ; Anura/*genetics/*physiology ; Gene Flow/*genetics ; *Genetic Speciation ; Hybridization, Genetic ; Metagenomics ; Phylogeny ; Selection, Genetic ; Tibet ; }, abstract = {Tibetan frogs, Nanorana parkeri, are differentiated genetically but not morphologically along geographical and elevational gradients in a challenging environment, presenting a unique opportunity to investigate processes leading to speciation. Analyses of whole genomes of 63 frogs reveal population structuring and historical demography, characterized by highly restricted gene flow in a narrow geographic zone lying between matrilines West (W) and East (E). A population found only along a single tributary of the Yalu Zangbu River has the mitogenome only of E, whereas nuclear genes of W comprise 89-95% of the nuclear genome. Selection accounts for 579 broadly scattered, highly divergent regions (HDRs) of the genome, which involve 365 genes. These genes fall into 51 gene ontology (GO) functional classes, 14 of which are likely to be important in driving reproductive isolation. GO enrichment analyses of E reveal many overrepresented functional categories associated with adaptation to high elevations, including blood circulation, response to hypoxia, and UV radiation. Four genes, including DNAJC8 in the brain, TNNC1 and ADORA1 in the heart, and LAMB3 in the lung, differ in levels of expression between low- and high-elevation populations. High-altitude adaptation plays an important role in maintaining and driving continuing divergence and reproductive isolation. Use of total genomes enabled recognition of selection and adaptation in and between populations, as well as documentation of evolution along a stepped cline toward speciation.}, }
@article {pmid29759899, year = {2018}, author = {Belgini, DRB and Siqueira, VM and Oliveira, DM and Fonseca, SG and Piccin-Santos, V and Dias, RS and Quartaroli, L and Souza, RS and Torres, APR and Sousa, MP and Silva, CM and Silva, CC and De Paula, SO and Oliveira, VM}, title = {Integrated diversity analysis of the microbial community in a reverse osmosis system from a Brazilian oil refinery.}, journal = {Systematic and applied microbiology}, volume = {41}, number = {5}, pages = {473-486}, doi = {10.1016/j.syapm.2018.03.007}, pmid = {29759899}, issn = {1618-0984}, mesh = {Bacteria/*classification/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Bacterial Physiological Phenomena ; *Biodiversity ; Biofilms/growth &amp; development ; Brazil ; Fungi/*classification/genetics/isolation &amp; purification/physiology ; Metagenomics ; *Microbial Consortia ; *Oil and Gas Industry ; Osmosis ; Waste Water/*microbiology ; Water Purification/*methods ; }, abstract = {Oil refineries are known for the large volume of water used in their processes, as well as the amount of wastewater generated at the end of the production chain. Due to strict environmental regulations, the recycling of water has now become a viable alternative for refineries. Among the many methods available to treat wastewater for reuse, the use of membranes in reverse osmosis systems stands out due to several economic and environmental benefits. However, these systems are vulnerable to contamination and deposition of microorganisms, mainly because of the feedwater quality. In this study, the microbial diversity of feedwater and reverse osmosis membranes was investigated using a combination of culture-dependent and culture-independent methods in order to characterize the microorganisms colonizing and deteriorating the membranes. In total, 37 bacterial isolates, 17 filamentous fungi and approximately 400 clones were obtained and analyzed. Among the bacterial genera identified, the most represented were Sphingobium, Acidovorax, Microbacterium, Rhizobium and Shinella. The results revealed genera that acted as candidate key players in initial biofilm formation in membrane systems, and provided important information concerning the microbial ecology of oligotrophic aquatic systems.}, }
@article {pmid29758429, year = {2018}, author = {Najar, IN and Sherpa, MT and Das, S and Das, S and Thakur, N}, title = {Microbial ecology of two hot springs of Sikkim: Predominate population and geochemistry.}, journal = {The Science of the total environment}, volume = {637-638}, number = {}, pages = {730-745}, doi = {10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.05.037}, pmid = {29758429}, issn = {1879-1026}, mesh = {Archaea ; Biodiversity ; *Ecology ; Hot Springs/*microbiology ; India ; Phylogeny ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S ; Sikkim ; }, abstract = {Northeastern regions of India are known for their floral and faunal biodiversity. Especially the state of Sikkim lies in the eastern Himalayan ecological hotspot region. The state harbors many sulfur rich hot springs which have therapeutic and spiritual values. However, these hot springs are yet to be explored for their microbial ecology. The development of neo generation techniques such as metagenomics has provided an opportunity for inclusive study of microbial community of different environment. The present study describes the microbial diversity in two hot springs of Sikkim that is Polok and Borong with the assist of culture dependent and culture independent approaches. The culture independent techniques used in this study were next generation sequencing (NGS) and Phospholipid Fatty Acid Analysis (PLFA). Having relatively distinct geochemistry both the hot springs are thermophilic environments with the temperature range of 50-77 °C and pH range of 5-8. Metagenomic data revealed the dominance of bacteria over archaea. The most abundant phyla were Proteobacteria and Bacteroidetes although other phyla were also present such as Acidobacteria, Nitrospirae, Firmicutes, Proteobacteria, Parcubacteria and Spirochaetes. The PLFA studies have shown the abundance of Gram Positive bacteria followed by Gram negative bacteria. The culture dependent technique was correlative with PLFA studies. Most abundant bacteria as isolated and identified were Gram-positive genus Geobacillus and Anoxybacillus. The genus Geobacillus has been reported for the first time in North-Eastern states of India. The Geobacillus species obtained from the concerned hot springs were Geobacillus toebii, Geobacillus lituanicus, Geobacillus Kaustophillus and the Anoxybacillus species includes Anoxybacillus gonensis and Anoxybacillus Caldiproteolyticus. The distribution of major genera and their statistical correlation analyses with the geochemistry of the springs predicted that the temperature, pH, alkalinity, Ca2+, Mg2+, Cl2+, and sulfur were main environmental variables influencing the microbial community composition and diversity. Also the piper diagram suggested that the water of both the hot springs are Ca-HCO3- type and can be predicted as shallow fresh ground waters. This study has provided an insight into the ecological interaction of the diverse microbial communities and associated physicochemical parameters, which will help in determining the future studies on different biogeochemical pathways in these hot springs.}, }
@article {pmid29750384, year = {2018}, author = {Kosnicki, KL and Penprase, JC and Cintora, P and Torres, PJ and Harris, GL and Brasser, SM and Kelley, ST}, title = {Effects of moderate, voluntary ethanol consumption on the rat and human gut microbiome.}, journal = {Addiction biology}, volume = {}, number = {}, pages = {}, pmid = {29750384}, issn = {1369-1600}, support = {R21 AA023291/AA/NIAAA NIH HHS/United States ; }, abstract = {Many alcohol-induced health complications are directly attributable to the toxicity of alcohol or its metabolites, but another potential health impact of alcohol may be on the microbial communities of the human gut. Clear distinctions between healthy and diseased-state gut microbiota have been observed in subjects with metabolic diseases, and recent studies suggest that chronic alcoholism is linked to gut microbiome dysbiosis. Here, we investigated the effects of moderate levels of alcohol consumption on the gut microbiome in both rats and humans. The gut microbiota of rats voluntarily consuming a 20 percent ethanol solution, on alternate days, were compared with a non-exposed control group to identify differential taxonomic and functional profiles. Gut microbial diversity profiles were determined using culture-independent amplification, next-generation sequencing and bioinformatic analysis of bacterial 16S ribosomal RNA gene sequence libraries. Our results showed that, compared with controls, ethanol-consuming rats experienced a significant decline in the biodiversity of their gut microbiomes, a state generally associated with dysbiosis. We also observed significant shifts in the overall diversity of the gut microbial communities and a dramatic change in the relative abundance of particular microbes, such as the Lactobacilli. We also compared our results to human fecal microbiome data collected as part of the citizen science American Gut Project. In contrast to the rat data, human drinkers had significantly higher gut microbial biodiversity than non-drinkers. However, we also observed that microbes that differed among the human subjects displayed similar trends in the rat model, including bacteria implicated in metabolic disease.}, }
@article {pmid29748902, year = {2018}, author = {Escudero, L and Oetiker, N and Gallardo, K and Tebes-Cayo, C and Guajardo, M and Nuñez, C and Davis-Belmar, C and Pueyo, JJ and Chong Díaz, G and Demergasso, C}, title = {A thiotrophic microbial community in an acidic brine lake in Northern Chile.}, journal = {Antonie van Leeuwenhoek}, volume = {111}, number = {8}, pages = {1403-1419}, doi = {10.1007/s10482-018-1087-8}, pmid = {29748902}, issn = {1572-9699}, support = {1100795//Fondecyt/ ; 32002137//BHP Minerals Americas/ ; }, mesh = {Bacteria/*classification/metabolism ; Biodiversity ; Carbon Cycle ; Chile ; DNA, Bacterial/genetics ; Energy Metabolism ; Geologic Sediments/microbiology ; Lakes/*microbiology ; Metagenomics ; *Phylogeny ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; *Salts ; Sulfur/*metabolism ; }, abstract = {The endorheic basins of the Northern Chilean Altiplano contain saline lakes and salt flats. Two of the salt flats, Gorbea and Ignorado, have high acidic brines. The causes of the local acidity have been attributed to the occurrence of volcanic native sulfur, the release of sulfuric acid by oxidation, and the low buffering capacity of the rocks in the area. Understanding the microbial community composition and available energy in this pristine ecosystem is relevant in determining the origin of the acidity and in supporting the rationale of conservation policies. Besides, a comparison between similar systems in Australia highlights key microbial components and specific ones associated with geological settings and environmental conditions. Sediment and water samples from the Salar de Gorbea were collected, physicochemical parameters measured and geochemical and molecular biological analyses performed. A low diversity microbial community was observed in brines and sediments dominated by Actinobacteria, Algae, Firmicutes and Proteobacteria. Most of the constituent genera have been reported to be either sulfur oxidizing microorganisms or ones having the potential for sulfur oxidation given available genomic data and information drawn from the literature on cultured relatives. In addition, a link between sulfur oxidation and carbon fixation was observed. In contrast, to acid mine drainage communities, Gorbea microbial diversity is mainly supported by chemolithoheterotrophic, facultative chemolithoautotrophic and oligotrophic sulfur oxidizing populations indicating that microbial activity should also be considered as a causative agent of local acidity.}, }
@article {pmid29747892, year = {2018}, author = {Valentine, G and Chu, DM and Stewart, CJ and Aagaard, KM}, title = {Relationships Between Perinatal Interventions, Maternal-Infant Microbiomes, and Neonatal Outcomes.}, journal = {Clinics in perinatology}, volume = {45}, number = {2}, pages = {339-355}, doi = {10.1016/j.clp.2018.01.008}, pmid = {29747892}, issn = {1557-9840}, mesh = {Adult ; Female ; Fetal Diseases/*microbiology ; Humans ; *Infant Health ; Infant, Newborn ; Infant, Newborn, Diseases/*microbiology/therapy ; Male ; *Maternal Health ; Microbiota/immunology/*physiology ; Perinatal Care/methods ; Pregnancy ; Premature Birth/*microbiology ; Prenatal Care/methods ; Probiotics/administration &amp; dosage ; }, abstract = {The human microbiome acquires its vastness and diversity over a relatively short time period during development. Much is unknown, however, about the precise prenatal versus postnatal timing or its sources and determinants. Given early evidence of a role for influences during pregnancy and early neonatal and infant life on the microbiome and subsequent metabolic health, research investigating the development and shaping of the microbiome in the fetus and neonate is an important arena for study. This article reviews the relevant available literature and future questions on what shapes the microbiome during early development and mechanisms for doing so.}, }
@article {pmid29743119, year = {2018}, author = {Zolfo, M and Asnicar, F and Manghi, P and Pasolli, E and Tett, A and Segata, N}, title = {Profiling microbial strains in urban environments using metagenomic sequencing data.}, journal = {Biology direct}, volume = {13}, number = {1}, pages = {9}, pmid = {29743119}, issn = {1745-6150}, mesh = {Acinetobacter/genetics ; Genome, Bacterial/genetics ; Humans ; Metagenome/*genetics ; Metagenomics/*methods ; Microbiota/genetics ; Phylogeny ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: The microbial communities populating human and natural environments have been extensively characterized with shotgun metagenomics, which provides an in-depth representation of the microbial diversity within a sample. Microbes thriving in urban environments may be crucially important for human health, but have received less attention than those of other environments. Ongoing efforts started to target urban microbiomes at a large scale, but the most recent computational methods to profile these metagenomes have never been applied in this context. It is thus currently unclear whether such methods, that have proven successful at distinguishing even closely related strains in human microbiomes, are also effective in urban settings for tasks such as cultivation-free pathogen detection and microbial surveillance. Here, we aimed at a) testing the currently available metagenomic profiling tools on urban metagenomics; b) characterizing the organisms in urban environment at the resolution of single strain and c) discussing the biological insights that can be inferred from such methods.<br><br>RESULTS: We applied three complementary methods on the 1614 metagenomes of the CAMDA 2017 challenge. With MetaMLST we identified 121 known sequence-types from 15 species of clinical relevance. For instance, we identified several Acinetobacter strains that were close to the nosocomial opportunistic pathogen A. nosocomialis. With StrainPhlAn, a generalized version of the MetaMLST approach, we inferred the phylogenetic structure of Pseudomonas stutzeri strains and suggested that the strain-level heterogeneity in environmental samples is higher than in the human microbiome. Finally, we also probed the functional potential of the different strains with PanPhlAn. We further showed that SNV-based and pangenome-based profiling provide complementary information that can be combined to investigate the evolutionary trajectories of microbes and to identify specific genetic determinants of virulence and antibiotic resistances within closely related strains.<br><br>CONCLUSION: We show that strain-level methods developed primarily for the analysis of human microbiomes can be effective for city-associated microbiomes. In fact, (opportunistic) pathogens can be tracked and monitored across many hundreds of urban metagenomes. However, while more effort is needed to profile strains of currently uncharacterized species, this work poses the basis for high-resolution analyses of microbiomes sampled in city and mass transportation environments.<br><br>REVIEWERS: This article was reviewed by Alexandra Bettina Graf, Daniel Huson and Trevor Cickovski.}, }
@article {pmid29740407, year = {2018}, author = {Nooij, S and Schmitz, D and Vennema, H and Kroneman, A and Koopmans, MPG}, title = {Overview of Virus Metagenomic Classification Methods and Their Biological Applications.}, journal = {Frontiers in microbiology}, volume = {9}, number = {}, pages = {749}, pmid = {29740407}, issn = {1664-302X}, abstract = {Metagenomics poses opportunities for clinical and public health virology applications by offering a way to assess complete taxonomic composition of a clinical sample in an unbiased way. However, the techniques required are complicated and analysis standards have yet to develop. This, together with the wealth of different tools and workflows that have been proposed, poses a barrier for new users. We evaluated 49 published computational classification workflows for virus metagenomics in a literature review. To this end, we described the methods of existing workflows by breaking them up into five general steps and assessed their ease-of-use and validation experiments. Performance scores of previous benchmarks were summarized and correlations between methods and performance were investigated. We indicate the potential suitability of the different workflows for (1) time-constrained diagnostics, (2) surveillance and outbreak source tracing, (3) detection of remote homologies (discovery), and (4) biodiversity studies. We provide two decision trees for virologists to help select a workflow for medical or biodiversity studies, as well as directions for future developments in clinical viral metagenomics.}, }
@article {pmid29739908, year = {2018}, author = {Gladieux, P}, title = {Updates in the Language of Histoplasma Biodiversity.}, journal = {mBio}, volume = {9}, number = {3}, pages = {}, pmid = {29739908}, issn = {2150-7511}, mesh = {*Biodiversity ; Biological Evolution ; Genetic Speciation ; *Histoplasma ; Humans ; Metagenomics ; Phylogeny ; }, abstract = {In a recent article, Sepúlveda et al. (mBio 8:e01339-17, 2017, https://doi.org/10.1128/mBio.01339-17) investigated the genetic structure and evolutionary history of the human pathogen Histoplasma Using whole-genome resequencing data, Sepúlveda et al. found that the Histoplasma genus is composed of at least four strongly differentiated lineages. Their tour de force is to use a smart combination of population genomic approaches to show that the advanced stage of intraspecific divergence observed within Histoplasma does not simply reflect population structure, but instead results from previously unidentified speciation events. The four independently evolving Histoplasma lineages are elevated to the species status and assigned names. The newly described species exhibit medically important differences in phenotype, and these findings, therefore, have important epidemiological implications. This work provides a blueprint for phylogenomic species recognition in fungi, opening the way for a new age of enlightenment in which fungal species are diagnosed using highly discriminatory tools within a hypothesis-testing framework.}, }
