Host-Microbe Biology
Editor's Pick Research Article | Host-Microbe BiologyModerate Exercise Has Limited but Distinguishable Effects on the Mouse MicrobiomeThe bacteria that live in our gut have a complex yet vital relationship with our health. Environmental factors that influence the gut microbiome are of great interest, as recent research demonstrates that these microbes, mostly bacteria, are important for normal host physiology. Diseases such as obesity, diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease, and colon cancer have also been linked to shifts in the microbiome. Exercise is known to have...
Editor's Pick Research Article | Host-Microbe BiologyIntegration of Metabolomics and Transcriptomics Reveals a Complex Diet of Mycobacterium tuberculosis during Early Macrophage InfectionThe nutrients consumed by intracellular pathogens are mostly unknown. This is mainly due to the challenge of disentangling host and pathogen metabolism sharing the majority of metabolic pathways and hence metabolites. Here, we investigated the metabolic changes of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the causative agent of tuberculosis, and its human host cell during early...
Research Article | Host-Microbe BiologyFluoride Depletes Acidogenic Taxa in Oral but Not Gut Microbial Communities in MiceFluoride has been added to drinking water and dental products since the 1950s. The beneficial effects of fluoride on oral health are due to its ability to inhibit the growth of bacteria that cause dental caries. Despite widespread human consumption of fluoride, there have been only two studies of humans that considered the effect of fluoride on human-associated microbial communities, which are increasingly understood to play important...
Editor's Pick Research Article | Host-Microbe BiologyClostridium difficile Colonizes Alternative Nutrient Niches during Infection across Distinct Murine Gut MicrobiomesInfection by the bacterium Clostridium difficile causes an inflammatory diarrheal disease which can become life threatening and has grown to be the most prevalent nosocomial infection. Susceptibility to C. difficile infection is strongly associated with previous antibiotic treatment, which disrupts the gut microbiota and reduces its ability to prevent colonization. In this study, we demonstrated that C. difficile...
Research Article | Host-Microbe BiologyThe Skin Microbiome of Cohabiting CouplesOur work characterizes the influence of cohabitation as a factor influencing the composition of the skin microbiome. Although the body site and sampled individual were stronger influences than other factors collected as metadata in this study, we show that modeling of detected microbial taxa can help with correct identifications of cohabiting partners based on skin microbiome profiles using machine learning approaches. These results...
Editor's Pick Research Article | Host-Microbe BiologyMetabolic Fingerprints from the Human Oral Microbiome Reveal a Vast Knowledge Gap of Secreted Small Peptidic MoleculesMetabolomics is the ultimate tool for studies of microbial functions under any specific set of environmental conditions (D. S. Wishart, Nat Rev Drug Discov 45:473–484, 2016, https://doi.org/10.1038/nrd.2016.32). This is a great advance over studying genes alone, which only inform about metabolic potential. Approximately 25,000 compounds have been chemically characterized thus far;...
Commentary | Host-Microbe BiologyParasite Microbiome Project: Systematic Investigation of Microbiome Dynamics within and across Parasite-Host InteractionsUnderstanding how microbiomes affect host resistance, parasite virulence, and parasite-associated diseases requires a collaborative effort between parasitologists, microbial ecologists, virologists, and immunologists. We hereby propose the Parasite Microbiome Project to bring together researchers with complementary expertise and to study the role of microbes in host-parasite interactions.
Editor's Pick Research Article | Host-Microbe BiologyMulti-omics Analysis of Periodontal Pocket Microbial Communities Pre- and PosttreatmentPeriodontal disease affects the majority of adults worldwide and has been linked to numerous systemic diseases. Despite decades of research, the reasons for the substantial differences among periodontitis patients in disease incidence, progressivity, and response to treatment remain poorly understood. While deep sequencing of oral bacterial communities has greatly expanded our comprehension of the microbial diversity of periodontal...
Editor's Pick Research Article | Host-Microbe BiologyBiphasic Metabolism and Host Interaction of a Chlamydial SymbiontChlamydiae are known as major bacterial pathogens of humans, causing the ancient disease trachoma, but they are also frequently found in the environment where they infect ubiquitous protists such as amoebae. All known chlamydiae require a eukaryotic host cell to thrive. Using the environmental chlamydia Protochlamydia amoebophila within its natural host, Acanthamoeba castellanii, we investigated gene expression...
Research Article | Host-Microbe BiologyMeta-analysis To Define a Core Microbiota in the Swine GutThe results of this meta-analysis demonstrate that “study” and GI sample location are the most significant factors in shaping the swine gut microbiota. However, in comparisons of results from different studies, some biological factors may be obscured by technical variation among studies. Nonetheless, there are some bacterial taxa that appear to form a core microbiota within the swine GI tract regardless of country of origin, diet, age,...