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Kim H, Nzabarushimana E, Huttenhower C, Chan AT, Nguyen LH. Altered Microbial Transcription in Long-term Proton Pump Inhibitor Use: Findings From a United States Cohort Study. Gastroenterology 2024; 167:405-408.e3. [PMID: 38521094 PMCID: PMC11193639 DOI: 10.1053/j.gastro.2024.03.026] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/20/2023] [Revised: 03/12/2024] [Accepted: 03/18/2024] [Indexed: 03/25/2024]
Affiliation(s)
- Hanseul Kim
- Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts; Clinical and Translational Epidemiology Unit, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts; Division of Gastroenterology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts
| | - Etienne Nzabarushimana
- Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts; Clinical and Translational Epidemiology Unit, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts; Division of Gastroenterology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts
| | - Curtis Huttenhower
- Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts; Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts; The Harvard Chan Microbiome in Public Health Center, T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts; Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts
| | - Andrew T Chan
- Clinical and Translational Epidemiology Unit, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts; Division of Gastroenterology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts
| | - Long H Nguyen
- Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts; Clinical and Translational Epidemiology Unit, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts; Division of Gastroenterology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts.
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2
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Pinto Y, Bhatt AS. Sequencing-based analysis of microbiomes. Nat Rev Genet 2024:10.1038/s41576-024-00746-6. [PMID: 38918544 DOI: 10.1038/s41576-024-00746-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 05/15/2024] [Indexed: 06/27/2024]
Abstract
Microbiomes occupy a range of niches and, in addition to having diverse compositions, they have varied functional roles that have an impact on agriculture, environmental sciences, and human health and disease. The study of microbiomes has been facilitated by recent technological and analytical advances, such as cheaper and higher-throughput DNA and RNA sequencing, improved long-read sequencing and innovative computational analysis methods. These advances are providing a deeper understanding of microbiomes at the genomic, transcriptional and translational level, generating insights into their function and composition at resolutions beyond the species level.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yishay Pinto
- Department of Genetics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
- Department of Medicine, Divisions of Hematology and Blood & Marrow Transplantation, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
| | - Ami S Bhatt
- Department of Genetics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
- Department of Medicine, Divisions of Hematology and Blood & Marrow Transplantation, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
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3
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Young MG, Straub TJ, Worby CJ, Metsky HC, Gnirke A, Bronson RA, van Dijk LR, Desjardins CA, Matranga C, Qu J, Villicana JB, Azimzadeh P, Kau A, Dodson KW, Schreiber HL, Manson AL, Hultgren SJ, Earl AM. Distinct Escherichia coli transcriptional profiles in the guts of recurrent UTI sufferers revealed by pangenome hybrid selection. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2024:2024.02.29.582780. [PMID: 38463963 PMCID: PMC10925322 DOI: 10.1101/2024.02.29.582780] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 03/12/2024]
Abstract
Low-abundance members of microbial communities are difficult to study in their native habitats. This includes Escherichia coli, a minor, but common inhabitant of the gastrointestinal tract and opportunistic pathogen, including of the urinary tract, where it is the primary pathogen. While multi-omic analyses have detailed critical interactions between uropathogenic Escherichia coli (UPEC) and the bladder that mediate UTI outcome, comparatively little is known about UPEC in its pre-infection reservoir, partly due to its low abundance there (<1% relative abundance). To accurately and sensitively explore the genomes and transcriptomes of diverse E. coli in gastrointestinal communities, we developed E. coli PanSelect which uses a set of probes designed to specifically recognize and capture E. coli's broad pangenome from sequencing libraries. We demonstrated the ability of E. coli PanSelect to enrich, by orders of magnitude, sequencing data from diverse E. coli using a mock community and a set of human stool samples collected as part of a cohort study investigating drivers of recurrent urinary tract infections (rUTI). Comparisons of genomes and transcriptomes between E. coli residing in the gastrointestinal tracts of women with and without a history of rUTI suggest that rUTI gut E. coli are responding to increased levels of oxygen and nitrate, suggestive of mucosal inflammation, which may have implications for recurrent disease. E. coli PanSelect is well suited for investigations of native in vivo biology of E. coli in other environments where it is at low relative abundance, and the framework described here has broad applicability to other highly diverse, low abundance organisms.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mark G Young