@article {pmid29738477, year = {2018}, author = {Klimenko, NS and Tyakht, AV and Popenko, AS and Vasiliev, AS and Altukhov, IA and Ischenko, DS and Shashkova, TI and Efimova, DA and Nikogosov, DA and Osipenko, DA and Musienko, SV and Selezneva, KS and Baranova, A and Kurilshikov, AM and Toshchakov, SM and Korzhenkov, AA and Samarov, NI and Shevchenko, MA and Tepliuk, AV and Alexeev, DG}, title = {Microbiome Responses to an Uncontrolled Short-Term Diet Intervention in the Frame of the Citizen Science Project.}, journal = {Nutrients}, volume = {10}, number = {5}, pages = {}, pmid = {29738477}, issn = {2072-6643}, mesh = {Bacteroidetes/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Bifidobacterium/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Clostridium/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Cluster Analysis ; *Diet ; Feces/chemistry/microbiology ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; Humans ; Metagenome ; Methanobrevibacter/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Sample Size ; Sequence Analysis, DNA ; }, abstract = {Personalized nutrition is of increasing interest to individuals actively monitoring their health. The relations between the duration of diet intervention and the effects on gut microbiota have yet to be elucidated. Here we examined the associations of short-term dietary changes, long-term dietary habits and lifestyle with gut microbiota. Stool samples from 248 citizen-science volunteers were collected before and after a self-reported 2-week personalized diet intervention, then analyzed using 16S rRNA sequencing. Considerable correlations between long-term dietary habits and gut community structure were detected. A higher intake of vegetables and fruits was associated with increased levels of butyrate-producing Clostridiales and higher community richness. A paired comparison of the metagenomes before and after the 2-week intervention showed that even a brief, uncontrolled intervention produced profound changes in community structure: resulting in decreased levels of Bacteroidaceae, Porphyromonadaceae and Rikenellaceae families and decreased alpha-diversity coupled with an increase of Methanobrevibacter, Bifidobacterium, Clostridium and butyrate-producing Lachnospiraceae- as well as the prevalence of a permatype (a bootstrapping-based variation of enterotype) associated with a higher diversity of diet. The response of microbiota to the intervention was dependent on the initial microbiota state. These findings pave the way for the development of an individualized diet.}, }
@article {pmid29729565, year = {2018}, author = {Chen, L and Hu, C and Lok-Shun Lai, N and Zhang, W and Hua, J and Lam, PKS and Lam, JCW and Zhou, B}, title = {Acute exposure to PBDEs at an environmentally realistic concentration causes abrupt changes in the gut microbiota and host health of zebrafish.}, journal = {Environmental pollution (Barking, Essex : 1987)}, volume = {240}, number = {}, pages = {17-26}, doi = {10.1016/j.envpol.2018.04.062}, pmid = {29729565}, issn = {1873-6424}, mesh = {Animals ; Bacteria ; Female ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/*drug effects ; Halogenated Diphenyl Ethers/metabolism/*toxicity ; Intestinal Mucosa/metabolism ; Liver/metabolism ; Male ; Metagenomics ; Water Pollutants, Chemical/*toxicity ; Zebrafish/microbiology/*physiology ; }, abstract = {Contamination from lower brominated PBDEs is ubiquitous in the environments. However, their effects on gut microbiota and intestinal health have not yet been investigated. This study exposed adult zebrafish to an environmentally realistic concentration of pentaBDE mixture (DE-71) at 5.0 ng/L for 7 days, after which metagenomic sequencing of the intestinal microbiome was conducted and host physiological activities in the intestine and liver were also examined. The results showed that acute exposure to DE-71 significantly shifted the gut microbial community in a sex-specific manner. Certain genera (e.g., Mycoplasma, Ruminiclostridium, unclassified Firmicutes sensu stricto, and Fusobacterium) disappeared from the DE-71-exposed intestines, resulting in decreased bacterial diversity. Bacterial metabolic functions in guts were also affected by DE-71, namely those covering energy metabolism, virulence, respiration, cell division, cell signaling, and stress response. In addition, measurement of diverse sensitive biomarkers showed that the health of male intestines was remarkably compromised by the DE-71 exposure, as indicated by the disruption to its neural signaling (serotonin), epithelial barrier integrity (tight junction protein 2), inflammatory response (interleukin 1β), oxidative stress and antioxidant capacity, as well as detoxifying potential (ethoxyresorufin-O-deethylase activity). However, female intestines maintained intact physiological activities. Compared to the direct impact on intestines, a latent effect of DE-71 was observed in livers. Co-occurrence network analysis demonstrated that the gut bacteria vigorously interacted to establish the fittest community under DE-71 stress by promoting the reproduction of favorable genera, while diminishing the survival of unfavorable ones. Significant correlations between the zebrafish gut microbiota and physiological activities (e.g., oxidative stress, detoxification, neurotransmission, and epithelial integrity) were also observed. Overall, this study has demonstrated, for the first time, the high susceptibility of gut microbiota and intestinal health of zebrafish to DE-71, thus warranting more work to reveal its mode of toxicity.}, }
@article {pmid29729376, year = {2018}, author = {Li, M and Zhou, M and Tian, X and Tan, C and McDaniel, CT and Hassett, DJ and Gu, T}, title = {Microbial fuel cell (MFC) power performance improvement through enhanced microbial electrogenicity.}, journal = {Biotechnology advances}, volume = {36}, number = {4}, pages = {1316-1327}, doi = {10.1016/j.biotechadv.2018.04.010}, pmid = {29729376}, issn = {1873-1899}, mesh = {*Bioelectric Energy Sources ; *Biofilms ; *Microbial Consortia ; Oxidation-Reduction ; Synthetic Biology ; }, abstract = {Within the past 5 years, tremendous advances have been made to maximize the performance of microbial fuel cells (MFCs) for both &quot;clean&quot; bioenergy production and bioremediation. Most research efforts have focused on parameters including (i) optimizing reactor configuration, (ii) electrode construction, (iii) addition of redox-active, electron donating mediators, (iv) biofilm acclimation and feed nutrient adjustment, as well as (v) other parameters that contribute to enhanced MFC performance. To date, tremendous advances have been made, but further improvements are needed for MFCs to be economically practical. In this review, the diversity of electrogenic microorganisms and microbial community changes in mixed cultures are discussed. More importantly, different approaches including chemical/genetic modifications and gene regulation of exoelectrogens, synthetic biology approaches and bacterial community cooperation are reviewed. Advances in recent years in metagenomics and microbiomes have allowed researchers to improve bacterial electrogenicity of robust biofilms in MFCs using novel, unconventional approaches. Taken together, this review provides some important and timely information to researchers who are examining additional means to enhance power production of MFCs.}, }
@article {pmid29721711, year = {2018}, author = {Goodfellow, M and Nouioui, I and Sanderson, R and Xie, F and Bull, AT}, title = {Rare taxa and dark microbial matter: novel bioactive actinobacteria abound in Atacama Desert soils.}, journal = {Antonie van Leeuwenhoek}, volume = {111}, number = {8}, pages = {1315-1332}, doi = {10.1007/s10482-018-1088-7}, pmid = {29721711}, issn = {1572-9699}, mesh = {Actinobacteria/*classification/genetics/isolation &amp; purification/metabolism ; Altitude ; Anti-Bacterial Agents/isolation &amp; purification ; *Biodiversity ; Chile ; *Desert Climate ; Ecosystem ; Metagenomics ; *Phylogeny ; *Soil Microbiology ; Species Specificity ; }, abstract = {An &quot;in house&quot; taxonomic approach to drug discovery led to the isolation of diverse actinobacteria from hyper-arid, extreme hyper-arid and very high altitude Atacama Desert soils. A high proportion of the isolates were assigned to novel taxa, with many showing activity in standard antimicrobial plug assays. The application of more advanced taxonomic and screening strategies showed that strains classified as novel species of Lentzea and Streptomyces synthesised new specialised metabolites thereby underpinning the premise that the extreme abiotic conditions in the Atacama Desert favour the development of a unique actinobacterial diversity which is the basis of novel chemistry. Complementary metagenomic analyses showed that the soils encompassed an astonishing degree of actinobacterial 'dark matter', while rank-abundance analyses showed them to be highly diverse habitats mainly composed of rare taxa that have not been recovered using culture-dependent methods. The implications of these pioneering studies on future bioprospecting campaigns are discussed.}, }
@article {pmid29718202, year = {2018}, author = {Wu, L and McCluskey, K and Desmeth, P and Liu, S and Hideaki, S and Yin, Y and Moriya, O and Itoh, T and Kim, CY and Lee, JS and Zhou, Y and Kawasaki, H and Hazbón, MH and Robert, V and Boekhout, T and Lima, N and Evtushenko, L and Boundy-Mills, K and Bunk, B and Moore, ERB and Eurwilaichitr, L and Ingsriswang, S and Shah, H and Yao, S and Jin, T and Huang, J and Shi, W and Sun, Q and Fan, G and Li, W and Li, X and Kurtböke, I and Ma, J}, title = {The global catalogue of microorganisms 10K type strain sequencing project: closing the genomic gaps for the validly published prokaryotic and fungi species.}, journal = {GigaScience}, volume = {7}, number = {5}, pages = {}, pmid = {29718202}, issn = {2047-217X}, mesh = {Bacteria/*genetics ; Fungi/*genetics ; Genomics/*methods ; Prokaryotic Cells/*metabolism ; Reproducibility of Results ; Sequence Analysis, DNA/*methods ; }, abstract = {Genomic information is essential for taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional studies to comprehensively decipher the characteristics of microorganisms, to explore microbiomes through metagenomics, and to answer fundamental questions of nature and human life. However, large gaps remain in the available genomic sequencing information published for bacterial and archaeal species, and the gaps are even larger for fungal type strains. The Global Catalogue of Microorganisms (GCM) leads an internationally coordinated effort to sequence type strains and close gaps in the genomic maps of microorganisms. Hence, the GCM aims to promote research by deep-mining genomic data.}, }
@article {pmid29705928, year = {2018}, author = {Bonilla, JO and Kurth, DG and Cid, FD and Ulacco, JH and Gil, RA and Villegas, LB}, title = {Prokaryotic and eukaryotic community structure affected by the presence of an acid mine drainage from an abandoned gold mine.}, journal = {Extremophiles : life under extreme conditions}, volume = {22}, number = {5}, pages = {699-711}, pmid = {29705928}, issn = {1433-4909}, support = {PICT 2013 No. 3170//Agencia Nacional de Promoción Científica y Tecnológica/ ; }, mesh = {Acids/analysis ; Actinobacteria/isolation &amp; purification ; Diatoms/isolation &amp; purification ; *Extreme Environments ; Fungi/isolation &amp; purification ; Gammaproteobacteria/isolation &amp; purification ; Geologic Sediments/chemistry/*microbiology ; Gold/analysis ; Metagenome ; Metals, Heavy/analysis ; *Microbiota ; Mining ; }, abstract = {The acid mine drainage that originates in the abandoned gold mine in San Luis, Argentina, is released into La Carolina stream. The aim of this study was to determine the influence of this mine drainage on the physicochemical parameters of the area studied and on both prokaryotic and eukaryotic community structure. In addition, specific relationships between microbial taxonomic groups and physicochemical parameters were established. The drainage that flows into La Carolina stream acidifies the stream and increases its sulfate, Zn, Cd and Te concentrations. Microbial analysis showed that prokaryotic community structure is mainly affected by pH values. Actinobacteria and Gammaproteobacteria were abundant in samples characterized by low pH values, while Nitrospirae, Chloroflexi, Deltaproteobacteria, Thaumarchaeota and Euryarchaeota were associated with high concentrations of heavy metals. Otherwise, Alphaproteobacteria was present in samples taken in sunlit areas. Regarding eukaryotic community structure, the sunlight had the greatest impact. Inside the mine, in the absence of light, fungi and protists members were the most abundant microorganisms, while those samples taken in the presence of light displayed algae (green algae and diatoms) as the most abundant ones. After receiving the mine drainage, the stream showed a decrease in the diatom abundance and green algae predominated.}, }
@article {pmid29705728, year = {2018}, author = {Ticinesi, A and Milani, C and Guerra, A and Allegri, F and Lauretani, F and Nouvenne, A and Mancabelli, L and Lugli, GA and Turroni, F and Duranti, S and Mangifesta, M and Viappiani, A and Ferrario, C and Dodi, R and Dall'Asta, M and Del Rio, D and Ventura, M and Meschi, T}, title = {Understanding the gut-kidney axis in nephrolithiasis: an analysis of the gut microbiota composition and functionality of stone formers.}, journal = {Gut}, volume = {67}, number = {12}, pages = {2097-2106}, doi = {10.1136/gutjnl-2017-315734}, pmid = {29705728}, issn = {1468-3288}, mesh = {Adult ; Aged ; Bacteria/classification/isolation &amp; purification ; Bacterial Typing Techniques ; Biodiversity ; Calcium Oxalate/analysis ; Case-Control Studies ; DNA, Bacterial/analysis ; Energy Intake/physiology ; Feces/microbiology ; Female ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/*physiology ; Humans ; Male ; Metagenomics/methods ; Middle Aged ; Nephrolithiasis/metabolism/*microbiology ; Oxalates/metabolism ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/analysis ; Recurrence ; Young Adult ; }, abstract = {OBJECTIVES: The involvement of the gut microbiota in the pathogenesis of calcium nephrolithiasis has been hypothesised since the discovery of the oxalate-degrading activity of Oxalobacter formigenes, but never comprehensively studied with metagenomics. The aim of this case-control study was to compare the faecal microbiota composition and functionality between recurrent idiopathic calcium stone formers (SFs) and controls.<br><br>DESIGN: Faecal samples were collected from 52 SFs and 48 controls (mean age 48±11). The microbiota composition was analysed through 16S rRNA microbial profiling approach. Ten samples (five SFs, five controls) were also analysed with deep shotgun metagenomics sequencing, with focus on oxalate-degrading microbial metabolic pathways. Dietary habits, assessed through a food-frequency questionnaire, and 24-hour urinary excretion of prolithogenic and antilithogenic factors, including calcium and oxalate, were compared between SFs and controls, and considered as covariates in the comparison of microbiota profiles.<br><br>RESULTS: SFs exhibited lower faecal microbial diversity than controls (Chao1 index 1460±363vs 1658±297, fully adjusted p=0.02 with stepwise backward regression analysis). At multivariate analyses, three taxa (Faecalibacterium, Enterobacter, Dorea) were significantly less represented in faecal samples of SFs. The Oxalobacter abundance was not different between groups. Faecal samples from SFs exhibited a significantly lower bacterial representation of genes involved in oxalate degradation, with inverse correlation with 24-hour oxalate excretion (r=-0.87, p=0.002). The oxalate-degrading genes were represented in several bacterial species, whose cumulative abundance was inversely correlated with oxaluria (r=-0.85, p=0.02).<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: Idiopathic calcium SFs exhibited altered gut microbiota composition and functionality that could contribute to nephrolithiasis physiopathology.}, }
@article {pmid29705130, year = {2018}, author = {Kudo, T and Kobiyama, A and Rashid, J and Reza, MS and Yamada, Y and Ikeda, Y and Ikeda, D and Mizusawa, N and Ikeo, K and Sato, S and Ogata, T and Jimbo, M and Kaga, S and Watanabe, S and Naiki, K and Kaga, Y and Segawa, S and Mineta, K and Bajic, V and Gojobori, T and Watabe, S}, title = {Seasonal changes in the abundance of bacterial genes related to dimethylsulfoniopropionate catabolism in seawater from Ofunato Bay revealed by metagenomic analysis.}, journal = {Gene}, volume = {665}, number = {}, pages = {174-184}, doi = {10.1016/j.gene.2018.04.072}, pmid = {29705130}, issn = {1879-0038}, mesh = {Animals ; *Bacteria/genetics/metabolism ; Bays/*microbiology ; *Genes, Bacterial ; Metagenomics/methods ; *Seasons ; Seawater/*microbiology ; Sulfonium Compounds/*metabolism ; *Water Microbiology ; }, abstract = {Ofunato Bay is located in the northeastern Pacific Ocean area of Japan, and it has the highest biodiversity of marine organisms in the world, primarily due to tidal influences from the cold Oyashio and warm Kuroshio Currents. Our previous results from performing shotgun metagenomics indicated that Candidatus Pelagibacter ubique and Planktomarina temperata were the dominant bacteria (Reza et al., 2018a, 2018b). These bacteria are reportedly able to catabolize dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP) produced from phytoplankton into dimethyl sulfide (DMS) or methanethiol (MeSH). This study was focused on seasonal changes in the abundances of bacterial genes (dddP, dmdA) related to DMSP catabolism in the seawater of Ofunato Bay by BLAST+ analysis using shotgun metagenomic datasets. We found seasonal changes among the Candidatus Pelagibacter ubique strains, including those of the HTCC1062 type and the Red Sea type. A good correlation was observed between the chlorophyll a concentrations and the abundances of the catabolic genes, suggesting that the bacteria directly interact with phytoplankton in the marine material cycle system and play important roles in producing DMS and MeSH from DMSP as signaling molecules for the possible formation of the scent of the tidewater or as fish attractants.}, }
@article {pmid29705129, year = {2018}, author = {Reza, MS and Kobiyama, A and Yamada, Y and Ikeda, Y and Ikeda, D and Mizusawa, N and Ikeo, K and Sato, S and Ogata, T and Jimbo, M and Kudo, T and Kaga, S and Watanabe, S and Naiki, K and Kaga, Y and Mineta, K and Bajic, V and Gojobori, T and Watabe, S}, title = {Basin-scale seasonal changes in marine free-living bacterioplankton community in the Ofunato Bay.}, journal = {Gene}, volume = {665}, number = {}, pages = {185-191}, doi = {10.1016/j.gene.2018.04.074}, pmid = {29705129}, issn = {1879-0038}, mesh = {*Archaea/genetics/growth &amp; development ; *Bacteria/genetics/growth &amp; development ; Bays/*microbiology ; Microbial Consortia/*physiology ; *Plankton/genetics/growth &amp; development ; *Seasons ; *Water Microbiology ; }, abstract = {The Ofunato Bay in the northeastern Pacific Ocean area of Japan possesses the highest biodiversity of marine organisms in the world and has attracted much attention due to its economic and environmental importance. We report here a shotgun metagenomic analysis of the year-round variation in free-living bacterioplankton collected across the entire length of the bay. Phylogenetic differences among spring, summer, autumn and winter bacterioplankton suggested that members of Proteobacteria tended to decrease at high water temperatures and increase at low temperatures. It was revealed that Candidatus Pelagibacter varied seasonally, reaching as much as 60% of all sequences at the genus level in the surface waters during winter. This increase was more evident in the deeper waters, where they reached up to 75%. The relative abundance of Planktomarina also rose during winter and fell during summer. A significant component of the winter bacterioplankton community was Archaea (mainly represented by Nitrosopumilus), as their relative abundance was very low during spring and summer but high during winter. In contrast, Actinobacteria and Cyanobacteria appeared to be higher in abundance during high-temperature periods. It was also revealed that Bacteroidetes constituted a significant component of the summer bacterioplankton community, being the second largest bacterial phylum detected in the Ofunato Bay. Its members, notably Polaribacter and Flavobacterium, were found to be high in abundance during spring and summer, particularly in the surface waters. Principal component analysis and hierarchal clustering analyses showed that the bacterial communities in the Ofunato Bay changed seasonally, likely caused by the levels of organic matter, which would be deeply mixed with surface runoff in the winter.}, }
