Karen Pendergrass, Standards Team

COVID-19 patients showed reduced oral and gut microbial diversity, with fewer butyric-acid-producing and more lipopolysaccharide-producing bacteria. Classifiers built on 8 oral and 7 fecal microbial markers diagnosed COVID-19 with area-under-curve values above 0.87, and diagnosed antibody-positive suspected cases.

A matched longitudinal study found fecal proline, ornithine, and serine were elevated in adenoma patients and normalized after polypectomy, forming a candidate detection panel.

Early gestational, but not late prenatal or postnatal, maternal glucocorticoid exposure in wild Assamese macaques was linked to lower offspring gut bacterial richness and effects that intensified with age.

In diarrhea-predominant IBS patients, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth was linked to distinct mucosal microbiota, not luminal bacteria. Rectal mucosa showed fewer aerobic Gram-negative and more Gram-positive bacteria, and a dysbiosis index cutoff of -0.37 identified overgrowth with 91 percent specificity.

Shotgun metagenomics of matched rectal mucosa and feces found the mucosal microbiome is compositionally distinct, genus-poorer, and enriched for sugar transport and short-chain fatty acid metabolism pathways.

Among 42 metastatic melanoma patients, baseline gut microbiome composition tracked with response to anti-PD-1 therapy, and transplanting responder stool into germ-free mice improved tumor control, boosted T cell activity, and enhanced anti-PD-L1 efficacy.

Cervical microbiota including Bacteroides fragilis showed only indirect, HPV-mediated associations with cervical intraepithelial neoplasia severity, while Pseudomonas stutzeri and Atopobium vaginae had both direct and indirect effects.

Purple sea urchins recovering from bald sea urchin disease showed a surface microbiome distinct from both diseased and healthy animals, linking microbial shifts to recovery.

In 24 patients with acute exacerbation of COPD versus 18 healthy controls, gut microbiota richness and diversity fell, short-chain fatty acids dropped across all six measured acids, and serum IL-6 was reduced, supporting a gut microbiota-SCFA-inflammation axis.

In ApoE-/- mice, combining a high-fat diet with binding stress produced depression-like behavior, atherosclerotic damage, and coupled shifts in brain lipid metabolites and gut microbiota.

Found Finnish children enriched for Blautia and Bifidobacterium, while Indian children showed higher Prevotella and Megasphaera.

Kenyan colorectal cancer patients showed depletion of Prevotella copri and Faecalibacterium prausnitzii, with gut microbial community composition differing significantly from healthy controls.

Meconium from 23 newborns was not sterile and carried diverse bacteria. Maternal pre-gestational type 2 diabetes was the strongest predictor of its composition, raising alpha-diversity and enriching Bacteroidetes and Parabacteroides, while delivery mode had no effect.

Adults with obsessive-compulsive disorder had gut microbiota enriched in Rikenellaceae (genus Alistipes), a family linked to inflammation, and depleted in Coprococcus, tied to dopamine metabolite synthesis, plus a shifted oropharyngeal balance, hinting the microbiome may contribute to OCD.

Comparing 30 healthy people, 30 initial and 30 recurrent tuberculosis patients, gut microbiota, T-cell subsets, and cytokines differed by disease stage. Recurrent-TB patients had the lowest CD4 counts and CD4/CD8 ratios, higher IL-6, and lower IL-4. A 20-genus panel separated patients from controls with AUC up to 0.807.

Parkinson's patients had a distinct, potentially pro-inflammatory microbiota in the deep nasal sinus cavity near the olfactory bulb. Moraxella catarrhalis was enriched in patients and correlated with more severe motor scores, while short-chain-fatty-acid-producing bacteria were reduced.

Endoscopic brush sampling of 174 mucus samples showed mucosa-associated dysbiosis in inflammatory bowel disease. Crohn's disease diverged more from controls than ulcerative colitis, with more Escherichia and Ruminococcus gnavus and fewer Faecalibacterium and Roseburia.

In a cohort of 1021 mother-infant pairs, maternal asthma during pregnancy was linked to sex-specific shifts in infant gut microbiota, with male infants showing reduced gut lactobacilli.

A meta-analysis of gastric mucosal microbiome studies identified eight bacterial taxa, including Veillonella and Helicobacter, as universal biomarkers discriminating gastric cancer from normal mucosa.

In Bhutanese refugee adults, glycemic status correlated with lipopolysaccharide binding protein, inflammation, and gut microbiome alpha diversity, with proinflammatory taxa tracking inflammatory cytokines.

Parkinson's disease patients showed reduced anti-inflammatory Lachnospiraceae taxa and altered fecal lipid, vitamin, and amino acid metabolites compared to controls.

A CORDIOPREV analysis of over 1,300 participants found sex-specific gut microbiota shifts in coronary heart disease, pinpointing seven bacterial taxa, including Ruminococcaceae and Bilophila members, as key markers.

Gut microbiota succession in Nigerian infants, marked by dominance of Bifidobacterium longum subsp. infantis, diverged sharply from South African infants and, alongside HIV exposure, independently predicted tetanus antibody titers.

Tear film microbiome sequencing found distinct bacterial community shifts in Sjogren's and non-Sjogren's dry eye compared to healthy eyes.