Probiotics derived sodium benzoate improves social behavior of offspring exposed in the maternal immune activation through regulation of histone lysine benzoylation in astrocytes.

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental condition increasingly linked to microbiota-gut-brain axis dysregulation, yet the causal microbial mediators and molecular mechanisms remain elusive. Based on our previously published ASD cohort, we discovered that depletion of Lactobacillus species in children with ASD correlates with exacerbated gastrointestinal symptoms and social deficits. Maternal immune activation (MIA) during pregnancy has been established as a critical environmental risk factor for ASD.

Associations between gut microbiome and circulating cytokines: a cross-sectional analysis in the FINRISK 2002 population cohort.

Background: A growing body of evidence suggests a relationship between gut microbiome and circulating cytokines, yet there is still a lack of large-scale population-based studies investigating gut microbiome-cytokine associations. In this cross-sectional study, we aimed at investigating the associations of gut microbiome (exposure variable) with 45 cytokines and C-reactive protein (CRP) (outcome variables) in the population-based FINRISK 2002 cohort (N = 2,398). Our analyses focused mainly on gut microbiome alpha diversity, beta diversity, differentially abundant taxa, and predicted functions.

Cyanobacteria Join the Kahalalide Conversation: Genome and Metabolite Evidence for Structurally Related Peptides.

Kahalalide F is a cyclic depsipeptide with notable anticancer properties, initially discovered from the green alga sp. and its molluscan predator . Recent studies have pinpointed a bacterial endosymbiont of the green alga, Endobryopsis kahalalidefaciens, as the true producer of kahalalide F.

Advances in artificial intelligence and precision nutrition approaches to improve maternal and child health in low resource settings.

Malnutrition continues to be a major threat to health, particularly maternal and child health in low resource settings, resulting in impairments in cognitive function, growth, and development, and metabolic diseases later in life. Nutritional assessment is a cornerstone of any successful nutrition intervention or program whether in the community or at the clinic. Improved computational power and advances in technology may enable precision nutrition-based approaches for maternal and child health, which can complement current methods for nutritional assessment to identify clinical, biochemical, microbiome-related, social, and environmental characteristics to predict responses to nutritional interventions or programs.

Real-time, multi-pathogen wastewater genomic surveillance with Freyja 2.

Case-based infectious disease surveillance is fundamental to public health, but is resource-intensive, logistically complex, and prone to sampling bias. Wastewater testing and sequencing have increasingly been used for population-scale monitoring of pathogen dynamics, including in low-resource settings. Broader adoption of wastewater genomic surveillance, however, is limited by a lack of flexibility across sequencing platforms and approaches, and adaptability to additional pathogens.

Metatranscriptomics Uncover Diurnal Functional Shifts in Bacterial Transgenes with Profound Metabolic Effects.

Diurnal rhythmicity in the gut maintains gut integrity, circadian rhythms, and metabolic homeostasis. However, existing studies focus on microbial composition rather than transcriptional activity. To understand microbial functional dynamics, we characterize diurnal fluctuations in the mouse cecal metatranscriptome and metagenome under high-fat diet and time-restricted feeding (TRF).

Environmental and Maternal Imprints on Infant Gut Metabolic Programming.

Early life is a critical period for immune and metabolic programming, but developmental patterns remain underexplored in populations from low- and middle-income countries. Here, we profiled the microbiome and metabolome of 55 Bangladeshi mother-infant dyads over the first six months of life. Importantly, we observed an increase in microbially-derived bile amidates and -acyl lipids with age in conjunction with reads matching the bile salt hydrolase/transferase () gene.

Chronological age estimation from human microbiomes with transformer-based Robust Principal Component Analysis.

Deep learning for microbiome analysis has shown potential for understanding microbial communities and human phenotypes. Here, we propose an approach, Transformer-based Robust Principal Component Analysis(TRPCA), which leverages the strengths of transformer architectures and interpretability of Robust Principal Component Analysis. To investigate benefits of TRPCA over conventional machine learning models, we benchmarked performance on age prediction from three body sites(skin, oral, gut), with 16S rRNA gene amplicon(16S) and whole-genome sequencing(WGS) data.

Genotype and microbiome shape immunity in a sex-specific manner in mouse models of Alzheimer's disease.

Preclinical studies have revealed that the microbiome broadly affects immune responses and deposition and/or clearance of amyloid-beta (Aβ) in mouse models of Alzheimer's disease (AD), but whether, and how, the microbiome shapes central and peripheral immune profiles in AD models remains unknown. We examined adaptive immune responses in two mouse models containing AD-related genetic predispositions (3xTg and 5xFAD) in the presence or absence of the microbiome to determine if it promotes dysregulated immune responses and cognition in AD. T and B cells were altered in central nervous system (CNS)-associated lymph nodes and systemic immune tissues between genetic models and wildtype mice, with earlier signs of heightened immune activity in females.

Microbiota and kidney disease: the road ahead.

More than 850 million individuals worldwide, accounting for 10-15% of the adult population, are estimated to have chronic kidney disease. Each of these individuals is host to tens of trillions of microorganisms that are collectively referred to as microbiota - a dynamic ecosystem that both influences host health and is itself influenced by changes in the host. Available evidence supports the existence of functional connections between resident microorganisms and kidney health that are altered in the context of specific kidney diseases, including acute kidney injury, chronic kidney disease and renal stone disease.

Gut Microbiome as a Risk Factor for Future CKD.

Introduction: Gut microbiome has been linked with chronic kidney disease (CKD) in several small cross-sectional studies. However, the relationship between baseline gut microbiome and long-term incident CKD remains unknown.

Methods: We performed fecal sampling and measured serum creatinine (SCR) ( = 6699) and urine albumin-to-creatinine ratio (UACR) ( = 797) in a population-based cohort examined in the year 2002.