@article {pmid29705124, year = {2018}, author = {Reza, MS and Kobiyama, A and Yamada, Y and Ikeda, Y and Ikeda, D and Mizusawa, N and Ikeo, K and Sato, S and Ogata, T and Jimbo, M and Kudo, T and Kaga, S and Watanabe, S and Naiki, K and Kaga, Y and Mineta, K and Bajic, V and Gojobori, T and Watabe, S}, title = {Taxonomic profiles in metagenomic analyses of free-living microbial communities in the Ofunato Bay.}, journal = {Gene}, volume = {665}, number = {}, pages = {192-200}, doi = {10.1016/j.gene.2018.04.075}, pmid = {29705124}, issn = {1879-0038}, mesh = {*Archaea/classification/genetics/growth &amp; development ; *Bacteria/classification/genetics/growth &amp; development ; Bays/*microbiology ; Metagenomics ; Microbial Consortia/*physiology ; *Seasons ; *Water Microbiology ; }, abstract = {The Ofunato Bay in Iwate Prefecture, Japan is a deep coastal bay located at the center of the Sanriku Rias Coast and considered an economically and environmentally important asset. Here, we describe the first whole genome sequencing (WGS) study on the microbial community of the bay, where surface water samples were collected from three stations along its length to cover the entire bay; we preliminarily sequenced a 0.2 μm filter fraction among sequentially size-fractionated samples of 20.0, 5.0, 0.8 and 0.2 μm filters, targeting the free-living fraction only. From the 0.27-0.34 Gb WGS library, 0.9 × 106-1.2 × 106 reads from three sampling stations revealed 29 bacterial phyla (~80% of assigned reads), 3 archaeal phyla (~4%) and 59 eukaryotic phyla (~15%). Microbial diversity obtained from the WGS approach was compared with 16S rRNA gene results by mining WGS metagenomes, and we found similar estimates. The most frequently recovered bacterial sequences were Proteobacteria, predominantly comprised of 18.0-19.6% Planktomarina (Family Rhodobacteraceae) and 13.7-17.5% Candidatus Pelagibacter (Family Pelagibacterales). Other dominant bacterial genera, including Polaribacter (3.5-6.1%), Flavobacterium (1.8-2.6%), Sphingobacterium (1.4-1.6%) and Cellulophaga (1.4-2.0%), were members of Bacteroidetes and likely associated with the degradation and turnover of organic matter. The Marine Group I Archaea Nitrosopumilus was also detected. Remarkably, eukaryotic green alga Bathycoccus, Ostreococcus and Micromonas accounted for 8.8-15.2%, 3.6-4.9% and 2.1-3.1% of total read counts, respectively, highlighting their potential roles in the phytoplankton bloom after winter mixing.}, }
@article {pmid29704757, year = {2018}, author = {Campanaro, S and Treu, L and Kougias, PG and Luo, G and Angelidaki, I}, title = {Metagenomic binning reveals the functional roles of core abundant microorganisms in twelve full-scale biogas plants.}, journal = {Water research}, volume = {140}, number = {}, pages = {123-134}, doi = {10.1016/j.watres.2018.04.043}, pmid = {29704757}, issn = {1879-2448}, mesh = {Anaerobiosis ; *Biofuels ; Bioreactors/*microbiology ; Manure ; *Metagenome ; Metagenomics/methods ; Microbiota/*physiology ; Sewage/microbiology ; Waste Disposal, Fluid ; Waste Water ; }, abstract = {The aim of this work was to elucidate the microbial ecology in twelve mesophilic and thermophilic full-scale biogas plants using a genome-centric metagenomic approach. In this study both biogas plants treating manure and those treating sludge from waste water treatment plants were considered. The identification of 132 Metagenome-Assembled Genomes (MAGs) and analysis of their abundance profile in different samples allowed the identification of the most abundant core members of the anaerobic digestion microbiome. Canonical correspondence analysis was used to determine the influence of biotic and environmental factors on MAGs abundance and to investigate the methanogenic performance of the biogas plants. Prediction of the functional properties of MAGs was obtained analyzing their KEGG pathways and their carbohydrate active domains. Network analysis allowed investigation of species-species associations and shed light on syntrophic interactions between members belonging to the anaerobic digestion dark matter (phylum Fermentibacteria). By stratifying and comparing different levels of information, it was predicted that some MAGs have a crucial role in the manure-supplemented thermophilic biogas plants and it was highlighted the importance of the glycine cleavage system in complementing the &quot;truncated&quot; Wood-Ljungdahl pathway.}, }
@article {pmid29701776, year = {2018}, author = {Karimi, E and Slaby, BM and Soares, AR and Blom, J and Hentschel, U and Costa, R}, title = {Metagenomic binning reveals versatile nutrient cycling and distinct adaptive features in alphaproteobacterial symbionts of marine sponges.}, journal = {FEMS microbiology ecology}, volume = {94}, number = {6}, pages = {}, doi = {10.1093/femsec/fiy074}, pmid = {29701776}, issn = {1574-6941}, mesh = {Animals ; Carbon/metabolism ; Genome, Bacterial/genetics ; Metagenome ; Metagenomics ; Microbiota ; Nitrogen/metabolism ; Phylogeny ; Porifera/*microbiology ; Rhodospirillaceae/genetics/*metabolism ; Sulfur/metabolism ; Symbiosis/*physiology ; }, abstract = {Marine sponges are early-branched metazoans known to harbor dense and diverse microbial communities. Yet the role of the so far uncultivable alphaproteobacterial lineages that populate these sessile invertebrates remains unclear. We applied a sequence composition-dependent binning approach to assemble one Rhodospirillaceae genome from the Spongia officinalis microbial metagenome and contrast its functional features with those of closely related sponge-associated and free-living genomes. Both symbiotic and free-living Rhodospirillaceae shared a suite of common features, possessing versatile carbon, nitrogen, sulfur and phosphorus metabolisms. Symbiotic genomes could be distinguished from their free-living counterparts by the lack of chemotaxis and motility traits, enrichment of genes required for the uptake and utilization of organic sulfur compounds-particularly taurine-, higher diversity and abundance of ABC transporters, and a distinct repertoire of genes involved in natural product biosynthesis, plasmid stability, cell detoxification and oxidative stress remediation. These sessile symbionts may more effectively contribute to host fitness via nutrient exchange, and also host detoxification and chemical defense. Considering the worldwide occurrence and high diversity of sponge-associated Rhodospirillaceae verified here using a tailored in silico approach, we suggest that these organisms are not only relevant to holobiont homeostasis but also to nutrient cycling in benthic ecosystems.}, }
@article {pmid29695035, year = {2018}, author = {Yuan, QS and Yang, P and Wu, AB and Zuo, DY and He, WJ and Guo, MW and Huang, T and Li, HP and Liao, YC}, title = {Variation in the Microbiome, Trichothecenes, and Aflatoxins in Stored Wheat Grains in Wuhan, China.}, journal = {Toxins}, volume = {10}, number = {5}, pages = {}, pmid = {29695035}, issn = {2072-6651}, mesh = {Aflatoxins/*analysis ; Agriculture/methods ; Bacteria/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; China ; DNA, Bacterial/analysis ; DNA, Fungal/analysis ; Edible Grain/*chemistry/*microbiology ; Environmental Monitoring ; Food Contamination/*analysis ; Fungi/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Microbiota ; Trichothecenes/*analysis ; Triticum/*chemistry/*microbiology ; }, abstract = {Contamination by fungal and bacterial species and their metabolites can affect grain quality and health of wheat consumers. In this study, sequence analyses of conserved DNA regions of fungi and bacteria combined with determination of trichothecenes and aflatoxins revealed the microbiome and mycotoxins of wheat from different silo positions (top, middle, and bottom) and storage times (3, 6, 9, and 12 months). The fungal community in wheat on the first day of storage (T₀) included 105 classified species (81 genera) and 41 unclassified species. Four species had over 10% of the relative abundance: Alternaria alternata (12%), Filobasidium floriforme (27%), Fusarium graminearum (12%), and Wallemia sebi (12%). Fungal diversity and relative abundance of Fusarium in wheat from top silo positions were significantly lower than at other silo positions during storage. Nivalenol and deoxynivalenol in wheat were 13⁻34% higher in all positions at 3 months compared to T₀, and mycotoxins in wheat from middle and bottom positions at 6 to 12 months were 24⁻57% higher than at T₀. The relative abundance of toxigenic Aspergillus and aflatoxins were low at T₀ and during storage. This study provides information on implementation and design of fungus and mycotoxin management strategies as well as prediction models.}, }
@article {pmid29694379, year = {2018}, author = {Garris, HW and Baldwin, SA and Taylor, J and Gurr, DB and Denesiuk, DR and Van Hamme, JD and Fraser, LH}, title = {Short-term microbial effects of a large-scale mine-tailing storage facility collapse on the local natural environment.}, journal = {PloS one}, volume = {13}, number = {4}, pages = {e0196032}, pmid = {29694379}, issn = {1932-6203}, mesh = {Bacteria/*classification/genetics/metabolism ; Biodiversity ; Hydrogen-Ion Concentration ; Metagenomics/*methods ; Mining ; Nitrates/metabolism ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/*genetics ; Sequence Analysis, DNA ; Soil/chemistry ; Water/chemistry ; Wetlands ; }, abstract = {We investigated the impacts of the Mount Polley tailings impoundment failure on chemical, physical, and microbial properties of substrates within the affected watershed, comprised of 70 hectares of riparian wetlands and 40 km of stream and lake shore. We established a biomonitoring network in October of 2014, two months following the disturbance, and evaluated riparian and wetland substrates for microbial community composition and function via 16S and full metagenome sequencing. A total of 234 samples were collected from substrates at 3 depths and 1,650,752 sequences were recorded in a geodatabase framework. These data revealed a wealth of information regarding watershed-scale distribution of microbial community members, as well as community composition, structure, and response to disturbance. Substrates associated with the impact zone were distinct chemically as indicated by elevated pH, nitrate, and sulphate. The microbial community exhibited elevated metabolic capacity for selenate and sulfate reduction and an abundance of chemolithoautotrophs in the Thiobacillus thiophilus/T. denitrificans/T. thioparus clade that may contribute to nitrate attenuation within the affected watershed. The most impacted area (a 6 km stream connecting two lakes) exhibited 30% lower microbial diversity relative to the remaining sites. The tailings impoundment failure at Mount Polley Mine has provided a unique opportunity to evaluate functional and compositional diversity soon after a major catastrophic disturbance to assess metabolic potential for ecosystem recovery.}, }
@article {pmid29694348, year = {2018}, author = {Hoffman, KL and Hutchinson, DS and Fowler, J and Smith, DP and Ajami, NJ and Zhao, H and Scheet, P and Chow, WH and Petrosino, JF and Daniel, CR}, title = {Oral microbiota reveals signs of acculturation in Mexican American women.}, journal = {PloS one}, volume = {13}, number = {4}, pages = {e0194100}, pmid = {29694348}, issn = {1932-6203}, support = {CA016672/NH/NIH HHS/United States ; R25CA057730/NH/NIH HHS/United States ; }, mesh = {*Acculturation ; Adult ; Aged ; Emigrants and Immigrants ; Female ; Fusobacterium/*isolation &amp; purification ; Humans ; *Mexican Americans ; Microbiota/*physiology ; Middle Aged ; Mouth/*microbiology ; Prevotella/*isolation &amp; purification ; Streptococcus/*isolation &amp; purification ; Young Adult ; }, abstract = {The oral microbiome has been linked to a number of chronic inflammatory conditions, including obesity, diabetes, periodontitis, and cancers of the stomach and liver. These conditions disproportionately affect Mexican American women, yet few studies have examined the oral microbiota in this at-risk group. We characterized the 16S rDNA oral microbiome in 369 non-smoking women enrolled in the MD Anderson Mano a Mano Mexican American Cohort Study. Lower bacterial diversity, a potential indicator of oral health, was associated with increased age and length of US residency among recent immigrants. Grouping women by overarching bacterial community type (e.g., &quot;Streptococcus,&quot; &quot;Fusobacterium,&quot; and &quot;Prevotella&quot; clusters), we observed differences across a number of acculturation-related variables, including nativity, age at immigration, time in the US, country of longest residence, and a multi-dimensional acculturation scale. Participants in the cluster typified by higher abundance of Streptococcus spp. exhibited the lowest bacterial diversity and appeared the most acculturated as compared to women in the &quot;Prevotella&quot; group. Computationally-predicted functional analysis suggested the Streptococcus-dominated bacterial community had greater potential for carbohydrate metabolism while biosynthesis of essential amino acids and nitrogen metabolism prevailed among the Prevotella-high group. Findings suggest immigration and adaption to life in the US, a well-established mediator of disease risk, is associated with differences in oral microbial profiles in Mexican American women. These results warrant further investigation into the joint and modifying effects of acculturation and oral bacteria on the health of Mexican American women and other immigrant populations. The oral microbiome presents an easily accessible biomarker of disease risk, spanning biological, behavioral, and environmental factors.}, }
@article {pmid29690922, year = {2018}, author = {Jaenicke, S and Albaum, SP and Blumenkamp, P and Linke, B and Stoye, J and Goesmann, A}, title = {Flexible metagenome analysis using the MGX framework.}, journal = {Microbiome}, volume = {6}, number = {1}, pages = {76}, pmid = {29690922}, issn = {2049-2618}, mesh = {*Database Management Systems ; *Metagenome ; Metagenomics/*methods ; Microbiota ; Reproducibility of Results ; User-Computer Interface ; Workflow ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: The characterization of microbial communities based on sequencing and analysis of their genetic information has become a popular approach also referred to as metagenomics; in particular, the recent advances in sequencing technologies have enabled researchers to study even the most complex communities. Metagenome analysis, the assignment of sequences to taxonomic and functional entities, however, remains a tedious task: large amounts of data need to be processed. There are a number of approaches addressing particular aspects, but scientific questions are often too specific to be answered by a general-purpose method.<br><br>RESULTS: We present MGX, a flexible and extensible client/server-framework for the management and analysis of metagenomic datasets; MGX features a comprehensive set of adaptable workflows required for taxonomic and functional metagenome analysis, combined with an intuitive and easy-to-use graphical user interface offering customizable result visualizations. At the same time, MGX allows to include own data sources and devise custom analysis pipelines, thus enabling researchers to perform basic as well as highly specific analyses within a single application.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: With MGX, we provide a novel metagenome analysis platform giving researchers access to the most recent analysis tools. MGX covers taxonomic and functional metagenome analysis, statistical evaluation, and a wide range of visualizations easing data interpretation. Its default taxonomic classification pipeline provides equivalent or superior results in comparison to existing tools.}, }
@article {pmid29689266, year = {2018}, author = {Nakatsu, G and Zhou, H and Wu, WKK and Wong, SH and Coker, OO and Dai, Z and Li, X and Szeto, CH and Sugimura, N and Lam, TY and Yu, AC and Wang, X and Chen, Z and Wong, MC and Ng, SC and Chan, MTV and Chan, PKS and Chan, FKL and Sung, JJ and Yu, J}, title = {Alterations in Enteric Virome Are Associated With Colorectal Cancer and Survival Outcomes.}, journal = {Gastroenterology}, volume = {155}, number = {2}, pages = {529-541.e5}, doi = {10.1053/j.gastro.2018.04.018}, pmid = {29689266}, issn = {1528-0012}, mesh = {Austria/epidemiology ; Biomarkers, Tumor/*analysis ; Case-Control Studies ; Cohort Studies ; Colonoscopy ; Colorectal Neoplasms/diagnostic imaging/mortality/pathology/*virology ; Cross-Sectional Studies ; Dysbiosis/diagnostic imaging/*virology ; Feces/virology ; Female ; France/epidemiology ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/*genetics ; Germany/epidemiology ; Hong Kong/epidemiology ; Humans ; Male ; Metagenomics ; Middle Aged ; Sensitivity and Specificity ; Survival Analysis ; Viruses/*genetics ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND &amp; AIMS: Patients with colorectal cancer (CRC) have a different gut microbiome signature than individuals without CRC. Little is known about the viral component of CRC-associated microbiome. We aimed to identify and validate viral taxonomic markers of CRC that might be used in detection of the disease or predicting outcome.<br><br>METHODS: We performed shotgun metagenomic analyses of viromes of fecal samples from 74 patients with CRC (cases) and 92 individuals without CRC (controls) in Hong Kong (discovery cohort). Viral sequences were classified by taxonomic alignment against an integrated microbial reference genome database. Viral markers associated with CRC were validated using fecal samples from 3 separate cohorts: 111 patients with CRC and 112 controls in Hong Kong, 46 patients with CRC and 63 controls in Austria, and 91 patients with CRC and 66 controls in France and Germany. Using abundance profiles of CRC-associated virome genera, we constructed random survival forest models to identify those associated with patient survival times.<br><br>RESULTS: The diversity of the gut bacteriophage community was significantly increased in patients with CRC compared with controls. Twenty-two viral taxa discriminated cases from controls with an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.802 in the discovery cohort. The viral markers were validated in 3 cohorts, with area under the receiver operating characteristic curves of 0.763, 0.736, and 0.715, respectively. Clinical subgroup analysis showed that dysbiosis of the gut virome was associated with early- and late-stage CRC. A combination of 4 taxonomic markers associated with reduced survival of patients with CRC (log-rank test, P = 8.1 × 10-6) independently of tumor stage, lymph node metastases, or clinical parameters. We found altered interactions between bacteriophages and oral bacterial commensals in fecal samples from patients with CRC compared with controls.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: In a metagenomic analysis of fecal samples from patients and controls, we identified virome signatures associated with CRC. These data might be used to develop tools to identify individuals with CRC or predict outcomes.}, }
