Obesity prevalence has been skyrocketing since the 1970s globally, with the Eastern Mediterranean region being no exception. For instance, obesity is prevalent in 20% of Saudi Arabian adults, with an elevated prevalence in females. The increase of obesity rates in adult females of reproductive age is particularly worrying, given new evidence suggesting links between...
The gut microbiome hosts many different microorganisms. There are more bacteria in the human gut than the stars in the Milky Way… From bacteria, to viruses and eukaryotes, these microbes are key players in the etiology of a number of diseases, such as cancer, depression, and diabetes. These microbes may even influence the host...
In metagenomics, biological specimens are sometimes collected from host tissue that contains a high ratio of host to bacterial DNA. When shotgun metagenomics sequencing data are generated for these specimens, they normally contain a large fraction of host reads compared to microbial reads. Analyzing microbiome data with a high host ratio of reads can lead...
A complete analysis of the microbiome should combine taxonomic profiling with functional characterization to discover the full potential of an entire community of microorganisms. However, research teams often require specialized training and extensive computational infrastructure to establish an in-house suite of tools for processing shotgun metagenomic data – and even with the right know-how, the...
The gut microbiome has clear implications for health and disease. Recent evidence of this comes from a US FDA vote for approval of the microbiome-based drug RBX2660, created by Rebiotix Inc, A Ferring Company, to treat potentially deadly bacterial infections with Clostridium difficile (Cdiff). Cdiff is a common gut bacteria that may cause severe diarrhea...
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune neurodegenerative disease targeting the central nervous system with a prevalence of around 2.8 million people globally. The etiopathogenesis of MS is multifactorial and involves environmental factors. Amongst the environmental factors, the gut microbiota is a key player modulating MS. Dietary habits drive the gut microbiome. Thus, dietary shifts change...
A recent article featured on BBC highlights that the gut microbiome may have a greater role in the improvement of health through exercise than we previously thought. Our guts are alive with a vast diversity of microbial residents. Their roles range from fermenting dietary fibers, vitamin synthesis, and fat metabolism regulation to immune support against...
Nasal swabs and saliva are conventional methods for detection of SARS-CoV-2, but the virus is also present in feces. Therefore, fecal material in wastewater samples could be used to track community dynamics of the virus. To do that, Brumfield et al. (2022) collected wastewater samples from manholes and then processed them for microbial genome sequencing...
Diet drinks that contain non-nutritive sweeteners (NNS) have been around for more than 60 years. Since the dawn of the diet drink introduction to the market, a fizzing debate began; do the sweeteners, including aspartame, saccharine, sucralose and stevia, do more harm than good? Are they just innocent satisfiers of our urge to consume sweets...
Over the last decade, the field of metagenomics has grown extensively, leading to an exponential increase in sequencing data in public data repositories. Availability of this huge collection of data has accelerated the discovery of novel microbiome-related biomarkers and microbiome-based novel biomedical therapeutics. One of the key steps in identifying potential biomarkers or lead candidates...
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