Gut microbiome compositional and functional features associate with Alzheimer's disease pathology.

Background: The gut microbiome is a potentially modifiable risk factor for Alzheimer's disease (AD); however, understanding of its composition and function regarding AD pathology is limited.

Methods: Shallow-shotgun metagenomics was used to analyze the fecal microbiome of participants in the Wisconsin Microbiome in Alzheimer's Risk Study, leveraging clinical data and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarkers. Differential abundance and ordinary least squares regression analyses were performed to find differentially abundant gut microbiome features and their associations with CSF biomarkers of AD and related pathologies.

Variation and prognostic potential of the gut antibiotic resistome in the FINRISK 2002 cohort.

The spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria has severely reduced the efficacy of antibiotics and now contributes to 1 million deaths annually. The gut microbiome is a major reservoir of antibiotic resistance in humans, yet the extent to which gut antibiotic resistance gene load varies within human populations and the drivers that contribute most to this variation remain unclear. Here, we demonstrate, in a representative cohort of 7095 Finnish adults, that socio-demographic factors, lifestyle, and gut microbial community composition shape resistance gene selection and transmission processes.

A three-country analysis of the gut microbiome indicates taxon associations with diet vary by taxon resolution and population.

Unlabelled: Emerging research suggests that diet plays a vital role in shaping the composition and function of the gut microbiota. Although substantial efforts have been made to identify general patterns linking diet to the gut microbiome, much of this research has been concentrated on a small number of countries. Additionally, both diet and the gut microbiome have highly complex and individualized configurations, and there is growing evidence that tailoring diets to individual gut microbiota profiles may optimize the path toward improving or maintaining health and preventing disease.

The microbiota vault initiative: safeguarding Earth's microbial heritage for future generations.

Microbial ecosystems are fundamental to planetary and human health, yet human activities are accelerating their loss. Disruptions to microbial communities undermine environmental stability, biodiversity, and health. Urgent action is required to preserve microbial diversity.

The oral microbiome and all-cause mortality in aUS population representative prospective cohort.

No large studies have evaluated whether the human oral microbiome is directly associated with mortality. We evaluated prospective associations between the oral microbiome, measured using 16S rRNA gene sequencing, from participants aged 20-69 years in the 2009-2012 cycles of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) and all-cause mortality (N=7,721, representing ∼194 million individuals). Alpha diversity was inversely associated with mortality, and some significant associations were observed with the beta diversity matrices.

The microbiome diversifies long- to short-chain fatty acid-derived N-acyl lipids.

N-Acyl lipids are important mediators of several biological processes including immune function and stress response. To enhance the detection of N-acyl lipids with untargeted mass spectrometry-based metabolomics, we created a reference spectral library retrieving N-acyl lipid patterns from 2,700 public datasets, identifying 851 N-acyl lipids that were detected 356,542 times. 777 are not documented in lipid structural databases, with 18% of these derived from short-chain fatty acids and found in the digestive tract and other organs.

Identifying wastewater chemicals in coastal aerosols.

The Tijuana River, at the US-Mexico border, discharges millions of gallons of wastewater daily-sewage, industrial waste, and runoff-into the Pacific Ocean, making it the dominant source of coastal pollution in this region. This study examines how such wastewater influences coastal aerosols by tracking spatial gradients from near the border northward. Using benzoylecgonine (a nonvolatile cocaine metabolite) as a sewage tracer, we find that wastewater compounds-including a mixture of illicit drugs, drug metabolites, and chemicals from tires and personal care products-become aerosolized and are detectable in both water and air.

Phylogeographic and genetic network assessment of COVID-19 mitigation protocols on SARS-CoV-2 transmission in university campus residences.

Background: Congregate living provides an ideal setting for SARS-CoV-2 transmission in which many outbreaks and superspreading events occurred. To avoid large outbreaks, universities turned to remote operations during the initial COVID-19 pandemic waves in 2020 and 2021. In late-2021, the University of California San Diego (UC San Diego) facilitated the return of students to campus with comprehensive testing, vaccination, masking, wastewater surveillance, and isolation policies.

Wastewater-integrated pathogen surveillance dashboards enable real-time, transparent, and interpretable public health risk assessment and dissemination.

Timely pathogen surveillance and reporting is essential for effective public health guidance. Web dashboards have become a key tool for communicating public health information to stakeholders, health care workers, and the broader community. Over the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, wastewater surveillance has increasingly been incorporated into public health workflows for outbreak monitoring and response, enabling community-representative and low-cost monitoring to supplement clinical surveillance.

Oral Microbiome Profile of the US Population.

Importance: The oral microbiome likely plays key roles in human health. Yet, population-representative characterizations are lacking.

Objective: To characterize the composition, diversity, and correlates of the oral microbiome in US adults.

Clinical translation of microbiome research.

The landscape of clinical microbiome research has dramatically evolved over the past decade. By leveraging in vivo and in vitro experimentation, multiomic approaches and computational biology, we have uncovered mechanisms of action and microbial metrics of association and identified effective ways to modify the microbiome in many diseases and treatment modalities. This Review explores recent advances in the clinical application of microbiome research over the past 5 years, while acknowledging existing barriers and highlighting opportunities.

Associations of alcohol with the human gut microbiome and prospective health outcomes in the FINRISK 2002 cohort.

Background And Aims: Alcohol remains a global risk factor for non-communicable diseases with the gut microbiome emerging as a novel elucidator. We investigated how gut microbiome associates with alcohol on population level, if there is mediation reflected in health outcomes, and how functional potential is related.

Methods: Our sample consisted of 4575 shallow-shotgun sequenced fecal samples from the FINRISK 2002 cohort (25-74yrs.