@article {pmid29687353, year = {2018}, author = {Allali, I and Boukhatem, N and Bouguenouch, L and Hardi, H and Boudouaya, HA and Cadenas, MB and Ouldim, K and Amzazi, S and Azcarate-Peril, MA and Ghazal, H}, title = {Gut microbiome of Moroccan colorectal cancer patients.}, journal = {Medical microbiology and immunology}, volume = {207}, number = {3-4}, pages = {211-225}, pmid = {29687353}, issn = {1432-1831}, mesh = {Adult ; Aged ; Cluster Analysis ; Colorectal Neoplasms/*complications/*microbiology ; Cytosol/chemistry ; DNA, Bacterial/chemistry/genetics ; DNA, Ribosomal/chemistry/genetics ; *Dysbiosis ; Fatty Acids/analysis ; Female ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; Humans ; Male ; Metagenomics ; *Microbiota ; Middle Aged ; Morocco ; Phylogeny ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Sequence Analysis, DNA ; Surveys and Questionnaires ; Young Adult ; }, abstract = {Although colorectal cancer is the third leading cause of death in Morocco, there are no studies of the microbiome changes associated with the disease in the Moroccan population. The aim of our study was to compare the stool microbiome of Moroccan cancer patients with healthy individuals. We analyzed the microbiome composition of samples from 11 CRC patients and 12 healthy individuals by 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing. Principal coordinate analysis of samples revealed defined cancer versus healthy clusters. Our findings showed that cancer samples had higher proportions of Firmicutes (T = 50.5%; N = 28.4%; p = 0.04), specifically of Clostridia (T = 48.3%; N = 19.0%; p = 0.002), and Fusobacteria (T = 0.1%; N = 0.0%; p = 0.02), especially of Fusobacteriia (T = 0.1%; N = 0.0%; p = 0.02), while Bacteroidetes were enriched in healthy samples (T = 35.1%; N = 62.8%; p = 0.06), particularly the class Bacteroidia (T = 35.1%; N = 62.6%; p = 0.06). Porphyromonas, Clostridium, Ruminococcus, Selenomonas, and Fusobacterium were significantly overrepresented in diseased patients, similarly to other studies. Predicted functional information showed that bacterial motility proteins, flagellar assembly, and fatty acid biosynthesis metabolism were significantly overrepresented in cancer patients, while amino acid metabolism and glycan biosynthesis were overrepresented in controls. This suggests that involvement of these functional metagenomes is similar and relevant in the carcinogenesis process, independent of the origin of the samples. Results from this study allowed identification of bacterial taxa relevant to the Moroccan population and encourages larger studies to facilitate population-directed therapeutic approaches.}, }
@article {pmid29685174, year = {2018}, author = {Fan, X and Peters, BA and Jacobs, EJ and Gapstur, SM and Purdue, MP and Freedman, ND and Alekseyenko, AV and Wu, J and Yang, L and Pei, Z and Hayes, RB and Ahn, J}, title = {Drinking alcohol is associated with variation in the human oral microbiome in a large study of American adults.}, journal = {Microbiome}, volume = {6}, number = {1}, pages = {59}, pmid = {29685174}, issn = {2049-2618}, support = {R01 CA159036/CA/NCI NIH HHS/United States ; U01CA182370/CA/NCI NIH HHS/United States ; R21CA183887/CA/NCI NIH HHS/United States ; Pancreas Cancer Action Network Career Development Award//American Association for Cancer Research/International ; P30CA016087/CA/NCI NIH HHS/United States ; R03CA159414/CA/NCI NIH HHS/United States ; R01CA159036/CA/NCI NIH HHS/United States ; R01CA164964/CA/NCI NIH HHS/United States ; R01 CA164964/CA/NCI NIH HHS/United States ; }, mesh = {Adult ; Aged ; Aged, 80 and over ; *Alcohol Drinking ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Metagenome ; Metagenomics ; *Microbiota ; Middle Aged ; Mouth/*microbiology ; Public Health Surveillance ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; United States ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: Dysbiosis of the oral microbiome can lead to local oral disease and potentially to cancers of the head, neck, and digestive tract. However, little is known regarding exogenous factors contributing to such microbial imbalance.<br><br>RESULTS: We examined the impact of alcohol consumption on the oral microbiome in a cross-sectional study of 1044 US adults. Bacterial 16S rRNA genes from oral wash samples were amplified, sequenced, and assigned to bacterial taxa. We tested the association of alcohol drinking level (non-drinker, moderate drinker, or heavy drinker) and type (liquor, beer, or wine) with overall microbial composition and individual taxon abundance. The diversity of oral microbiota and overall bacterial profiles differed between heavy drinkers and non-drinkers (α-diversity richness p = 0.0059 and β-diversity unweighted UniFrac p = 0.0036), and abundance of commensal order Lactobacillales tends to be decreased with higher alcohol consumption (fold changes = 0.89 and 0.94 for heavy and moderate drinkers, p trend = 0.005 [q = 0.064]). Additionally, certain genera were enriched in subjects with higher alcohol consumption, including Actinomyces, Leptotrichia, Cardiobacterium, and Neisseria; some of these genera contain oral pathogens, while Neisseria can synthesize the human carcinogen acetaldehyde from ethanol. Wine drinkers may differ from non-drinkers in microbial diversity and profiles (α-diversity richness p = 0.048 and β-diversity unweighted UniFrac p = 0.059) after controlling for drinking amount, while liquor and beer drinkers did not. All significant differences between drinkers and non-drinkers remained after exclusion of current smokers.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: Our results, from a large human study of alcohol consumption and the oral microbiome, indicate that alcohol consumption, and heavy drinking in particular, may influence the oral microbiome composition. These findings may have implications for better understanding the potential role that oral bacteria play in alcohol-related diseases.}, }
@article {pmid29684865, year = {2018}, author = {Kurokawa, S and Kishimoto, T and Mizuno, S and Masaoka, T and Naganuma, M and Liang, KC and Kitazawa, M and Nakashima, M and Shindo, C and Suda, W and Hattori, M and Kanai, T and Mimura, M}, title = {The effect of fecal microbiota transplantation on psychiatric symptoms among patients with irritable bowel syndrome, functional diarrhea and functional constipation: An open-label observational study.}, journal = {Journal of affective disorders}, volume = {235}, number = {}, pages = {506-512}, doi = {10.1016/j.jad.2018.04.038}, pmid = {29684865}, issn = {1573-2517}, mesh = {Adult ; Anxiety Disorders/*psychology ; Constipation/psychology/*therapy ; Depressive Disorder/*psychology ; Diarrhea/psychology/*therapy ; *Fecal Microbiota Transplantation ; Feces/*microbiology ; Female ; Gastrointestinal Diseases ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; Humans ; Irritable Bowel Syndrome/psychology/*therapy ; Male ; Middle Aged ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUNDS: The intestinal microbiota is considered as a potential common underpinning pathophysiology of Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders (FGIDs) and psychiatric disorders such as depression and anxiety. Fecal Microbiota Transplantation (FMT) has been reported to have therapeutic effects on diseases related to dysbiosis, but few studies have evaluated its effect on psychiatric symptoms.<br><br>METHODS: We followed 17 patients with either Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), Functional Diarrhea (FDr) or Functional Constipation (FC) who underwent FMT for the treatment of gastrointestinal symptoms and observation of psychiatric symptoms. Changes in Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HAM-D) and subscale of sleep-related items, Hamilton Rating Scale for Anxiety (HAM-A) and Quick Inventory for Depressive Symptoms (QIDS) between baseline and 4 weeks after FMT, and relationship with the intestinal microbiota were measured.<br><br>RESULTS: At baseline, 12 out of 17 patients were rated with HAM-D ≥ 8. Significant improvement in HAM-D total and sleep subscale score, HAM-A and QIDS were observed (p = 0.007, p = 0.007, p = 0.01, p = 0.007, respectively). Baseline Shannon index indicated that microbiota showed lower diversity in patients with HAM-D ≥ 8 compared to those of healthy donors and patients with HAM-D < 8. There was a significant correlation between baseline Shannon index and HAM-D score, and a correlation between Shannon index change and HAM-D improvement after FMT.<br><br>LIMITATIONS: The small sample size with no control group.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that depression and anxiety symptoms may be improved by FMT regardless of gastrointestinal symptom change in patients with IBS, FDr and FC, and the increase of microbiota diversity may help to improve patient's mood.}, }
@article {pmid29681561, year = {2018}, author = {Tandon, K and Yang, SH and Wan, MT and Yang, CC and Baatar, B and Chiu, CY and Tsai, JW and Liu, WC and Tang, SL}, title = {Bacterial Community in Water and Air of Two Sub-Alpine Lakes in Taiwan.}, journal = {Microbes and environments}, volume = {33}, number = {2}, pages = {120-126}, pmid = {29681561}, issn = {1347-4405}, mesh = {*Air Microbiology ; Bacteria/*classification/genetics ; *Biodiversity ; DNA, Bacterial/genetics ; Ecosystem ; Geologic Sediments/microbiology ; Lakes/*microbiology ; Metagenomics ; *Phylogeny ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Spatio-Temporal Analysis ; Taiwan ; *Water Microbiology ; }, abstract = {Very few studies have attempted to profile the microbial communities in the air above freshwater bodies, such as lakes, even though freshwater sources are an important part of aquatic ecosystems and airborne bacteria are the most dispersible microorganisms on earth. In the present study, we investigated microbial communities in the waters of two high mountain sub-alpine montane lakes-located 21 km apart and with disparate trophic characteristics-and the air above them. Although bacteria in the lakes had locational differences, their community compositions remained constant over time. However, airborne bacterial communities were diverse and displayed spatial and temporal variance. Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, Bacteroidetes, and Cyanobacteria were dominant in both lakes, with different relative abundances between lakes, and Parcubacteria (OD1) was dominant in air samples for all sampling times, except two. We also identified certain shared taxa between lake water and the air above it. The results obtained on these communities in the present study provide putative candidates to study how airborne communities shape lake water bacterial compositions and vice versa.}, }
@article {pmid29680562, year = {2018}, author = {Ribicic, D and Netzer, R and Hazen, TC and Techtmann, SM and Drabløs, F and Brakstad, OG}, title = {Microbial community and metagenome dynamics during biodegradation of dispersed oil reveals potential key-players in cold Norwegian seawater.}, journal = {Marine pollution bulletin}, volume = {129}, number = {1}, pages = {370-378}, doi = {10.1016/j.marpolbul.2018.02.034}, pmid = {29680562}, issn = {1879-3363}, mesh = {Biodegradation, Environmental ; Environmental Monitoring/*methods ; *Metagenome ; Microbial Consortia/*genetics ; Norway ; Petroleum/*analysis ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Seawater/chemistry/*microbiology ; Water Pollutants, Chemical/*analysis ; }, abstract = {Oil biodegradation as a weathering process has been extensively investigated over the years, especially after the Deepwater Horizon blowout. In this study, we performed microcosm experiments at 5 °C with chemically dispersed oil in non-amended seawater. We link biodegradation processes with microbial community and metagenome dynamics and explain the succession based on substrate specialization. Reconstructed genomes and 16S rRNA gene analysis revealed that Bermanella and Zhongshania were the main contributors to initial n-alkane breakdown, while subsequent abundances of Colwellia and microorganisms closely related to Porticoccaceae were involved in secondary n‑alkane breakdown and beta‑oxidation. Cycloclasticus, Porticoccaceae and Spongiiabcteraceae were associated with degradation of mono- and poly-cyclic aromatics. Successional pattern of genes coding for hydrocarbon degrading enzymes at metagenome level, and reconstructed genomic content, revealed a high differentiation of bacteria involved in hydrocarbon biodegradation. A cooperation among oil degrading microorganisms is thus needed for the complete substrate transformation.}, }
@article {pmid29678199, year = {2018}, author = {Huson, DH and Albrecht, B and Bağcı, C and Bessarab, I and Górska, A and Jolic, D and Williams, RBH}, title = {MEGAN-LR: new algorithms allow accurate binning and easy interactive exploration of metagenomic long reads and contigs.}, journal = {Biology direct}, volume = {13}, number = {1}, pages = {6}, pmid = {29678199}, issn = {1745-6150}, support = {NSF PHY-1748958//National Science Foundation/International ; }, mesh = {*Algorithms ; High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing ; Metagenomics/*methods ; Microbiota/genetics ; Sequence Analysis, DNA ; Software ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: There are numerous computational tools for taxonomic or functional analysis of microbiome samples, optimized to run on hundreds of millions of short, high quality sequencing reads. Programs such as MEGAN allow the user to interactively navigate these large datasets. Long read sequencing technologies continue to improve and produce increasing numbers of longer reads (of varying lengths in the range of 10k-1M bps, say), but of low quality. There is an increasing interest in using long reads in microbiome sequencing, and there is a need to adapt short read tools to long read datasets.<br><br>METHODS: We describe a new LCA-based algorithm for taxonomic binning, and an interval-tree based algorithm for functional binning, that are explicitly designed for long reads and assembled contigs. We provide a new interactive tool for investigating the alignment of long reads against reference sequences. For taxonomic and functional binning, we propose to use LAST to compare long reads against the NCBI-nr protein reference database so as to obtain frame-shift aware alignments, and then to process the results using our new methods.<br><br>RESULTS: All presented methods are implemented in the open source edition of MEGAN, and we refer to this new extension as MEGAN-LR (MEGAN long read). We evaluate the LAST+MEGAN-LR approach in a simulation study, and on a number of mock community datasets consisting of Nanopore reads, PacBio reads and assembled PacBio reads. We also illustrate the practical application on a Nanopore dataset that we sequenced from an anammox bio-rector community.<br><br>REVIEWERS: This article was reviewed by Nicola Segata together with Moreno Zolfo, Pete James Lockhart and Serghei Mangul.<br><br>CONCLUSION: This work extends the applicability of the widely-used metagenomic analysis software MEGAN to long reads. Our study suggests that the presented LAST+MEGAN-LR pipeline is sufficiently fast and accurate.}, }
@article {pmid29676472, year = {2018}, author = {Hao, DC and Zhang, CR and Xiao, PG}, title = {The first Taxus rhizosphere microbiome revealed by shotgun metagenomic sequencing.}, journal = {Journal of basic microbiology}, volume = {58}, number = {6}, pages = {501-512}, doi = {10.1002/jobm.201700663}, pmid = {29676472}, issn = {1521-4028}, mesh = {Archaea/classification/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Bacteria/classification/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Biodegradation, Environmental ; Environmental Pollutants/adverse effects ; Fungi/classification/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Genes, Archaeal/genetics ; Genes, Bacterial/genetics ; Genes, Fungal/genetics ; Genes, Viral/genetics ; Metagenomics/*methods ; *Microbiota ; Phylogeny ; Plant Roots/*microbiology ; *Rhizosphere ; *Soil Microbiology ; Taxus/*microbiology ; Viruses/classification/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; }, abstract = {In the present study, the shotgun high throughput metagenomic sequencing was implemented to globally capture the features of Taxus rhizosphere microbiome. Total reads could be assigned to 6925 species belonging to 113 bacteria phyla and 301 species of nine fungi phyla. For archaea and virus, 263 and 134 species were for the first time identified, respectively. More than 720,000 Unigenes were identified by clean reads assembly. The top five assigned phyla were Actinobacteria (363,941 Unigenes), Proteobacteria (182,053), Acidobacteria (44,527), Ascomycota (fungi; 18,267), and Chloroflexi (15,539). KEGG analysis predicted numerous functional genes; 7101 Unigenes belong to &quot;Xenobiotics biodegradation and metabolism.&quot; A total of 12,040 Unigenes involved in defense mechanisms (e.g., xenobiotic metabolism) were annotated by eggNOG. Talaromyces addition could influence not only the diversity and structure of microbial communities of Taxus rhizosphere, but also the relative abundance of functional genes, including metabolic genes, antibiotic resistant genes, and genes involved in pathogen-host interaction, bacterial virulence, and bacterial secretion system. The structure and function of rhizosphere microbiome could be sensitive to non-native microbe addition, which could impact on the pollutant degradation. This study, complementary to the amplicon sequencing, more objectively reflects the native microbiome of Taxus rhizosphere and its response to environmental pressure, and lays a foundation for potential combination of phytoremediation and bioaugmentation.}, }
@article {pmid29669589, year = {2018}, author = {Coelho, LP and Kultima, JR and Costea, PI and Fournier, C and Pan, Y and Czarnecki-Maulden, G and Hayward, MR and Forslund, SK and Schmidt, TSB and Descombes, P and Jackson, JR and Li, Q and Bork, P}, title = {Similarity of the dog and human gut microbiomes in gene content and response to diet.}, journal = {Microbiome}, volume = {6}, number = {1}, pages = {72}, pmid = {29669589}, issn = {2049-2618}, support = {686070//Horizon 2020 Framework Programme (BE)/International ; }, mesh = {Animals ; *Diet ; Dogs ; Feces/microbiology ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; Humans ; *Metagenome ; *Metagenomics/methods ; Mice ; *Microbiota ; Obesity ; Swine ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: Gut microbes influence their hosts in many ways, in particular by modulating the impact of diet. These effects have been studied most extensively in humans and mice. In this work, we used whole genome metagenomics to investigate the relationship between the gut metagenomes of dogs, humans, mice, and pigs.<br><br>RESULTS: We present a dog gut microbiome gene catalog containing 1,247,405 genes (based on 129 metagenomes and a total of 1.9 terabasepairs of sequencing data). Based on this catalog and taxonomic abundance profiling, we show that the dog microbiome is closer to the human microbiome than the microbiome of either pigs or mice. To investigate this similarity in terms of response to dietary changes, we report on a randomized intervention with two diets (high-protein/low-carbohydrate vs. lower protein/higher carbohydrate). We show that diet has a large and reproducible effect on the dog microbiome, independent of breed or sex. Moreover, the responses were in agreement with those observed in previous human studies.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: We conclude that findings in dogs may be predictive of human microbiome results. In particular, a novel finding is that overweight or obese dogs experience larger compositional shifts than lean dogs in response to a high-protein diet.}, }
