Divine Aleru, Microbiome Medicine Research Coordinator

This review explores the biological roles of essential metals in human health, focusing on their contributions to enzymatic functions and redox reactions. It also highlights how dysregulation of metal homeostasis can lead to diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and cancer.

This study explores how trace metals impact gut microbiota composition and pathogen competition, emphasizing nutritional immunity and the potential for probiotic interventions to enhance pathogen resistance.

This review examines the role of altered wild-type SOD1 in Parkinson’s disease, highlighting its involvement in dopamine neuron degeneration and presenting a novel mouse model for studying SOD1-related pathologies.

This review examines the role of lysosome-related organelles in regulating metal homeostasis, focusing on how these organelles store and transport metals like copper, zinc, and iron to maintain cellular balance and protect against toxicity.

The review examines how exposure to arsenic, cadmium, lead, mercury, and thallium impacts the cardiovascular system and oxidative mechanisms in children, highlighting long-term health risks and suggesting preventive strategies.

This review addresses the health effects, toxicity mechanisms, and therapeutic interventions related to heavy metals, highlighting the importance of further research and improved treatment strategies.

This study examines how cadmium exposure suppresses iron transport in the duodenum, leading to iron deficiency anemia. The research reveals the molecular mechanisms behind this disruption and its broader health implications.

This study investigates metallochaperones in plants, focusing on their role in metal homeostasis, detoxification, and stress responses. These proteins are essential for managing toxic metals like cadmium and enhancing plant resistance to environmental stressors and pathogens.

This study explores the role of metallochaperones in bacteria, focusing on how they deliver essential metal ions to metalloproteins and maintain metal homeostasis under metal stress. These mechanisms are vital for bacterial survival, especially during infection.

This study explores the effects of oxidative stress on metallation in E. coli enzymes, focusing on the competition between iron, zinc, and manganese for enzyme binding sites, and the protective role of manganese in restoring enzyme activity.

The study investigates the metal preferences and metallation processes of enzymes, particularly focusing on the role of metal ions in metalloenzyme function. It explores how cells regulate the binding of metals to enzymes and how these metals impact enzymatic activity. The study also delves into the competitive nature of metal ions such […]

This study investigates the role of metal ions in enzyme catalysis and their implications for human health. It specifically looks at the biochemical roles of essential metal ions, such as zinc, magnesium, iron, copper, and manganese, in various enzymatic processes. These ions are vital cofactors for numerous metalloenzymes that facilitate catalytic reactions, […]

The study focuses on the metallation and mismetallation of iron and manganese proteins, with specific attention to class I ribonucleotide reductases (RNRs). The research explores the challenges organisms face when inserting the correct metal into proteins that require them for biological function. These enzymes are important for deoxynucleotide production in both eukaryotes […]

Functional shielding describes the body’s active, layered defenses that prevent harm without relying solely on “walls” like skin or mucus. On a clinical level, the microbiome is central to this concept because it behaves like a living protective system: it limits pathogen growth through competitive exclusion, shapes local immune readiness, and generates metabolites that reinforce epithelial integrity. In the gut, colonization resistance emerges from a mix of nutrient competition, antimicrobial production, bile-acid transformation, and short-chain fatty acid signaling that supports tight junctions and antimicrobial peptide expression. When this shield is disrupted, most notably after broad-spectrum antibiotics, opportunists such as Clostridioides difficile can expand, illustrating how loss of microbial protection translates into disease risk.

This systematic review shows that dietary interventions shape the gut microbiome in ways that significantly influence cancer immunotherapy response, with fiber-rich diets enhancing microbial diversity, antitumor immunity, and treatment outcomes, while Western diets and some probiotics impair response.

This review evaluates probiotic supplementation in preterm infants, showing strong evidence for reduced necrotizing enterocolitis and mortality, minimal impact on late-onset sepsis, and a low but real risk of probiotic-associated infection when gut integrity is compromised.

This review explains how oral streptococci shape biofilm formation, regulate microbial balance, and influence oral and systemic health through niche-specific adaptations.

This study shows that the nasal commensal Staphylococcus lugdunensis blocks Staphylococcus aureus colonization by stealing its iron-scavenging molecules, revealing a precise microbiome-based mechanism of colonization resistance.

This review explains how the oral microecosystem serves as a major source of lung microbes and a regulator of respiratory infection, inflammation, and disease severity.

This review explains how vaginal lactobacilli protect against viral sexually transmitted infections by strengthening epithelial barriers, reducing inflammation, and directly inactivating viruses.

This review explains how the vaginal microbiome regulates immune balance, protects against infection, and influences reproductive and gynecologic health.

This review explains how Staphylococcus epidermidis supports skin immunity and barrier function while also acting as a leading opportunistic pathogen. Strain diversity, host context, and microbial interactions determine whether it protects against disease or contributes to inflammation, biofilm infections, and antibiotic resistance.

This review explains how skin microbes shape immune tolerance, barrier defense, and inflammation in health and skin disease.

This review explains how food antigens, gut microbes, and intestinal permeability interact to shape immune tolerance and drive inflammatory disease.