Karen Pendergrass, Standards Team

A Chinese pilot study links gut microbiota composition to asthenozoospermia, pointing to gut-testis axis disruption as a factor in reduced sperm motility.

Gastric cancer patients showed gut microbiota shifts with higher Escherichia/Shigella, Veillonella, and Clostridium XVIII and lower Bacteroides than healthy controls, and radical distal gastrectomy further reshaped composition while reducing fecal valerate.

Full-length 16S rRNA nanopore sequencing of 32 captive Thai elephants found microbiome shifts across age classes and a distinct profile in adults supplemented with Caryota urens palm.

Metagenomic profiling of Japanese colorectal adenoma and intramucosal cancer patients found Fusobacterium varium, not F. nucleatum, was significantly enriched versus healthy controls.

Using 16S sequencing, researchers detected bacteria in the uterus and ovarian cyst fluid of women with endometriosis that culture methods missed, and found GnRH agonist treatment lowered protective Lactobacillaceae while raising Streptococcaceae, Staphylococcaceae, and Enterobacteriaceae.

In probiotic-treated very-preterm infants, lower gut microbial diversity tracked with sepsis, retinopathy of prematurity, and formula feeding, and several taxa shifted with maternal conditions including preeclampsia and chorioamnionitis.

In sleep-deprived mice, melatonin protected memory by reshaping gut microbes and their metabolites, lowering LPS-associated bacteria and raising butyrate; transplanting melatonin-treated microbiota reversed hippocampal inflammation and cognitive decline.

In a mouse model of colitis-associated cancer, gut dysbiosis with loss of bile acid-transforming bacteria accompanied severe mucosal injury and tumor formation.

In a mouse model of surgically induced endometriosis, broad-spectrum antibiotics shrank lesions about five-fold and reduced inflammation, and metronidazole alone reduced lesion volume, while fecal transfer from endometriosis mice restored growth, implicating gut bacteria in disease progression.

Newly diagnosed multiple myeloma patients had higher gut bacterial diversity and enrichment of nitrogen-recycling bacteria like Klebsiella. In mice, Klebsiella pneumoniae accelerated myeloma progression by synthesizing glutamine from urea nitrogen, and a glutamine-deficient diet slowed it.

In a Swedish cohort, women with endometriosis had lower overall gut microbial diversity than matched controls, and 12 bacterial genera across five classes differed in abundance, though within-cohort differences by disease site or treatment disappeared after correction for multiple testing.

A high-protein low-carbohydrate diet altered gut microbiota composition, including a phylum-level rise in Fusobacteria, more in obese cats than in lean cats.

In pregnant mice, gut microbiota composition shifted the severity of malaria infection and pregnancy outcomes independent of host genetics.

In Pakistani adults with active tuberculosis, gut bacteria shifted markedly: Fusobacteria rose about 4-fold and Actinobacteria about 2-fold, while beneficial Bacteroidetes fell. The butyrate-synthesis gene bcoA dropped roughly five-fold, signaling reduced production of a key gut-health metabolite.

Newly diagnosed, medication-naive Chinese patients with Alzheimer's disease or mild cognitive impairment showed increased gut microbial beta-diversity and shifts in Bacteroides, Lachnospira, Ruminiclostridium_9, and Prevotella versus healthy controls.

Obese and normal-weight adults did not differ in the Firmicutes-to-Bacteroidetes ratio. Instead, obesity was defined by specific taxa and higher fecal short-chain fatty acids: total SCFAs reached 214 mM in obese versus 120 mM in normal-weight individuals, with acetate and butyrate significantly elevated.

In 180 Chinese adults, gut bacterial diversity was similar across prediabetes, type 2 diabetes and controls, but genus-level composition differed: Bacteroides fell in diabetes while Prevotella and Alloprevotella rose, and Proteobacteria was higher in prediabetes.

In tumors from 80 papillary thyroid cancer patients, intratumor bacterial diversity was higher in advanced T3/T4 lesions than mild T1/T2 lesions. An eight-genus bacterial signature predicted invasion status with an AUC of 0.83, and specific genera correlated with thyroid hormones and autoimmune antibodies.

HIV-exposed uninfected infants had distinct gut microbiomes at 6 and 28 weeks that converged with unexposed infants by 62 weeks, mirroring the known window of higher infection risk and pointing to feeding pattern and maternal gut microbiota as drivers.

Whole-metagenome sequencing of urine from 75 postmenopausal women showed that recurrent UTI history leaves a lasting imprint. Antibiotic resistance genes were enriched in women with rUTI history even without active infection, and estrogen therapy was linked to protective urogenital lactobacilli.

In HIV-positive adults on antiretroviral therapy, the mucosal intestinal microbiome differed significantly from HIV-negative controls, with more biofilm-forming, pathogenic, and Gram-negative bacteria, while the oral (saliva) microbiome showed no significant change.

In Brazilian women with deep endometriosis, bacteria were detected inside the endometriotic lesions themselves, and these deep lesions showed greater bacterial diversity with relatively less Lactobacillus than paired vaginal fluid and eutopic endometrium.

In 59 colorectal cancer patients, tumour-associated microbiota differed from that of controls throughout the colon, not just on the tumour. Patients split into groups defined by bacterial co-abundance clusters, including a Pathogen Cluster of likely oral bacteria tied to inflammatory gene expression such as IL-17a.

Zengye decoction lowered harmful gut bacteria including Desulfovibrio and reshaped metabolically active microbiota in aged constipated rats.