@article {pmid29668682, year = {2018}, author = {Hannigan, GD and Duhaime, MB and Koutra, D and Schloss, PD}, title = {Biogeography and environmental conditions shape bacteriophage-bacteria networks across the human microbiome.}, journal = {PLoS computational biology}, volume = {14}, number = {4}, pages = {e1006099}, pmid = {29668682}, issn = {1553-7358}, support = {T32AI007528/NH/NIH HHS/United States ; U01 AI124255/AI/NIAID NIH HHS/United States ; P30 DK034933/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States ; P30DK034933/NH/NIH HHS/United States ; U01AI124255/NH/NIH HHS/United States ; U19AI09087/NH/NIH HHS/United States ; }, mesh = {Bacteria/*genetics ; *Bacterial Physiological Phenomena ; Bacteriophages/*genetics/*physiology ; Computational Biology ; Diet ; Humans ; Metagenomics ; Microbial Consortia/genetics/physiology ; Microbiota/*genetics/*physiology ; Models, Biological ; Phylogeography ; Skin/microbiology/virology ; }, abstract = {Viruses and bacteria are critical components of the human microbiome and play important roles in health and disease. Most previous work has relied on studying bacteria and viruses independently, thereby reducing them to two separate communities. Such approaches are unable to capture how these microbial communities interact, such as through processes that maintain community robustness or allow phage-host populations to co-evolve. We implemented a network-based analytical approach to describe phage-bacteria network diversity throughout the human body. We built these community networks using a machine learning algorithm to predict which phages could infect which bacteria in a given microbiome. Our algorithm was applied to paired viral and bacterial metagenomic sequence sets from three previously published human cohorts. We organized the predicted interactions into networks that allowed us to evaluate phage-bacteria connectedness across the human body. We observed evidence that gut and skin network structures were person-specific and not conserved among cohabitating family members. High-fat diets appeared to be associated with less connected networks. Network structure differed between skin sites, with those exposed to the external environment being less connected and likely more susceptible to network degradation by microbial extinction events. This study quantified and contrasted the diversity of virome-microbiome networks across the human body and illustrated how environmental factors may influence phage-bacteria interactive dynamics. This work provides a baseline for future studies to better understand system perturbations, such as disease states, through ecological networks.}, }
@article {pmid29668334, year = {2018}, author = {Amrane, S and Raoult, D and Lagier, JC}, title = {Metagenomics, culturomics, and the human gut microbiota.}, journal = {Expert review of anti-infective therapy}, volume = {16}, number = {5}, pages = {373-375}, doi = {10.1080/14787210.2018.1467268}, pmid = {29668334}, issn = {1744-8336}, mesh = {Culture Techniques/*methods ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/*physiology ; High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing/methods ; Humans ; Metagenomics/*methods ; }, }
@article {pmid29667371, year = {2019}, author = {Han, Z and Sun, J and Lv, A and Wang, A}, title = {Biases from different DNA extraction methods in intestine microbiome research based on 16S rDNA sequencing: a case in the koi carp, Cyprinus carpio var. Koi.}, journal = {MicrobiologyOpen}, volume = {8}, number = {1}, pages = {e00626}, doi = {10.1002/mbo3.626}, pmid = {29667371}, issn = {2045-8827}, mesh = {Animals ; Carps/microbiology ; Cluster Analysis ; DNA, Bacterial/chemistry/genetics/*isolation &amp; purification ; DNA, Ribosomal/chemistry/genetics/*isolation &amp; purification ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; Metagenomics/*methods ; Phylogeny ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Sequence Analysis, DNA ; }, abstract = {This study examined the technical bias associated with different DNA extraction methods used in microbiome research. Three methods were used to extract genomic DNA from the same intestinal microbiota sample that was taken from the koi carp Cyprinus carpio var. koi, after which their microbial diversity and community structure were investigated on the basis of a 16S rDNA high-throughput sequencing analysis. Biased results were observed in relation to the number of reads, alpha diversity indexes and taxonomic composition among the three DNA extraction protocols. A total of 1,381 OTUs from the intestinal bacteria were obtained, with 852, 759, and 698 OTUs acquired, using the Lysozyme and Ultrasonic Lysis method, Zirmil-beating Cell Disruption method, and a QIAamp Fast DNA Stool Mini Kit, respectively. Additionally, 336 OTUs were commonly acquired, using the three methods. The results showed that the alpha diversity indexes (Rarefaction, Shannon, and Chao1) of the community that were determined using the Lysozyme and Ultrasonic Lysis method were higher than those obtained with the Zirmil-beating Cell Disruption method, while the Zirmil method results were higher than those measured, using the QIAamp Fast DNA Stool Mini Kit. Moreover, all the major phyla (ratio>1%) could be identified with all three DNA extraction methods, but the phyla present at a lower abundance (ratio <1%) could not. Similar findings were observed at the genus level. Taken together, these findings indicated that the bias observed in the results about the community structure occurred primarily in OTUs with a lower abundance. The results of this study demonstrate that possible bias exists in community analyses, and researchers should therefore be conservative when drawing conclusions about community structures based on the currently available DNA extraction methods.}, }
@article {pmid29667329, year = {2018}, author = {Bista, I and Carvalho, GR and Tang, M and Walsh, K and Zhou, X and Hajibabaei, M and Shokralla, S and Seymour, M and Bradley, D and Liu, S and Christmas, M and Creer, S}, title = {Performance of amplicon and shotgun sequencing for accurate biomass estimation in invertebrate community samples.}, journal = {Molecular ecology resources}, volume = {}, number = {}, pages = {}, doi = {10.1111/1755-0998.12888}, pmid = {29667329}, issn = {1755-0998}, abstract = {New applications of DNA and RNA sequencing are expanding the field of biodiversity discovery and ecological monitoring, yet questions remain regarding precision and efficiency. Due to primer bias, the ability of metabarcoding to accurately depict biomass of different taxa from bulk communities remains unclear, while PCR-free whole mitochondrial genome (mitogenome) sequencing may provide a more reliable alternative. Here, we used a set of documented mock communities comprising 13 species of freshwater macroinvertebrates of estimated individual biomass, to compare the detection efficiency of COI metabarcoding (three different amplicons) and shotgun mitogenome sequencing. Additionally, we used individual COI barcoding and de novo mitochondrial genome sequencing, to provide reference sequences for OTU assignment and metagenome mapping (mitogenome skimming), respectively. We found that, even though both methods occasionally failed to recover very low abundance species, metabarcoding was less consistent, by failing to recover some species with higher abundances, probably due to primer bias. Shotgun sequencing results provided highly significant correlations between read number and biomass in all but one species. Conversely, the read-biomass relationships obtained from metabarcoding varied across amplicons. Specifically, we found significant relationships for eight of 13 (amplicons B1FR-450 bp, FF130R-130 bp) or four of 13 (amplicon FFFR, 658 bp) species. Combining the results of all three COI amplicons (multiamplicon approach) improved the read-biomass correlations for some of the species. Overall, mitogenomic sequencing yielded more informative predictions of biomass content from bulk macroinvertebrate communities than metabarcoding. However, for large-scale ecological studies, metabarcoding currently remains the most commonly used approach for diversity assessment.}, }
@article {pmid29667264, year = {2018}, author = {Xu, Y and Jia, YH and Chen, L and Huang, WM and Yang, DQ}, title = {Metagenomic analysis of oral microbiome in young children aged 6-8 years living in a rural isolated Chinese province.}, journal = {Oral diseases}, volume = {24}, number = {6}, pages = {1115-1125}, doi = {10.1111/odi.12871}, pmid = {29667264}, issn = {1601-0825}, mesh = {Child ; China ; Dentition, Mixed ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Metagenomics ; *Microbiota ; Mouth/*microbiology ; *Rural Population ; Sequence Analysis, DNA ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: The mixed dentition is an important transition period from primary teeth to permanent teeth. However, the caries prevalence of first permanent molar in mixed dentitions was about 30%, which almost represent the caries rate of permanent teeth in this period of time. Therefore, we assessed the oral bacterial profiles in young children (age 6-8) with mixed dentition with or without first molar caries for providing the research basis of caries etiology.<br><br>METHODS: We collected samples of supragingival plaque and saliva from the children living in Guizhou, a rural isolated province in China. Then, we performed DNA extraction and purification followed by 454 pyrosequencing of the V1-V3 hypervariable regions of the 16S rRNA and compared our results with those of previous research.<br><br>RESULTS: (i) We analyzed 48,320 unique sequences that represented 18 phyla, 29 classes, 44 orders, 74 families, 129 genera, 15,003 species-level OUT in plaque and saliva samples; (ii) longitudinally, there was the &quot;healthy core microbiome&quot; between healthy deciduous dentition and early mixed dentition, for example, Neisseria, Porphyromonas, Selenomonas etc.; (iii) horizontally, there also existed the &quot;healthy core microbiome&quot; in early mixed dentition, for example, Neisseria, Streptococcus, Prevotella etc.; (iv) the dominant bacteria detected by Lefse in caries group including Actinomycetaceae, Streptobacillus (p < 0.05) and those in caries-free group including Gammaproteobacteria, Pasteurellaceae, Aggregatibacter, Chloroflexi, (p < 0.05).<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: The oral cavity is a highly heterogeneous ecosystem with the &quot;healthy core microbiome&quot; in children, although microbial composition shifts along with aging. In addition, the abundance and diversity of microbiota vary between caries and caries-free groups verify the ecological plaque hypothesis.}, }
@article {pmid29666288, year = {2018}, author = {Nowicki, EM and Shroff, R and Singleton, JA and Renaud, DE and Wallace, D and Drury, J and Zirnheld, J and Colleti, B and Ellington, AD and Lamont, RJ and Scott, DA and Whiteley, M}, title = {Microbiota and Metatranscriptome Changes Accompanying the Onset of Gingivitis.}, journal = {mBio}, volume = {9}, number = {2}, pages = {}, pmid = {29666288}, issn = {2150-7511}, support = {R01 DE026963/DE/NIDCR NIH HHS/United States ; }, mesh = {Cluster Analysis ; DNA, Archaeal/chemistry/genetics ; DNA, Ribosomal/chemistry/genetics ; *Dysbiosis ; *Gene Expression Profiling ; Gingivitis/*microbiology/*pathology ; Humans ; *Metagenomics ; *Microbiota ; Phylogeny ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Sequence Analysis, DNA ; Sequence Analysis, RNA ; }, abstract = {Over half of adults experience gingivitis, a mild yet treatable form of periodontal disease caused by the overgrowth of oral microbes. Left untreated, gingivitis can progress to a more severe and irreversible disease, most commonly chronic periodontitis. While periodontal diseases are associated with a shift in the oral microbiota composition, it remains unclear how this shift impacts microbiota function early in disease progression. Here, we analyzed the transition from health to gingivitis through both 16S v4-v5 rRNA amplicon and metatranscriptome sequencing of subgingival plaque samples from individuals undergoing an experimental gingivitis treatment. Beta-diversity analysis of 16S rRNA reveals that samples cluster based on disease severity and patient but not by oral hygiene status. Significant shifts in the abundance of several genera occurred during disease transition, suggesting a dysbiosis due to development of gingivitis. Comparing taxonomic abundance with transcriptomic activity revealed concordance of bacterial diversity composition between the two quantification assays in samples originating from both healthy and diseased teeth. Metatranscriptome sequencing analysis indicates that during the early stages of transition to gingivitis, a number of virulence-related transcripts were significantly differentially expressed in individual and across pooled patient samples. Upregulated genes include those involved in proteolytic and nucleolytic processes, while expression levels of those involved in surface structure assembly and other general virulence functions leading to colonization or adaptation within the host are more dynamic. These findings help characterize the transition from health to periodontal disease and identify genes associated with early disease.IMPORTANCE Although more than 50% of adults have some form of periodontal disease, there remains a significant gap in our understanding of its underlying cause. We initiated this study in order to better characterize the progression from oral health to disease. We first analyzed changes in the abundances of specific microorganisms in dental plaque collected from teeth during health and gingivitis, the mildest form of periodontal disease. We found that the clinical score of disease and patient from whom the sample originated but not tooth brushing are significantly correlated with microbial community composition. While a number of virulence-related gene transcripts are differentially expressed in gingivitis samples relative to health, not all are increased, suggesting that the overall activity of the microbiota is dynamic during disease transition. Better understanding of which microbes are present and their function during early periodontal disease can potentially lead to more targeted prophylactic approaches to prevent disease progression.}, }
@article {pmid29665523, year = {2018}, author = {Osimani, A and Milanović, V and Garofalo, C and Cardinali, F and Roncolini, A and Sabbatini, R and De Filippis, F and Ercolini, D and Gabucci, C and Petruzzelli, A and Tonucci, F and Clementi, F and Aquilanti, L}, title = {Revealing the microbiota of marketed edible insects through PCR-DGGE, metagenomic sequencing and real-time PCR.}, journal = {International journal of food microbiology}, volume = {276}, number = {}, pages = {54-62}, doi = {10.1016/j.ijfoodmicro.2018.04.013}, pmid = {29665523}, issn = {1879-3460}, mesh = {Animals ; *Biodiversity ; Denaturing Gradient Gel Electrophoresis ; *Food Microbiology ; High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing ; Insecta/*microbiology ; *Metagenomics ; Microbiota/genetics/*physiology ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; *Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction ; Thailand ; }, abstract = {The present study aimed to identify the microbiota present in six species of processed edible insects produced in Thailand and marketed worldwide via the internet, namely, giant water bugs (Belostoma lutarium), black ants (Polyrhachis), winged termites (alates, Termitoidae), rhino beetles (Hyboschema contractum), mole crickets (Gryllotalpidae), and silkworm pupae (Bombyx mori). For each species, two samples of boiled, dried and salted insects were purchased. The microbial DNA was extracted from the insect samples and subjected to polymerase chain reaction-denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (PCR-DGGE), high-throughput sequencing and qualitative real-time PCR assays. The microbiota of the analyzed samples were widely characterized by the presence of spore-forming bacteria mainly represented by the genera Bacillus and Clostridium. Moreover, the genera Anaerobacillus, Paenibacillus, Geobacillus, Pseudomonas, Stenotrophomonas, Massilia, Delftia, Lactobacillus, Staphylococcus, Streptococcus, Vagococcus, and Vibrio were also detected. Real-time PCR allowed for ascertainment of the absence of Coxiella burnetii, Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC), and Pseudomonas aeruginosa in all samples. The results of this study confirm the importance of combining different molecular techniques to characterize the biodiversity of complex ecosystems such as edible insects. The presence of potential human pathogens suggests the need for a careful application of good manufacturing practices during insect processing. This study provides further data that will be useful in risk analyses of edible insects as a novel food source.}, }
@article {pmid29664968, year = {2018}, author = {Betiku, OC and Yeoman, CJ and Gaylord, TG and Americus, B and Olivo, S and Duff, GC and Sealey, WM}, title = {Water system is a controlling variable modulating bacterial diversity of gastrointestinal tract and performance in rainbow trout.}, journal = {PloS one}, volume = {13}, number = {4}, pages = {e0195967}, pmid = {29664968}, issn = {1932-6203}, mesh = {Animal Feed ; Animals ; Bacteria/*classification/genetics ; *Biodiversity ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; Metagenome ; Metagenomics/methods ; Oncorhynchus mykiss/*microbiology ; Plant Proteins, Dietary ; *Water Microbiology ; }, abstract = {A two-phase feeding study evaluating performance of rainbow trout and comparing luminal and mucosal gastrointestinal tract (GIT) bacterial community compositions when fed two alternative protein diets in two rearing systems was conducted. Alternative protein diets (animal protein and plant protein diets) balanced with crystalline amino acids: lysine, methionine and threonine or unbalanced, were fed to rainbow trout in two separate water systems (recirculating (RR) and flow-through (FF)) for a period of 16 weeks. The four diets, each contained 38% digestible protein and 20% fats, were fed to rainbow trout with an average weight of 12.02 ± 0.61 g, and sorted at 30 fish/tank and 12 tanks per dietary treatment. Phase 1 lasted for 8 weeks after which fish from each tank were randomly divided, with one-half moved to new tanks of the opposing system (i.e. from RR to FF and vice versa). The remaining halves were retained in their initial tank and system, and fed their original diets for another 8 weeks (phase 2). After the 16th week, 3 fish/tank were sampled for each of proximate analysis, body indexes and 16S rRNA analysis of GIT microbiota. Fish weight (P = 0.0008, P = 0.0030, P<0.0010) and body fat (P = 0.0008, P = 0.0041, P = 0.0177) were significantly affected by diet, diet quality (balanced or unbalanced) and system, respectively. Feed intake (P = 0.0008) and body energy (P<0.0010) were altered by system. Body indexes were not affected by dietary treatment and water systems. Compositional dissimilarities existed between samples from the rearing water and GIT locations (ANOSIM: (R = 0.29, P = 0.0010), PERMANOVA: R = 0.39, P = 0.0010), but not in dietary samples (ANOSIM: R = 0.004, P = 0.3140, PERMANOVA: R = 0.008, P = 0.4540). Bacteria were predominantly from the phyla Proteobacteria, Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes. Their abundance differed with more dissimilarity in the luminal samples (ANOSIM: R = 0.40, P = 0.0010, PERMANOVA: R = 0.56, P = 0.0010) than those from the mucosal intestine (ANOSIM: R = 0.37, P = 0.0010, PERMANOVA: R = 0.41, P = 0.0010). Bacteria generally associated with carbohydrate and certain amino acids metabolism were observed in the mucosal intestine while rearing water appeared to serve as the main route of colonization of Aeromonas and Acinetobacter in the rainbow trout.}, }
