Background: Diet has a major influence on the composition of the gut microbiota, whose importance for gut health and overall well-being is increasingly recognized. Knowledge is limited regarding health implications, including effects on the faecal microbiota, of feeding a diet with high content of red meat to dogs, despite some owners' apparent preference to do so. The aim of this study was to evaluate how a diet change from commercial dry food to one with a high content of boiled minced beef and vice versa influenced the faecal microbiota, and short chain fatty acid profile in healthy, adult, client-owned dogs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCurrent three-dimensional (3D) genome modeling platforms are limited by their inability to account for radial placement of loci in the nucleus. We present Chrom3D, a user-friendly whole-genome 3D computational modeling framework that simulates positions of topologically-associated domains (TADs) relative to each other and to the nuclear periphery. Chrom3D integrates chromosome conformation capture (Hi-C) and lamin-associated domain (LAD) datasets to generate structure ensembles that recapitulate radial distributions of TADs detected in single cells.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGenome-wide sequencing technologies enable investigations of the structural properties of the genome in various spatial dimensions. Here, we review computational techniques developed to model the three-dimensional genome in single cells versus ensembles of cells and assess their underlying assumptions. We further address approaches to study the spatio-temporal aspects of genome organization from single-cell data.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHoney bees (Apis mellifera) are prominent crop pollinators and are, thus, important for effective food production. The honey bee gut microbiota is mainly host specific, with only a few species being shared with other insects. It currently remains unclear how environmental/dietary conditions affect the microbiota within a honey bee population over time.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: Maternal probiotic supplementation has been shown to prevent the development of atopic dermatitis in the offspring. We aimed to investigate whether probiotics in pregnant and breast-feeding mothers altered the colonization pattern and the diversity of the mothers' and children's intestinal microbiota.
Methods: In a randomized, double-blind trial, women received probiotic milk or placebo from 36 weeks of gestation up to 3 months postnatally while breast-feeding.
FEMS Microbiol Lett
February 2013
Ribosomal RNA (rRNA) genes are universal for all living organisms. Yet, the correspondence between genome composition and rRNA phylogeny remains poorly known. The aim of this study was to use the information from genome sequence databases to address the correlation between rRNA gene phylogeny and total gene composition in bacteria.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCattle represent a major source of fecal contamination worldwide. Understanding the natural variation of the bovine livestock fecal microbiota is therefore important. For this reason we addressed the yearly differences of the fecal microbiota for bovine livestock reared in the same geographical region from 1999 to 2007 - analyzing a total of 300 samples representing a range of experimental regimes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAt birth, the human infant gut is sterile, but it becomes fully colonized within a few days. This initial colonization process has a major impact on immune development. Our knowledge about the correlations between aberrant colonization patterns and immunological diseases, however, is limited.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFKnowledge of the composition of a normal healthy gut microbiota during infancy is important for understanding the role of gut microbiota in disease. A limitation of previous studies is that they are based on infants who have been subject to factors, which can have a profound disruptive effect on the natural colonization process. We describe the colonization process, during the first 4 months after birth, in 85 infants who have experienced no major medical or dietary interventions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe potential presence of widespread and stable bacterial core phylogroups in the human colon has promoted considerable attention. Despite major efforts, no such phylogroups have yet been identified. Therefore, using a novel phylogroup- and tree-independent approach, we present a reanalysis of 1,114,722 V2 region and 71,550 near full-length 16S rRNA sequences from a total of 210 human beings, with widespread geographic origin, ethnic background and diet, in addition to a wide range of other mammals.
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