A randomized double-blind placebo controlled pilot study of probiotics in adolescents with severe obesity.

Purpose: The purpose of the study is to assess the effect of probiotic supplementation on gut microbiota and insulin resistance in adolescents with severe obesity.

Methods: Through a randomized, double blind, placebo-controlled, 12-week pilot clinical trial, 15 adolescents with severe obesity received either an oral probiotic 'Visbiome®' ( = 8) or placebo ( = 7). Anthropometry, fasting glucose, insulin, hs-CRP and stool for microbiome and calprotectin were collected at baseline (week 0) and 12 weeks after intervention.

Interplay of Trypanosome Lytic Factor and innate immune cells in the resolution of cutaneous Leishmania infection.

Trypanosome Lytic Factor (TLF) is a primate-specific high-density lipoprotein (HDL) complex that, through the cation channel-forming protein apolipoprotein L-1 (APOL1), provides innate immunity to select kinetoplastid parasites. The immunoprotective effects of TLF have been extensively investigated in the context of its interaction with the extracellular protozoan Trypanosoma brucei brucei, to which it confers sterile immunity. We previously showed that TLF could act against an intracellular pathogen Leishmania, and here we dissected the role of TLF and its synergy with host-immune cells.

Maintenance tobramycin primarily affects untargeted bacteria in the CF sputum microbiome.

Rationale: The most common antibiotic used to treat people with cystic fibrosis (PWCF) is inhaled tobramycin, administered as maintenance therapy for chronic lung infections. While the effects of inhaled tobramycin on abundance and lung function diminish with continued therapy, this maintenance treatment is known to improve long-term outcomes, underscoring how little is known about why antibiotics work in CF infections, what their effects are on complex CF sputum microbiomes and how to improve these treatments.

Objectives: To rigorously define the effect of maintenance tobramycin on CF sputum microbiome characteristics.

Deciphering the Ecology of Cystic Fibrosis Bacterial Communities: Towards Systems-Level Integration.

Despite over a decade of cystic fibrosis (CF) microbiome research, much remains to be learned about the overall composition, metabolic activities, and pathogenicity of the microbes in CF airways, limiting our understanding of the respiratory microbiome's relation to disease. Systems-level integration and modeling of host-microbiome interactions may allow us to better define the relationships between microbiological characteristics, disease status, and treatment response. In this way, modeling could pave the way for microbiome-based development of predictive models, individualized treatment plans, and novel therapeutic approaches, potentially serving as a paradigm for approaching other chronic infections.

Human and Extracellular DNA Depletion for Metagenomic Analysis of Complex Clinical Infection Samples Yields Optimized Viable Microbiome Profiles.

Metagenomic sequencing is a promising approach for identifying and characterizing organisms and their functional characteristics in complex, polymicrobial infections, such as airway infections in people with cystic fibrosis. These analyses are often hampered, however, by overwhelming quantities of human DNA, yielding only a small proportion of microbial reads for analysis. In addition, many abundant microbes in respiratory samples can produce large quantities of extracellular bacterial DNA originating either from biofilms or dead cells.

How low can we go? The implications of low bacterial load in respiratory microbiota studies.

Background: Culture-independent sequencing methods are increasingly used to investigate the microbiota associated with human mucosal surfaces, including sites that have low bacterial load in healthy individuals (e.g. the lungs).

Comparison of 3M Petrifilm Aerobic Count Plates to standard plating methodology for use with AOAC antimicrobial efficacy methods 955.14, 955.15, 964.02, and 966.04 as an alternative enumeration procedure: collaborative study.

A multilaboratory study was conducted to determine the equivalence of the 3M Petrifilm Aerobic Count Plate and standard plating methodology for measuring viable bacteria and spores recovered from hard-surface carriers (stainless steel and porcelain), also known as "control carrier counts," used in AOAC antimicrobial efficacy test methods. Six laboratories participated in the study in which carriers inoculated with Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Salmonella enterica, and spores of Bacillus subtilis were evaluated using 3M Petrifilm Aerobic Count (AC) plates and standard plating side-by-side. The data were analyzed using a matched-pair t-test to determine the between-method effect with confidence intervals.

Probability of Detection (POD) as a statistical model for the validation of qualitative methods.

A statistical model is presented for use in validation of qualitative methods. This model, termed Probability of Detection (POD), harmonizes the statistical concepts and parameters between quantitative and qualitative method validation. POD characterizes method response with respect to concentration as a continuous variable.