@article {pmid29661230, year = {2018}, author = {Gomez-Silvan, C and Leung, MHY and Grue, KA and Kaur, R and Tong, X and Lee, PKH and Andersen, GL}, title = {A comparison of methods used to unveil the genetic and metabolic pool in the built environment.}, journal = {Microbiome}, volume = {6}, number = {1}, pages = {71}, pmid = {29661230}, issn = {2049-2618}, support = {G-2015-13977//Alfred P. Sloan Foundation/International ; 11276116//Research Grants Council, University Grants Committee/International ; }, mesh = {*Built Environment ; *Environmental Microbiology ; Humans ; *Metabolomics/methods ; *Metagenomics/methods ; *Microbiota ; Phylogeny ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: A majority of indoor residential microbes originate from humans, pets, and outdoor air and are not adapted to the built environment (BE). Consequently, a large portion of the microbes identified by DNA-based methods are either dead or metabolically inactive. Although many exceptions have been noted, the ribosomal RNA fraction of the sample is more likely to represent either viable or metabolically active cells. We examined methodological variations in sample processing using a defined, mock BE microbial community to better understand the scope of technique-based vs. biological-based differences in both ribosomal transcript (rRNA) and gene (DNA) sequence community analysis. Based on in vitro tests, a protocol was adopted for the analysis of the genetic and metabolic pool (DNA vs. rRNA) of air and surface microbiomes within a residential setting.<br><br>RESULTS: We observed differences in DNA/RNA co-extraction efficiency for individual microbes, but overall, a greater recovery of rRNA using FastPrep (> 50%). Samples stored with various preservation methods at - 80°C experienced a rapid decline in nucleic acid recovery starting within the first week, although post-extraction rRNA had no significant degradation when treated with RNAStable. We recommend that co-extraction samples be processed as quickly as possible after collection. The in vivo analysis revealed significant differences in the two components (genetic and metabolic pool) in terms of taxonomy, community structure, and microbial association networks. Rare taxa present in the genetic pool showed higher metabolic potential (RNA:DNA ratio), whereas commonly detected taxa of outdoor origins based on DNA sequencing, especially taxa of the Sphingomonadales order, were present in lower relative abundances in the viable community.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: Although methodological variations in sample preparations are high, large differences between the DNA and RNA fractions of the total microbial community demonstrate that direct examination of rRNA isolated from a residential BE microbiome has the potential to identify the more likely viable or active portion of the microbial community. In an environment that has primarily dead and metabolically inactive cells, we suggest that the rRNA fraction of BE samples is capable of providing a more ecologically relevant insight into the factors that drive indoor microbial community dynamics.}, }
@article {pmid29660711, year = {2018}, author = {Kotoky, R and Rajkumari, J and Pandey, P}, title = {The rhizosphere microbiome: Significance in rhizoremediation of polyaromatic hydrocarbon contaminated soil.}, journal = {Journal of environmental management}, volume = {217}, number = {}, pages = {858-870}, doi = {10.1016/j.jenvman.2018.04.022}, pmid = {29660711}, issn = {1095-8630}, mesh = {Biodegradation, Environmental ; Hydrocarbons/*metabolism ; Microbiota ; Plant Roots ; *Rhizosphere ; Soil ; *Soil Microbiology ; Soil Pollutants ; }, abstract = {Microbial communities are an essential part of plant rhizosphere and participate in the functioning of plants, including rhizoremediation of petroleum contaminants. Rhizoremediation is a promising technology for removal of polyaromatic hydrocarbons based on interactions between plants and microbiome in the rhizosphere. Root exudation in the rhizosphere provides better nutrient uptake for rhizosphere microbiome, and therefore it is considered to be one of the major factors of microbial community function in the rhizosphere that plays a key role in the enhanced PAH biodegradation. Although the importance of the rhizosphere microbiome for plant growth has been widely recognized, the interactions between microbiome and plant roots in the process of rhizosphere mediated remediation of PAH still needs attention. Most of the current researches target PAH degradation by plant or single microorganism, separately, whereas the interactions between plants and whole microbiome are overlooked and its role has been ignored. This review summarizes recent knowledge of PAH degradation in the rhizosphere in the process of plant-microbiome interactions based on emerging omics approaches such as metagenomics, metatranscriptomics, metabolomics and metaproteomics. These omics approaches with combinations to bioinformatics tools provide us a better understanding in integrated activity patterns between plants and rhizosphere microbes, and insight into the biochemical and molecular modification of the meta-organisms (plant-microbiome) to maximize rhizoremediation activity. Moreover, a better understanding of the interactions could lead to the development of techniques to engineer rhizosphere microbiome for better hydrocarbon degradation.}, }
@article {pmid29659617, year = {2018}, author = {Mohamed Ramli, N and Giatsis, C and Md Yusoff, F and Verreth, J and Verdegem, M}, title = {Resistance and resilience of small-scale recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS) with or without algae to pH perturbation.}, journal = {PloS one}, volume = {13}, number = {4}, pages = {e0195862}, pmid = {29659617}, issn = {1932-6203}, mesh = {Ammonia/chemistry ; *Aquaculture ; Bacteria/classification/genetics ; Biodiversity ; *Chlorophyta ; *Fresh Water ; *Hydrogen-Ion Concentration ; Metagenome ; Metagenomics/methods ; Nitrogen/chemistry ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Water Microbiology ; Water Quality ; }, abstract = {The experimental set-up of this study mimicked recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS) where water quality parameters such as dissolved oxygen, pH, temperature, and turbidity were controlled and wastes produced by fish and feeding were converted to inorganic forms. A key process in the RAS was the conversion of ammonia to nitrite and nitrite to nitrate through nitrification. It was hypothesized that algae inclusion in RAS would improve the ammonia removal from the water; thereby improving RAS water quality and stability. To test this hypothesis, the stability of the microbiota community composition in a freshwater RAS with (RAS+A) or without algae (RAS-A) was challenged by introducing an acute pH drop (from pH 7 to 4 during three hours) to the system. Stigeoclonium nanum, a periphytic freshwater microalga was used in this study. No significant effect of the algae presence was found on the resistance to the acute pH drop on ammonia conversion to nitrite and nitrite conversion to nitrate. Also the resilience of the ammonia conversion to the pH drop disruption was not affected by the addition of algae. This could be due to the low biomass of algae achieved in the RAS. However, with regard to the conversion step of nitrite to nitrate, RAS+A was significantly more resilient than RAS-A. In terms of overall bacterial communities, the composition and predictive function of the bacterial communities was significantly different between RAS+A and RAS-A.}, }
@article {pmid29656601, year = {2019}, author = {Dashti, N and Ali, N and Salamah, S and Khanafer, M and Al-Shamy, G and Al-Awadhi, H and Radwan, SS}, title = {Culture-independent analysis of hydrocarbonoclastic bacterial communities in environmental samples during oil-bioremediation.}, journal = {MicrobiologyOpen}, volume = {8}, number = {2}, pages = {e00630}, doi = {10.1002/mbo3.630}, pmid = {29656601}, issn = {2045-8827}, mesh = {Bacteria/*classification/genetics/*metabolism ; Biodegradation, Environmental ; *Biodiversity ; Cluster Analysis ; DNA, Ribosomal/chemistry/genetics ; Denaturing Gradient Gel Electrophoresis ; Environmental Pollutants/*metabolism ; Hydrocarbons/*metabolism ; Metagenomics ; Oils/*metabolism ; Oxidoreductases/genetics ; Phylogeny ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Sequence Analysis, DNA ; }, abstract = {To analyze microbial communities in environmental samples, this study combined Denaturing Gradient Gel Electrophoresis of amplified 16S rRNA-genes in total genomic DNA extracts from those samples with gene sequencing. The environmental samples studied were oily seawater and soil samples, that had been bioaugmented with natural materials rich in hydrocarbonoclastic bacteria. This molecular approach revealed much more diverse bacterial taxa than the culture-dependent method we had used in an earlier study for the analysis of the same samples. The study described the dynamics of bacterial communities during bioremediation. The main limitation associated with this molecular approach, namely of not distinguishing hydrocarbonoclastic taxa from others, was overcome by consulting the literature for the hydrocarbonoclastic potential of taxa related to those identified in this study. By doing so, it was concluded that the hydrocarbonoclastic bacterial taxa were much more diverse than those captured by the culture-dependent approach. The molecular analysis also revealed the frequent occurrence of nifH-genes in the total genomic DNA extracts of all the studied environmental samples, which reflects a nitrogen-fixation potential. Nitrogen fertilization is long known to enhance microbial oil-bioremediation. The study revealed that bioaugmentation using plant rhizospheres or soil with long history of oil-pollution was more effective in oil-removal in the desert soil than in seawater microcosms.}, }
@article {pmid29654556, year = {2018}, author = {Jung, DH and Seo, DH and Kim, GY and Nam, YD and Song, EJ and Yoon, S and Park, CS}, title = {The effect of resistant starch (RS) on the bovine rumen microflora and isolation of RS-degrading bacteria.}, journal = {Applied microbiology and biotechnology}, volume = {102}, number = {11}, pages = {4927-4936}, doi = {10.1007/s00253-018-8971-z}, pmid = {29654556}, issn = {1432-0614}, support = {no. 2017R1A2B4004218//National Research Foundation of Korea/ ; }, mesh = {Animals ; Bacteria/isolation &amp; purification/metabolism ; Cattle ; Feces/microbiology ; Fermentation ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/*drug effects ; Humans ; Rumen/*microbiology ; Starch/*metabolism/*pharmacology ; }, abstract = {Resistant starch (RS) in the diet reaches the large intestine without degradation, where it is decomposed by the commensal microbiota. The fermentation of RS produces secondary metabolites including short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs), which have been linked to a variety of physiological and health effects. Therefore, the availability of RS as a prebiotic is a current issue. The objectives of this study were (1) to use metagenomics to observe microbial flora changes in Bos taurus coreanae rumen fluid in the presence of RS and (2) to isolate RS-degrading microorganisms. The major microbial genus in a general rumen fluid was Succiniclasticum sp., whereas Streptococcus sp. immediately predominated after the addition of RS into the culture medium and was then drastically replaced by Lactobacillus sp. The presence of Bifidobacterium sp. was also observed continuously. Several microorganisms with high RS granule-degrading activity were identified and isolated, including B. choerinum FMB-1 and B. pseudolongum FMB-2. B. choerinum FMB-1 showed the highest RS-hydrolyzing activity and degraded almost 60% of all substrates tested. Coculture experiments demonstrated that Lactobacillus brevis ATCC 14869, which was isolated from human feces, could grow using reducing sugars generated from RS by B. choerinum FMB-1. These results suggest that Bifidobacterium spp., especially B. choerinum FMB-1, are the putative primary degrader of RS in rumen microbial flora and could be further studied as probiotic candidates.}, }
@article {pmid29652573, year = {2018}, author = {Laudadio, I and Fulci, V and Palone, F and Stronati, L and Cucchiara, S and Carissimi, C}, title = {Quantitative Assessment of Shotgun Metagenomics and 16S rDNA Amplicon Sequencing in the Study of Human Gut Microbiome.}, journal = {Omics : a journal of integrative biology}, volume = {22}, number = {4}, pages = {248-254}, doi = {10.1089/omi.2018.0013}, pmid = {29652573}, issn = {1557-8100}, mesh = {Adolescent ; Child ; Computational Biology/methods ; Female ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing ; Humans ; Male ; *Metagenome ; *Metagenomics/methods ; *RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Sequence Analysis, DNA ; }, abstract = {The analysis of microbiota composition in humans, animals, and built environments is important because of emerging roles and applications in a broad range of disease and ecological phenotypes. Next Generation Sequencing is the current method of choice to characterize microbial community composition. The taxonomic profile of a microbial community can be obtained either by shotgun analysis of random DNA fragments or through 16S ribosomal RNA gene (rDNA) amplicon sequencing. It has been previously shown that the 16S rDNA amplicon sequencing approach yields quantitatively and qualitatively different results compared to shotgun metagenomics when the two techniques are used to assess microbial community composition on the same samples. However, most of such comparisons were either based on the recovery of 16S rDNA sequences in the shotgun metagenomics data or limited to a single microbiome or synthetic samples. Direct comparison of shotgun metagenomics and 16S rDNA amplicon sequencing on the same samples was performed only once in the recent literature, suggesting that the two methods yield comparable results. Here, we set out to compare the outcome of these two alternative approaches to the microbiome characterization in human gut microbiomes from stool samples. To this end, we processed six different samples with both techniques. We report here that shotgun next generation sequencing metagenomics allows much deeper characterization of the microbiome complexity, allowing identification of a larger number of species for each sample, compared to 16S rDNA amplicon sequencing. Further comparative studies in independent samples are called for.}, }
@article {pmid29642940, year = {2018}, author = {Dai, Z and Coker, OO and Nakatsu, G and Wu, WKK and Zhao, L and Chen, Z and Chan, FKL and Kristiansen, K and Sung, JJY and Wong, SH and Yu, J}, title = {Multi-cohort analysis of colorectal cancer metagenome identified altered bacteria across populations and universal bacterial markers.}, journal = {Microbiome}, volume = {6}, number = {1}, pages = {70}, pmid = {29642940}, issn = {2049-2618}, support = {766613, 14106145, 14111216//RGC-GRF/International ; 2016YFC1303200//135 Program Project China/International ; 2013CB531401//973 Program China/International ; 2014BAI09B05//National Key Technology R&amp;D Program/International ; }, mesh = {Aged ; Bacteria/*classification/*genetics ; Cell Transformation, Neoplastic ; Colorectal Neoplasms/diagnosis/*etiology ; Computational Biology/methods ; Female ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; Gene Ontology ; Humans ; Male ; *Metagenome ; *Metagenomics/methods ; Middle Aged ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: Alterations of gut microbiota are associated with colorectal cancer (CRC) in different populations and several bacterial species were found to contribute to the tumorigenesis. The potential use of gut microbes as markers for early diagnosis has also been reported. However, cohort specific noises may distort the structure of microbial dysbiosis in CRC and lead to inconsistent results among studies. In this regard, our study targeted at exploring changes in gut microbiota that are universal across populations at species level.<br><br>RESULTS: Based on the combined analysis of 526 metagenomic samples from Chinese, Austrian, American, and German and French cohorts, seven CRC-enriched bacteria (Bacteroides fragilis, Fusobacterium nucleatum, Porphyromonas asaccharolytica, Parvimonas micra, Prevotella intermedia, Alistipes finegoldii, and Thermanaerovibrio acidaminovorans) have been identified across populations. The seven enriched bacterial markers classified cases from controls with an area under the receiver-operating characteristics curve (AUC) of 0.80 across the different populations. Abundance correlation analysis demonstrated that CRC-enriched and CRC-depleted bacteria respectively formed their own mutualistic networks, in which the latter was disjointed in CRC. The CRC-enriched bacteria have been found to be correlated with lipopolysaccharide and energy biosynthetic pathways.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: Our study identified potential diagnostic bacterial markers that are robust across populations, indicating their potential universal use for non-invasive CRC diagnosis. We also elucidated the ecological networks and functional capacities of CRC-associated microbiota.}, }
@article {pmid29636446, year = {2018}, author = {Zhou, X and Guang, X and Sun, D and Xu, S and Li, M and Seim, I and Jie, W and Yang, L and Zhu, Q and Xu, J and Gao, Q and Kaya, A and Dou, Q and Chen, B and Ren, W and Li, S and Zhou, K and Gladyshev, VN and Nielsen, R and Fang, X and Yang, G}, title = {Population genomics of finless porpoises reveal an incipient cetacean species adapted to freshwater.}, journal = {Nature communications}, volume = {9}, number = {1}, pages = {1276}, pmid = {29636446}, issn = {2041-1723}, mesh = {Adaptation, Biological ; Animals ; Biological Evolution ; China ; Chromosome Mapping ; *Genome ; *Metagenomics ; *Phylogeny ; Porpoises/classification/*genetics ; Reproductive Isolation ; Rivers ; Seawater ; Water-Electrolyte Balance ; }, abstract = {Cetaceans (whales, dolphins, and porpoises) are a group of mammals adapted to various aquatic habitats, from oceans to freshwater rivers. We report the sequencing, de novo assembly and analysis of a finless porpoise genome, and the re-sequencing of an additional 48 finless porpoise individuals. We use these data to reconstruct the demographic history of finless porpoises from their origin to the occupation into the Yangtze River. Analyses of selection between marine and freshwater porpoises identify genes associated with renal water homeostasis and urea cycle, such as urea transporter 2 and angiotensin I-converting enzyme 2, which are likely adaptations associated with the difference in osmotic stress between ocean and rivers. Our results strongly suggest that the critically endangered Yangtze finless porpoises are reproductively isolated from other porpoise populations and harbor unique genetic adaptations, supporting that they should be considered a unique incipient species.}, }
