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...
Antibiotic use is widespread and a key weapon against bacterial infections. However, their behavior against complex microbial communities is still unknown, as they are typically developed against distinct, individual pathogens. Understanding the effect of specific antibiotics on microbial communities is important for the effective treatment of polymicrobial infections, such as those found in cystic fibrosis...
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...
The development of DNA sequencing technologies has created a large amount of data on microbes that live with human hosts. Analysis of this data has led to an understanding of the links between the human microbiome, pathogen defense, food digestion and even human behavior. Before the development of mass DNA sequencing technologies, we could analyze...
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...
The skin is the body’s first line of defense, protecting the host against environmental or microbial insults by the imposition of a physical barrier. Upon microbial entry into wounds, innate immune cells generate antimicrobial proteins to prevent bacterial infections. A well-studied example is the innate immune circuits of IL-17 and IL-22, which are activated by...
Harmful algal bloom (HAB) incidence has been increasing over the past decades, particularly in various inland lakes and rivers in the United States. Human activities such as wastewater discharge and fertilizer, pesticide and urban water runoff into water bodies leads to algal proliferation and HABs. HABs secrete diverse cyanotoxins as secondary metabolites which may come...
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...
The oral microbiome is second to the gut microbiome in human microbiome complexity partly due to its constant exposure to inhaled and ingested microbes. There are estimated to be more than 700 microbial species in the oral cavity and 54% of these microbes are uncultivable. As such, elucidating the metabolic functions of the uncultivable oral...
Plastic particles < 5 mm are classified as microplastics. Microplastics are present in almost all aquatic ecosystems, from the Arctic to the deep ocean. Moreover, microplastics can migrate between different aquatic environments, such as lakes, seas and oceans. This environmental problem becomes a health concern when the microplastics enter into a new aquatic ecosystem where...
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