Publications by authors named "R G Schwager"

Type 1 diabetes (T1D) is an autoimmune disease that targets pancreatic islet beta cells and incorporates genetic and environmental factors, including complex genetic elements, patient exposures and the gut microbiome. Viral infections and broader gut dysbioses have been identified as potential causes or contributing factors; however, human studies have not yet identified microbial compositional or functional triggers that are predictive of islet autoimmunity or T1D. Here we analyse 10,913 metagenomes in stool samples from 783 mostly white, non-Hispanic children.

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  • Myelination requires a significant increase in cell metabolism for lipid and membrane production, with fatty acid synthesis being vital in myelinating glial cells.
  • Genetic modification of mice showed that Schwann cells need the enzyme fatty acid synthase (FASN) for proper lipid composition, onset of myelination, and growth of myelin.
  • Depleting FASN in Schwann cells triggers lipolysis in nearby adipocytes and disrupts the transcriptional regulation by PPARγ, but these myelination issues can be corrected using the PPARγ agonist rosiglitazone.
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Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a group of chronic diseases of the digestive tract that affects millions of people worldwide. Genetic, environmental and microbial factors have been implicated in the onset and exacerbation of IBD. However, the mechanisms associating gut microbial dysbioses and aberrant immune responses remain largely unknown.

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  • bioBakery is a comprehensive toolset for analyzing raw shotgun sequencing data to generate microbial community profiles, summary reports, and publication-ready figures.
  • It offers both individual analysis modules and a complete virtual machine image for easy setup, designed for tasks like taxonomic profiling and statistical analysis.
  • The software is open source, maintained actively, and available for local installation or on cloud platforms like Amazon EC2 and Google Compute Engine.
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Fluoridation of drinking water and dental products prevents dental caries primarily by inhibiting energy harvest in oral cariogenic bacteria (such as and ), thus leading to their depletion. However, the extent to which oral and gut microbial communities are affected by host fluoride exposure has been underexplored. In this study, we modeled human fluoride exposures to municipal water and dental products by treating mice with low or high levels of fluoride over a 12-week period.

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