Karen Pendergrass, Standards Team

In 10 adults with acute myeloid leukemia, the first bout of neutropenic fever during induction chemotherapy sharply reduced gut bacterial diversity. Enterococcus rose (mean +20.2 percent) while Escherichia fell (mean -11.2 percent), and diversity stayed low even after bone marrow recovery.

Over four years, gut bacterial and viral richness declined in prediabetes patients while glycemia rose and insulin sensitivity fell in parallel.

Tongue-coating fungal sequencing found increased richness and altered mycobiome composition in COVID-19 patients, with Candida among the enriched opportunistic genera used to build a diagnostic classifier.

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

Fecal 16S sequencing in 30 age-related macular degeneration patients and 17 matched controls found the AMD gut microbiota had lower Simpson diversity, a shift toward Gram-negative and potentially pathogenic phenotypes, and enrichment of predicted lipopolysaccharide biosynthesis genes.

Older adults with sarcopenic obesity showed reduced gut microbial alpha diversity and distinct taxonomic signatures compared to those with sarcopenia alone or normal controls.

Omnivore and vegan diets, but not fiber-free enteral nutrition, reshaped fecal amino-acid metabolism by favoring amino-acid-metabolizing Firmicutes, with only modest effects on plasma metabolites.

Schizophrenia patients show reduced oral fungal diversity with a shift from Candida toward Malassezia that tracks with elevated pro-inflammatory cytokines.

Fecal microbiota profiles differed by constipation subtype, and depression and poor sleep independently predicted shifts in specific bacterial families among constipation patients.

Comparing short-read and long-read 16S rRNA sequencing of mucosal microbiota, only Ruminococcus gnavus was consistently elevated in patients with bowel polyps versus those without.

In 48 Chinese women with preterm premature rupture of membranes, vaginal microbiota showed higher diversity and lower Lactobacillus dominance, with Gardnerella and Prevotella enriched. A Lactobacillus-based signature separated cases from term controls with an AUC of about 91 percent.

Machine learning of vaginal microbiome data found Ralstonia enrichment most predictive of cervical cancer, alongside elevated Lactobacillus iners.

Tuberculosis patients had reduced gut bacterial and fungal diversity, with Bacteroides and Prevotella up and Blautia and Bifidobacterium down, plus Saccharomyces up and Aspergillus down. A combined six-genus bacterial-fungal panel distinguished TB from healthy controls with AUC 0.996.

Diversity, composition, and function of the bovine respiratory microbiome differed markedly by geographic location and by sampling niche, and long-distance transportation raised the relative abundance of bovine respiratory disease (BRD) associated pathogens in the nasopharynx.

Asthmatic patients showed significantly greater nasal microbiome alpha diversity than controls, and meta-analysis across two ancestry cohorts identified 11 microbial species associated with asthma.

Twelve months of inhaled concentrated fine air pollution gave mice glucose and insulin intolerance and lowered gut bacterial richness. The drop in bacterial Chao-1 richness statistically accounted for about 15 percent of the pollution-driven glucose intolerance.

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.

Gut microbiota composition differed by sex and stool consistency, but not by age or sex, in alpha-diversity among 277 healthy Japanese adults.

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 showed gut microbiome shifts, including enrichment of Akkermansia and its parent Verrucomicrobia taxa, and about 80 percent of these changes appeared in the same direction in people with idiopathic REM sleep behavior disorder, a prodrome of Parkinson's.

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

In chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy, serum bile acids and arachidonic acid rose sharply while gut opportunistic pathogens like Klebsiella pneumoniae expanded and secondary bile acid producing microbes declined, suggesting a metabolome-microbiome signature that could serve as a CIDP biomarker.

In 30 functional constipation patients, gut microbiota shifted and 44 fecal microRNAs changed, and a panel of seven microbe and microRNA markers predicted constipation with an AUC of 0.832, pointing to microRNA-microbe crosstalk in the disorder.

A crossover trial found ketogenic and vegan diets drive opposite immune signatures, upregulating adaptive versus innate/antiviral pathways respectively, while both reshape gut microbial amino acid metabolism.