@article {pmid29636439, year = {2018}, author = {Brown, CT and Xiong, W and Olm, MR and Thomas, BC and Baker, R and Firek, B and Morowitz, MJ and Hettich, RL and Banfield, JF}, title = {Hospitalized Premature Infants Are Colonized by Related Bacterial Strains with Distinct Proteomic Profiles.}, journal = {mBio}, volume = {9}, number = {2}, pages = {}, pmid = {29636439}, issn = {2150-7511}, support = {R01 AI092531/AI/NIAID NIH HHS/United States ; R01 GM103600/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/United States ; }, mesh = {Bacteria/*chemistry/classification/genetics ; Biota ; Enterocolitis, Necrotizing/microbiology/pathology ; Feces/microbiology ; Female ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; *Hospitalization ; Humans ; Infant, Newborn ; *Infant, Premature ; Male ; Metagenome ; Metagenomics ; *Microbiota ; Proteome/*analysis ; Proteomics ; }, abstract = {During the first weeks of life, microbial colonization of the gut impacts human immune system maturation and other developmental processes. In premature infants, aberrant colonization has been implicated in the onset of necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC), a life-threatening intestinal disease. To study the premature infant gut colonization process, genome-resolved metagenomics was conducted on 343 fecal samples collected during the first 3 months of life from 35 premature infants housed in a neonatal intensive care unit, 14 of whom developed NEC, and metaproteomic measurements were made on 87 samples. Microbial community composition and proteomic profiles remained relatively stable on the time scale of a week, but the proteome was more variable. Although genetically similar organisms colonized many infants, most infants were colonized by distinct strains with metabolic profiles that could be distinguished using metaproteomics. Microbiome composition correlated with infant, antibiotics administration, and NEC diagnosis. Communities were found to cluster into seven primary types, and community type switched within infants, sometimes multiple times. Interestingly, some communities sampled from the same infant at subsequent time points clustered with those of other infants. In some cases, switches preceded onset of NEC; however, no species or community type could account for NEC across the majority of infants. In addition to a correlation of protein abundances with organism replication rates, we found that organism proteomes correlated with overall community composition. Thus, this genome-resolved proteomics study demonstrated that the contributions of individual organisms to microbiome development depend on microbial community context.IMPORTANCE Humans are colonized by microbes at birth, a process that is important to health and development. However, much remains to be known about the fine-scale microbial dynamics that occur during the colonization period. We conducted a genome-resolved study of microbial community composition, replication rates, and proteomes during the first 3 months of life of both healthy and sick premature infants. Infants were found to be colonized by similar microbes, but each underwent a distinct colonization trajectory. Interestingly, related microbes colonizing different infants were found to have distinct proteomes, indicating that microbiome function is not only driven by which organisms are present, but also largely depends on microbial responses to the unique set of physiological conditions in the infant gut.}, }
@article {pmid29631628, year = {2018}, author = {Mason, MR and Chambers, S and Dabdoub, SM and Thikkurissy, S and Kumar, PS}, title = {Characterizing oral microbial communities across dentition states and colonization niches.}, journal = {Microbiome}, volume = {6}, number = {1}, pages = {67}, pmid = {29631628}, issn = {2049-2618}, support = {T32-DE014320/DE/NIDCR NIH HHS/United States ; R01 DE022579/DE/NIDCR NIH HHS/United States ; F30- DE024940/DE/NIDCR NIH HHS/United States ; F30 DE024940/DE/NIDCR NIH HHS/United States ; T32 DE014320/DE/NIDCR NIH HHS/United States ; R01-DE022579/DE/NIDCR NIH HHS/United States ; }, mesh = {Biodiversity ; Cross-Sectional Studies ; *Dentition ; Gingiva/microbiology ; Humans ; Metagenome ; Metagenomics/methods ; *Microbiota ; Mouth/*microbiology ; Phylogeny ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Saliva/microbiology ; }, abstract = {METHODS: The present study aimed to identify patterns and processes in acquisition of oral bacteria and to characterize the microbiota of different dentition states and habitats. Mucosal, salivary, supragingival, and subgingival biofilm samples were collected from orally and systemically healthy children and mother-child dyads in predentate, primary, mixed, and permanent dentitions. 16S rRNA gene sequences were compared to the Human Oral Microbiome Database (HOMD). Functional potential was inferred using PICRUSt.<br><br>RESULTS: Unweighted and weighted UniFrac distances were significantly smaller between each mother-predentate dyad than infant-unrelated female dyads. Predentate children shared a median of 85% of species-level operational taxonomic units (s-OTUs) and 100% of core s-OTUs with their mothers. Maternal smoking, but not gender, mode of delivery, feeding habits, or type of food discriminated between predentate microbial profiles. The primary dentition demonstrated expanded community membership, structure, and function when compared to the predentate stage, as well as significantly lower similarity between mother-child dyads. The primary dentition also included 85% of predentate core s-OTUs. Subsequent dentitions exhibited over 90% similarity to the primary dentition in phylogenetic and functional structure. Species from the predentate mucosa as well as new microbial assemblages were identified in the primary supragingival and subgingival microbiomes. All individuals shared 65% of species between supragingival and subgingival habitats; however, the salivary microbiome exhibited less than 35% similarity to either habitat.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: Within the limitations of a cross-sectional study design, we identified two definitive stages in oral bacterial colonization: an early predentate imprinting and a second wave with the eruption of primary teeth. Bacterial acquisition in the oral microbiome is influenced by the maternal microbiome. Personalization begins with the eruption of primary teeth; however, this is limited to phylogeny; functionally, individuals exhibit few differences, suggesting that microbial assembly may follow a defined schematic that is driven by the functional requirements of the ecosystem. This early microbiome forms the foundation upon which newer communities develop as more colonization niches emerge, and expansion of biodiversity is attributable to both introduction of new species and increase in abundance of predentate organisms.}, }
@article {pmid29631623, year = {2018}, author = {Shkoporov, AN and Ryan, FJ and Draper, LA and Forde, A and Stockdale, SR and Daly, KM and McDonnell, SA and Nolan, JA and Sutton, TDS and Dalmasso, M and McCann, A and Ross, RP and Hill, C}, title = {Reproducible protocols for metagenomic analysis of human faecal phageomes.}, journal = {Microbiome}, volume = {6}, number = {1}, pages = {68}, pmid = {29631623}, issn = {2049-2618}, support = {SFI/14/SP APC/B3032//Science Foundation Ireland/Ireland ; SFI/12/RC/2273//Science Foundation Ireland/Ireland ; N/A//Janssen Biotech, Inc/International ; }, mesh = {Bacteria/classification/genetics ; Bacteriophages/*genetics ; Feces/*virology ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; Humans ; *Metagenome ; *Metagenomics/methods ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Reproducibility of Results ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: Recent studies have demonstrated that the human gut is populated by complex, highly individual and stable communities of viruses, the majority of which are bacteriophages. While disease-specific alterations in the gut phageome have been observed in IBD, AIDS and acute malnutrition, the human gut phageome remains poorly characterised. One important obstacle in metagenomic studies of the human gut phageome is a high level of discrepancy between results obtained by different research groups. This is often due to the use of different protocols for enriching virus-like particles, nucleic acid purification and sequencing. The goal of the present study is to develop a relatively simple, reproducible and cost-efficient protocol for the extraction of viral nucleic acids from human faecal samples, suitable for high-throughput studies. We also analyse the effect of certain potential confounding factors, such as storage conditions, repeated freeze-thaw cycles, and operator bias on the resultant phageome profile. Additionally, spiking of faecal samples with an exogenous phage standard was employed to quantitatively analyse phageomes following metagenomic sequencing. Comparative analysis of phageome profiles to bacteriome profiles was also performed following 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing.<br><br>RESULTS: Faecal phageome profiles exhibit an overall greater individual specificity when compared to bacteriome profiles. The phageome and bacteriome both exhibited moderate change when stored at + 4 °C or room temperature. Phageome profiles were less impacted by multiple freeze-thaw cycles than bacteriome profiles, but there was a greater chance for operator effect in phageome processing. The successful spiking of faecal samples with exogenous bacteriophage demonstrated large variations in the total viral load between individual samples.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: The faecal phageome sequencing protocol developed in this study provides a valuable additional view of the human gut microbiota that is complementary to 16S amplicon sequencing and/or metagenomic sequencing of total faecal DNA. The protocol was optimised for several confounding factors that are encountered while processing faecal samples, to reduce discrepancies observed within and between research groups studying the human gut phageome. Rapid storage, limited freeze-thaw cycling and spiking of faecal samples with an exogenous phage standard are recommended for optimum results.}, }
@article {pmid29625974, year = {2018}, author = {Taboada, B and Isa, P and Gutiérrez-Escolano, AL and Del Ángel, RM and Ludert, JE and Vázquez, N and Tapia-Palacios, MA and Chávez, P and Garrido, E and Espinosa, AC and Eguiarte, LE and López, S and Souza, V and Arias, CF}, title = {The Geographic Structure of Viruses in the Cuatro Ciénegas Basin, a Unique Oasis in Northern Mexico, Reveals a Highly Diverse Population on a Small Geographic Scale.}, journal = {Applied and environmental microbiology}, volume = {84}, number = {11}, pages = {}, pmid = {29625974}, issn = {1098-5336}, abstract = {The Cuatro Ciénegas Basin (CCB) is located in the Chihuahuan desert in the Mexican state of Coahuila; it has been characterized as a site with high biological diversity despite its extreme oligotrophic conditions. It has the greatest number of endemic species in North America, containing abundant living microbialites (including stromatolites and microbial mats) and diverse microbial communities. With the hypothesis that this high biodiversity and the geographic structure should be reflected in the virome, the viral communities in 11 different locations of three drainage systems, Churince, La Becerra, and Pozas Rojas, and in the intestinal contents of 3 different fish species, were analyzed for both eukaryotic and prokaryotic RNA and DNA viruses using next-generation sequencing methods. Double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) virus families were the most abundant (72.5% of reads), followed by single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) viruses (2.9%) and ssRNA and dsRNA virus families (0.5%). Thirteen families had dsDNA genomes, five had ssDNA, three had dsRNA, and 16 had ssRNA. A highly diverse viral community was found, with an ample range of hosts and a strong geographical structure, with very even distributions and signals of endemicity in the phylogenetic trees from several different virus families. The majority of viruses found were bacteriophages but eukaryotic viruses were also frequent, and the large diversity of viruses related to algae were a surprise, since algae are not evident in the previously analyzed aquatic systems of this ecosystem. Animal viruses were also frequently found, showing the large diversity of aquatic animals in this oasis, where plants, protozoa, and archaea are rare.IMPORTANCE In this study, we tested whether the high biodiversity and geographic structure of CCB is reflected in its virome. CCB is an extraordinarily biodiverse oasis in the Chihuahuan desert, where a previous virome study suggested that viruses had followed the marine ancestry of the marine bacteria and, as a result of their long isolation, became endemic to the site. In this study, which includes a larger sequencing coverage and water samples from other sites within the valley, we confirmed the high virus biodiversity and uniqueness as well as the strong biogeographical diversification of the CCB. In addition, we also analyzed fish intestinal contents, finding that each fish species eats different prey and, as a result, presents different viral compositions even if they coexist in the same pond. These facts highlight the high and novel virus diversity of CCB and its &quot;lost world&quot; status.}, }
@article {pmid29624889, year = {2018}, author = {Michał, B and Gagat, P and Jabłoński, S and Chilimoniuk, J and Gaworski, M and Mackiewicz, P and Marcin, Ł}, title = {PhyMet2 : a database and toolkit for phylogenetic and metabolic analyses of methanogens.}, journal = {Environmental microbiology reports}, volume = {10}, number = {3}, pages = {378-382}, doi = {10.1111/1758-2229.12648}, pmid = {29624889}, issn = {1758-2229}, mesh = {*Databases, Factual ; *Euryarchaeota/classification/physiology ; Metagenomics ; Methane/*metabolism ; Phylogeny ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; }, abstract = {The vast biodiversity of the microbial world and how little is known about it, has already been revealed by extensive metagenomics analyses. Our rudimentary knowledge of microbes stems from difficulties concerning their isolation and culture in laboratory conditions, which is necessary for describing their phenotype, among other things, for biotechnological purposes. An important component of the understudied ecosystems is methanogens, archaea producing a potent greenhouse-effect gas methane. Therefore, we created PhyMet2 , the first database that combines descriptions of methanogens and their culturing conditions with genetic information. The database contains a set of utilities that facilitate interactive data browsing, data comparison, phylogeny exploration and searching for sequence homologues. The most unique feature of the database is the web server MethanoGram, which can be used to significantly reduce the time and cost of searching for the optimal culturing conditions of methanogens by predicting them based on 16S RNA sequences. The database will aid many researchers in exploring the world of methanogens and their applications in biotechnological processes. PhyMet2 with the MethanoGram predictor is available at http://metanogen.biotech.uni.wroc.pl.}, }
@article {pmid29621980, year = {2018}, author = {Pace, RM and Prince, AL and Ma, J and Belfort, BDW and Harvey, AS and Hu, M and Baquero, K and Blundell, P and Takahashi, D and Dean, T and Kievit, P and Sullivan, EL and Friedman, JE and Grove, K and Aagaard, KM}, title = {Modulations in the offspring gut microbiome are refractory to postnatal synbiotic supplementation among juvenile primates.}, journal = {BMC microbiology}, volume = {18}, number = {1}, pages = {28}, pmid = {29621980}, issn = {1471-2180}, support = {F32 HD082969/HD/NICHD NIH HHS/United States ; R01 MH107508/MH/NIMH NIH HHS/United States ; K12 GM084897/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/United States ; R24DK090964//National Institute of Child Health and Human Development/International ; 1RO1DK089201//National Institute of Child Health and Human Development/International ; DP2 OD001500/OD/NIH HHS/United States ; F32HD082969//National Institute of Child Health and Human Development/International ; DP21DP2OD001500//NIH Director New Innovator Pioneer Award/International ; R01 DK089201/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States ; K12GM084897/NH/NIH HHS/United States ; R24 DK090964/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States ; }, mesh = {Animals ; Bacteria/*classification/genetics/*metabolism ; *Diet, High-Fat ; Dysbiosis/microbiology ; Enterococcus/physiology ; Faecalibacterium ; Feces/microbiology ; Female ; Firmicutes ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/genetics/*physiology ; Lactobacillus/physiology ; Lipids/blood ; Macaca/microbiology ; Male ; Metabolic Networks and Pathways ; Metagenomics ; Primates/*microbiology ; Probiotics ; Psyllium ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Species Specificity ; *Synbiotics ; Triglycerides/blood ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: We and others have previously shown that alterations in the mammalian gut microbiome are associated with diet, notably early life exposure to a maternal high fat diet (HFD). Here, we aimed to further these studies by examining alterations in the gut microbiome of juvenile Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata) that were exposed to a maternal HFD, weaned onto a control diet, and later supplemented with a synbiotic comprised of psyllium seed and Enterococcus and Lactobacillus species.<br><br>RESULTS: Eighteen month old offspring (n = 7) of 36% HFD fed dams were fed a control (14% fat) diet post weaning, then were synbiotic supplemented for 75 days and longitudinal stool and serum samples were obtained. All stool samples were subjected to 16S rRNA metagenomic sequencing, and microbiome profiles and serum lipids and triglycerides were compared to untreated, healthy age matched and diet matched controls (n = 7). Overall, 16S-based metagenomic analysis revealed that supplementation exerted minimal alterations to the gut microbiome including transient increased abundance of Lactobacillus species and decreased abundance of few bacterial genera, including Faecalibacterium and Anaerovibrio. However, serum lipid analysis revealed significant decreases in triglycerides, cholesterol, and LDL (p < 0.05). Nevertheless, supplemented juveniles challenged 4 months later were not protected from HFD-induced gut dysbiosis.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: Synbiotic supplementation is temporally associated with alterations in the gut microbiome and host lipid profiles of juvenile Japanese macaques that were previously exposed to a maternal HFD. Despite these presumptive temporal benefits, a protective effect against later HFD-challenge gut dysbiosis was not observed.}, }
@article {pmid29621268, year = {2018}, author = {Peoples, LM and Donaldson, S and Osuntokun, O and Xia, Q and Nelson, A and Blanton, J and Allen, EE and Church, MJ and Bartlett, DH}, title = {Vertically distinct microbial communities in the Mariana and Kermadec trenches.}, journal = {PloS one}, volume = {13}, number = {4}, pages = {e0195102}, pmid = {29621268}, issn = {1932-6203}, mesh = {Adaptation, Biological ; Biodiversity ; Geologic Sediments/*microbiology ; Hydrostatic Pressure ; Metagenome ; Metagenomics/methods ; *Microbiota ; *Oceans and Seas ; *Water Microbiology ; }, abstract = {Hadal trenches, oceanic locations deeper than 6,000 m, are thought to have distinct microbial communities compared to those at shallower depths due to high hydrostatic pressures, topographical funneling of organic matter, and biogeographical isolation. Here we evaluate the hypothesis that hadal trenches contain unique microbial biodiversity through analyses of the communities present in the bottom waters of the Kermadec and Mariana trenches. Estimates of microbial protein production indicate active populations under in situ hydrostatic pressures and increasing adaptation to pressure with depth. Depth, trench of collection, and size fraction are important drivers of microbial community structure. Many putative hadal bathytypes, such as members related to the Marinimicrobia, Rhodobacteraceae, Rhodospirilliceae, and Aquibacter, are similar to members identified in other trenches. Most of the differences between the two trench microbiomes consists of taxa belonging to the Gammaproteobacteria whose distributions extend throughout the water column. Growth and survival estimates of representative isolates of these taxa under deep-sea conditions suggest that some members may descend from shallower depths and exist as a potentially inactive fraction of the hadal zone. We conclude that the distinct pelagic communities residing in these two trenches, and perhaps by extension other trenches, reflect both cosmopolitan hadal bathytypes and ubiquitous genera found throughout the water column.}, }
@article {pmid29615108, year = {2018}, author = {Cornuault, JK and Petit, MA and Mariadassou, M and Benevides, L and Moncaut, E and Langella, P and Sokol, H and De Paepe, M}, title = {Phages infecting Faecalibacterium prausnitzii belong to novel viral genera that help to decipher intestinal viromes.}, journal = {Microbiome}, volume = {6}, number = {1}, pages = {65}, pmid = {29615108}, issn = {2049-2618}, mesh = {Animals ; Bacteriophages/*physiology/ultrastructure ; Biodiversity ; Colitis/etiology ; DNA Damage ; Dysbiosis ; Faecalibacterium prausnitzii/*virology ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; Genome, Viral ; Humans ; Inflammatory Bowel Diseases/etiology ; Metagenome ; Metagenomics/methods ; Mice ; Retroelements ; Symbiosis ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: Viral metagenomic studies have suggested a role for bacteriophages in intestinal dysbiosis associated with several human diseases. However, interpretation of viral metagenomic studies is limited by the lack of knowledge of phages infecting major human gut commensal bacteria, such as Faecalibacterium prausnitzii, a bacterial symbiont repeatedly found depleted in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) patients. In particular, no complete genomes of phages infecting F. prausnitzii are present in viral databases.<br><br>METHODS: We identified 18 prophages in 15 genomes of F. prausnitzii, used comparative genomics to define eight phage clades, and annotated the genome of the type phage of each clade. For two of the phages, we studied prophage induction in vitro and in vivo in mice. Finally, we aligned reads from already published viral metagenomic data onto the newly identified phages.<br><br>RESULTS: We show that each phage clade represents a novel viral genus and that a surprisingly large fraction of them (10 of the 18 phages) codes for a diversity-generating retroelement, which could contribute to their adaptation to the digestive tract environment. We obtained either experimental or in silico evidence of activity for at least one member of each genus. In addition, four of these phages are either significantly more prevalent or more abundant in stools of IBD patients than in those of healthy controls.<br><br>CONCLUSION: Since IBD patients generally have less F. prausnitzii in their microbiota than healthy controls, the higher prevalence or abundance of some of its phages may indicate that they are activated during disease. This in turn suggests that phages could trigger or aggravate F. prausnitzii depletion in patients. Our results show that prophage detection in sequenced strains of the microbiota can usefully complement viral metagenomic studies.}, }
@article {pmid29611114, year = {2018}, author = {Wang, J and Chen, L and Zhao, N and Xu, X and Xu, Y and Zhu, B}, title = {Of genes and microbes: solving the intricacies in host genomes.}, journal = {Protein &amp; cell}, volume = {9}, number = {5}, pages = {446-461}, pmid = {29611114}, issn = {1674-8018}, mesh = {Animals ; Biomedical Research ; *Genes ; *Genetic Variation ; *Genome ; Host-Pathogen Interactions/*genetics ; Humans ; Metagenomics ; *Microbiota ; }, abstract = {Microbiome research is a quickly developing field in biomedical research, and we have witnessed its potential in understanding the physiology, metabolism and immunology, its critical role in understanding the health and disease of the host, and its vast capacity in disease prediction, intervention and treatment. However, many of the fundamental questions still need to be addressed, including the shaping forces of microbial diversity between individuals and across time. Microbiome research falls into the classical nature vs. nurture scenario, such that host genetics shape part of the microbiome, while environmental influences change the original course of microbiome development. In this review, we focus on the nature, i.e., the genetic part of the equation, and summarize the recent efforts in understanding which parts of the genome, especially the human and mouse genome, play important roles in determining the composition and functions of microbial communities, primarily in the gut but also on the skin. We aim to present an overview of different approaches in studying the intricate relationships between host genetic variations and microbes, its underlying philosophy and methodology, and we aim to highlight a few key discoveries along this exploration, as well as current pitfalls. More evidence and results will surely appear in upcoming studies, and the accumulating knowledge will lead to a deeper understanding of what we could finally term a &quot;hologenome&quot;, that is, the organized, closely interacting genome of the host and the microbiome.}, }
@article {pmid29609653, year = {2018}, author = {De Vrieze, J and Pinto, AJ and Sloan, WT and Ijaz, UZ}, title = {The active microbial community more accurately reflects the anaerobic digestion process: 16S rRNA (gene) sequencing as a predictive tool.}, journal = {Microbiome}, volume = {6}, number = {1}, pages = {63}, pmid = {29609653}, issn = {2049-2618}, support = {NE/L011956/1//Natural Environment Research Council/International ; EP/M016811/1//Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council/International ; }, mesh = {*Anaerobiosis ; Archaea/classification/genetics ; Bacteria/classification/genetics ; Biodiversity ; Metagenomics/methods ; *Microbiota ; Phylogeny ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Sequence Analysis, DNA ; }, abstract = {BACKGROUND: Amplicon sequencing methods targeting the 16S rRNA gene have been used extensively to investigate microbial community composition and dynamics in anaerobic digestion. These methods successfully characterize amplicons but do not distinguish micro-organisms that are actually responsible for the process. In this research, the archaeal and bacterial community of 48 full-scale anaerobic digestion plants were evaluated on DNA (total community) and RNA (active community) level via 16S rRNA (gene) amplicon sequencing.<br><br>RESULTS: A significantly higher diversity on DNA compared with the RNA level was observed for archaea, but not for bacteria. Beta diversity analysis showed a significant difference in community composition between the DNA and RNA of both bacteria and archaea. This related with 25.5 and 42.3% of total OTUs for bacteria and archaea, respectively, that showed a significant difference in their DNA and RNA profiles. Similar operational parameters affected the bacterial and archaeal community, yet the differentiating effect between DNA and RNA was much stronger for archaea. Co-occurrence networks and functional prediction profiling confirmed the clear differentiation between DNA and RNA profiles.<br><br>CONCLUSIONS: In conclusion, a clear difference in active (RNA) and total (DNA) community profiles was observed, implying the need for a combined approach to estimate community stability in anaerobic digestion.}, }
@article {pmid29609258, year = {2018}, author = {Shao, DT and Wei, WW}, title = {[Progress in research of human microbiota for upper gastrointestinal tumors and precancerous lesions].}, journal = {Zhonghua liu xing bing xue za zhi = Zhonghua liuxingbingxue zazhi}, volume = {39}, number = {3}, pages = {382-386}, doi = {10.3760/cma.j.issn.0254-6450.2018.03.025}, pmid = {29609258}, issn = {0254-6450}, mesh = {Esophageal Neoplasms/*microbiology ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; Gastrointestinal Neoplasms/*microbiology ; Gastrointestinal Tract/*microbiology ; Humans ; Lactobacillus ; Metagenomics/methods/trends ; *Microbiota ; Precancerous Conditions/*microbiology ; Prognosis ; Research/*trends ; Risk Factors ; Stomach Neoplasms/microbiology ; }, abstract = {With the widely application of the metagenomics, the relationship between microbiota and disease has become a hot research topic. Understanding the potential association between upper gastrointestinal cancer or precancerous lesions and microbiota may play an important role in the early detection, clinical diagnosis and treatment, and prognostic evaluation of upper gastrointestinal cancer. Therefore, a literature retrieval was conducted by using PubMed, Embase and wanfang databases to summarize the latest research progress in the microbiota of upper gastrointestinal cancer, including oral, esophageal, gastric cancer and precancerous lesions. Lower microbial diversity or richness in esophageal cancer and precancerous lesions and specific prognostic biomarkers for esophageal cancer were found. Lactobacillus richness showed an increase trend during the process from gastritis to gastric cancer. This paper summarizes the progress in the research of potential biological etiology of upper gastrointestinal cancer from the perspective of metagenomics in order to provide evidence on the, prevention and control of upper gastrointestinal cancer.}, }
@article {pmid29600282, year = {2018}, author = {Auchtung, TA and Fofanova, TY and Stewart, CJ and Nash, AK and Wong, MC and Gesell, JR and Auchtung, JM and Ajami, NJ and Petrosino, JF}, title = {Investigating Colonization of the Healthy Adult Gastrointestinal Tract by Fungi.}, journal = {mSphere}, volume = {3}, number = {2}, pages = {}, pmid = {29600282}, issn = {2379-5042}, support = {P30 DK056338/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States ; U54 HG003273/HG/NHGRI NIH HHS/United States ; }, mesh = {Adult ; Candida albicans/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; DNA, Ribosomal Spacer/genetics ; Diet ; Feces/microbiology ; Food Microbiology ; Fungi/*classification/isolation &amp; purification ; Gastrointestinal Tract/*microbiology/physiology ; Healthy Volunteers ; Humans ; Mouth/microbiology ; Mycobiome/*physiology ; RNA, Ribosomal, 18S/genetics ; Saccharomyces cerevisiae/genetics/isolation &amp; purification ; Saliva/microbiology ; Sequence Analysis, DNA ; }, abstract = {A wide diversity of fungi have been detected in the human gastrointestinal (GI) tract with the potential to provide or influence important functions. However, many of the fungi most commonly detected in stool samples are also present in food or the oral cavity. Therefore, to recognize which gut fungi are likely to have a sustained influence on human health, there is a need to separate transient members of the GI tract from true colonizers. To identify colonizing fungi, the eukaryotic rRNA operon's second internal transcribed spacer (ITS2) was sequenced from the stool, saliva, and food of healthy adults following consumption of different controlled diets. Unlike most bacterial 16S rRNA genes, the only fungal ITS2 operational taxonomic units (OTUs) detected in stool DNA across multiple diets were also present in saliva and/or food. Additional analyses, including culture-based approaches and sequencing of the 18S rRNA gene, ITS2 cDNA, and DNA extracted using alternative methods, failed to detect additional fungi. Two abundant fungi, Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Candida albicans, were examined further in healthy volunteers. Saccharomyces became undetectable in stool when a S. cerevisiae-free diet was consumed, and the levels of C. albicans in stool were dramatically reduced by more frequent cleaning of teeth. Extremely low fungal abundance, the inability of fungi to grow under conditions mimicking the distal gut, and evidence from analysis of other public datasets further support the hypothesis that fungi do not routinely colonize the GI tracts of healthy adults. IMPORTANCE We sought to identify the fungi that colonize healthy GI tracts and that have a sustained influence on the diverse functions of the gut microbiome. Instead, we found that all fungi in the stool of healthy volunteers could be explained by their presence in oral and dietary sources and that our results, together with those from other analyses, support the model that there is little or no gastrointestinal colonization by fungi. This may be due to Westernization, primate evolution, fungal ecology, and/or the strong defenses of a healthy immune system. Importantly, fungal colonization of the GI tract may often be indicative of disease. As fungi can cause serious infections in immunocompromised individuals and are found at increased abundance in multiple disorders of the GI tract, understanding normal fungal colonization is essential for proper treatment and prevention of fungal pathogenesis.}, }
@article {pmid29596453, year = {2018}, author = {Konstantinou, D and Gerovasileiou, V and Voultsiadou, E and Gkelis, S}, title = {Sponges-Cyanobacteria associations: Global diversity overview and new data from the Eastern Mediterranean.}, journal = {PloS one}, volume = {13}, number = {3}, pages = {e0195001}, pmid = {29596453}, issn = {1932-6203}, mesh = {Animals ; *Biodiversity ; Cyanobacteria/classification/genetics/*physiology ; Mediterranean Region ; Phylogeny ; Porifera/classification/genetics/*microbiology ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Symbiosis ; }, abstract = {Sponge-cyanobacteria associations have attracted research interest from an ecological, evolutionary and biotechnological perspective. Current knowledge is, in its majority, &quot;hidden&quot; in metagenomics research studying the entire microbial communities of sponges, while knowledge on these associations is totally missing for certain geographic areas. In this study, we (a) investigated the occurrence of cyanobacteria in 18 sponge species, several of which are studied for the first time for their cyanobionts, from a previously unexplored eastern Mediterranean ecoregion, the Aegean Sea, (b) isolated sponge-associated cyanobacteria, and characterized them based on a polyphasic (morphological-morphometric and molecular phylogenetic analysis) approach, and (c) conducted a meta-analysis on the global diversity of sponge species hosting cyanobacteria, as well as the diversity of cyanobacterial symbionts. Our research provided new records for nine sponge species, previously unknown for this association, while the isolated cyanobacteria were found to form novel clades within Synechococcus, Leptolyngbyaceae, Pseudanabaenaceae, and Schizotrichaceae, whose taxonomic status requires further investigation; this is the first report of a Schizotrichaceae cyanobacterium associated with sponges. The extensive evaluation of the literature along with the new data from the Aegean Sea raised the number of sponge species known for hosting cyanobacteria to 320 and showed that the cyanobacterial diversity reported from sponges is yet underestimated.}, }
@article {pmid29591722, year = {2019}, author = {Wilson, JJ and Brandon-Mong, GJ and Gan, HM and Sing, KW}, title = {High-throughput terrestrial biodiversity assessments: mitochondrial metabarcoding, metagenomics or metatranscriptomics?.}, journal = {Mitochondrial DNA. Part A, DNA mapping, sequencing, and analysis}, volume = {30}, number = {1}, pages = {60-67}, doi = {10.1080/24701394.2018.1455189}, pmid = {29591722}, issn = {2470-1408}, mesh = {Animals ; Arthropods/genetics ; *Biodiversity ; DNA Barcoding, Taxonomic/*methods/standards ; Electron Transport Complex IV/genetics ; *Genome, Mitochondrial ; High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing/methods/standards ; Insect Proteins/genetics ; *Metagenome ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics ; Reference Standards ; *Transcriptome ; }, abstract = {Consensus on the optimal high-throughput sequencing (HTS) approach to examine biodiversity in mixed terrestrial arthropod samples has not been reached. Metatranscriptomics could increase the proportion of taxonomically informative mitochondrial reads in HTS outputs but has not been investigated for terrestrial arthropod samples. We compared the efficiency of 16S rRNA metabarcoding, metagenomics and metatranscriptomics for detecting species in a mixed terrestrial arthropod sample (pooled DNA/RNA from 38 taxa). 16S rRNA metabarcoding and nuclear rRNA-depleted metatranscriptomics had the highest detection rate with 97% of input species detected. Based on cytochrome c oxidase I, metagenomics had the highest detection rate with 82% of input species detected, but metatranscriptomics produced a larger proportion of reads matching (Sanger) reference sequences. Metatranscriptomics with nuclear rRNA depletion may offer advantages over metabarcoding through reducing the number of spurious operational taxonomic units while retaining high detection rates, and offers natural enrichment of mitochondrial sequences which may enable increased species detection rates compared with metagenomics.}, }
@article {pmid29590046, year = {2018}, author = {Zhao, L and Zhang, F and Ding, X and Wu, G and Lam, YY and Wang, X and Fu, H and Xue, X and Lu, C and Ma, J and Yu, L and Xu, C and Ren, Z and Xu, Y and Xu, S and Shen, H and Zhu, X and Shi, Y and Shen, Q and Dong, W and Liu, R and Ling, Y and Zeng, Y and Wang, X and Zhang, Q and Wang, J and Wang, L and Wu, Y and Zeng, B and Wei, H and Zhang, M and Peng, Y and Zhang, C}, title = {Gut bacteria selectively promoted by dietary fibers alleviate type 2 diabetes.}, journal = {Science (New York, N.Y.)}, volume = {359}, number = {6380}, pages = {1151-1156}, doi = {10.1126/science.aao5774}, pmid = {29590046}, issn = {1095-9203}, mesh = {Adult ; Aged ; Bacteria/classification/genetics/metabolism ; China ; Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2/*therapy ; Diet ; Dietary Fiber/*metabolism ; Fatty Acids, Volatile/*metabolism ; Feces ; Female ; Fermentation ; *Gastrointestinal Microbiome ; Glucagon-Like Peptide 1/metabolism ; Glycated Hemoglobin A/analysis ; Humans ; Hydrogen Sulfide/metabolism ; Indoles/metabolism ; Male ; Metagenomics ; Middle Aged ; }, abstract = {The gut microbiota benefits humans via short-chain fatty acid (SCFA) production from carbohydrate fermentation, and deficiency in SCFA production is associated with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). We conducted a randomized clinical study of specifically designed is