- Infectious Disease & Microbiome Program, Broad Institute, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
| | - Timothy J Straub
- Infectious Disease & Microbiome Program, Broad Institute, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
| | - Colin J Worby
- Infectious Disease & Microbiome Program, Broad Institute, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
| | - Hayden C Metsky
- Infectious Disease & Microbiome Program, Broad Institute, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
| | - Andreas Gnirke
- Infectious Disease & Microbiome Program, Broad Institute, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
| | - Ryan A Bronson
- Infectious Disease & Microbiome Program, Broad Institute, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
| | - Lucas R van Dijk
- Infectious Disease & Microbiome Program, Broad Institute, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
- Delft Bioinformatics Lab, Delft University of Technology, Van Mourik Broekmanweg 6, Delft, 2628 XE, The Netherlands
| | | | - Christian Matranga
- Infectious Disease & Microbiome Program, Broad Institute, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
| | - James Qu
- Infectious Disease & Microbiome Program, Broad Institute, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
| | - Jesús Bazan Villicana
- Department of Molecular Microbiology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA
| | - Philippe Azimzadeh
- Department of Molecular Microbiology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA
| | - Andrew Kau
- Department of Molecular Microbiology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA
- Center for Women's Infectious Disease Research, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA
- Division of Allergy and Immunology, Department of Medicine, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA
| | - Karen W Dodson
- Department of Molecular Microbiology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA
- Center for Women's Infectious Disease Research, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA
| | - Henry L Schreiber
- Department of Molecular Microbiology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA
- Center for Women's Infectious Disease Research, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA
| | - Abigail L Manson
- Infectious Disease & Microbiome Program, Broad Institute, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
| | - Scott J Hultgren
- Department of Molecular Microbiology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA
- Center for Women's Infectious Disease Research, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA
| | - Ashlee M Earl
- Infectious Disease & Microbiome Program, Broad Institute, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
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4
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Zhang S, Heil BJ, Mao W, Chikina M, Greene CS, Heller EA. MousiPLIER: A Mouse Pathway-Level Information Extractor Model. eNeuro 2024; 11:ENEURO.0313-23.2024. [PMID: 38789274 PMCID: PMC11154669 DOI: 10.1523/eneuro.0313-23.2024] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/23/2023] [Revised: 05/10/2024] [Accepted: 05/16/2024] [Indexed: 05/26/2024] Open
Abstract
High-throughput gene expression profiling measures individual gene expression across conditions. However, genes are regulated in complex networks, not as individual entities, limiting the interpretability of gene expression data. Machine learning models that incorporate prior biological knowledge are a powerful tool to extract meaningful biology from gene expression data. Pathway-level information extractor (PLIER) is an unsupervised machine learning method that defines biological pathways by leveraging the vast amount of published transcriptomic data. PLIER converts gene expression data into known pathway gene sets, termed latent variables (LVs), to substantially reduce data dimensionality and improve interpretability. In the current study, we trained the first mouse PLIER model on 190,111 mouse brain RNA-sequencing samples, the greatest amount of training data ever used by PLIER. We then validated the mousiPLIER approach in a study of microglia and astrocyte gene expression across mouse brain aging. mousiPLIER identified biological pathways that are significantly associated with aging, including one latent variable (LV41) corresponding to striatal signal. To gain further insight into the genes contained in LV41, we performed k-means clustering on the training data to identify studies that respond strongly to LV41. We found that the variable was relevant to striatum and aging across the scientific literature. Finally, we built a Web server (http://mousiplier.greenelab.com/) for users to easily explore the learned latent variables. Taken together, this study defines mousiPLIER as a method to uncover meaningful biological processes in mouse brain transcriptomic studies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shuo Zhang
- Department of Systems Pharmacology and Translational Therapeutics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104
- Penn Epigenetics Institute, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104
| | - Benjamin J Heil
- Genomics and Computational Biology Graduate Group, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104
| | - Weiguang Mao
- Department of Computational and Systems Biology, School of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260
| | - Maria Chikina
- Department of Computational and Systems Biology, School of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260
| | - Casey S Greene
- Department of Systems Pharmacology and Translational Therapeutics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104
- Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Denver, Colorado 80045
| | - Elizabeth A Heller
- Department of Systems Pharmacology and Translational Therapeutics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104
- Penn Epigenetics Institute, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104
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5
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Firrincieli A, Minuti A, Cappelletti M, Ferilli M, Ajmone-Marsan P, Bani P, Petruccioli M, Harfouche AL. Structural and functional analysis of the active cow rumen's microbial community provides a catalogue of genes and microbes participating in the deconstruction of cardoon biomass. BIOTECHNOLOGY FOR BIOFUELS AND BIOPRODUCTS 2024; 17:53. [PMID: 38589938 PMCID: PMC11003169 DOI: 10.1186/s13068-024-02495-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/25/2023] [Accepted: 03/22/2024] [Indexed: 04/10/2024]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Ruminal microbial communities enriched on lignocellulosic biomass have shown considerable promise for the discovery of microorganisms and enzymes involved in digesting cell wall compounds, a key bottleneck in the development of second-generation biofuels and bioproducts, enabling a circular bioeconomy. Cardoon (Cynara cardunculus) is a promising inedible energy crop for current and future cellulosic biorefineries and the emerging bioenergy and bioproducts industries. The rumen microbiome can be considered an anaerobic "bioreactor", where the resident microbiota carry out the depolymerization and hydrolysis of plant cell wall polysaccharides (PCWPs) through the catalytic action of fibrolytic enzymes. In this context, the rumen microbiota represents a potential source of microbes and fibrolytic enzymes suitable for biofuel production from feedstocks. In this study, metatranscriptomic and 16S rRNA sequencing were used to profile the microbiome and to investigate the genetic features within the microbial community adherent to the fiber fractions of the rumen content and to the residue of cardoon biomass incubated in the rumen of cannulated cows. RESULTS The metatranscriptome of the cardoon and rumen fibre-adherent microbial communities were dissected in their functional and taxonomic components. From a functional point of view, transcripts involved in the methanogenesis from CO2 and H2, and from methanol were over-represented in the cardoon-adherent microbial community and were affiliated with the Methanobrevibacter and Methanosphaera of the Euryarchaeota phylum. Transcripts encoding glycoside hydrolases (GHs), carbohydrate-binding modules (CBMs), carbohydrate esterases (CEs), polysaccharide lyases (PLs), and glycoside transferases (GTs) accounted for 1.5% (6,957) of the total RNA coding transcripts and were taxonomically affiliated to major rumen fibrolytic microbes, such as Oscillospiraceae, Fibrobacteraceae, Neocallimastigaceae, Prevotellaceae, Lachnospiraceae, and Treponemataceae. The comparison of the expression profile between cardoon and rumen fiber-adherent microbial communities highlighted that specific fibrolytic enzymes were potentially responsible for the breakdown of cardoon PCWPs, which was driven by specific taxa, mainly Ruminococcus, Treponema, and Neocallimastigaceae. CONCLUSIONS Analysis of 16S rRNA and metatranscriptomic sequencing data revealed that the cow rumen microbiome harbors a repertoire of new enzymes capable of degrading PCWPs. Our results demonstrate the feasibility of using metatranscriptomics of enriched microbial RNA as a potential approach for accelerating the discovery of novel cellulolytic enzymes that could be harnessed for biotechnology. This research contributes a relevant perspective towards degrading cellulosic biomass and providing an economical route to the production of advanced biofuels and high-value bioproducts.
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Affiliation(s)
- Andrea Firrincieli
- Department for Innovation in Biological, Agro-Food and Forest Systems, University of Tuscia, Via San Camillo de Lellis Snc, 01100, Viterbo, Italy
| | - Andrea Minuti
- Department of Animal Science, Food and Nutrition, Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Via Emilia Parmense 84, 29122, Piacenza, Italy
| | - Martina Cappelletti
- Department of Pharmacy and Biotechnology, University of Bologna, Via Irnerio 42, 40126, Bologna, Italy
| | - Marco Ferilli
- Department for Innovation in Biological, Agro-Food and Forest Systems, University of Tuscia, Via San Camillo de Lellis Snc, 01100, Viterbo, Italy
- Molecular Genetics and Functional Genomics, Ospedale Pediatrico Bambino Gesù, IRCCS, 00146, Rome, Italy
| | - Paolo Ajmone-Marsan
- Department of Animal Science, Food and Nutrition, Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Via Emilia Parmense 84, 29122, Piacenza, Italy
- CREI - Romeo and Enrica Invernizzi Research Center On Sustainable Dairy Production, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Via Emilia Parmense, 84, 29122, Piacenza, Italy
| | - Paolo Bani
- Department of Animal Science, Food and Nutrition, Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Via Emilia Parmense 84, 29122, Piacenza, Italy
| | - Maurizio Petruccioli
- Department for Innovation in Biological, Agro-Food and Forest Systems, University of Tuscia, Via San Camillo de Lellis Snc, 01100, Viterbo, Italy
| | - Antoine L Harfouche
- Department for Innovation in Biological, Agro-Food and Forest Systems, University of Tuscia, Via San Camillo de Lellis Snc, 01100, Viterbo, Italy.
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6
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Mann AE, Chakraborty B, O'Connell LM, Nascimento MM, Burne RA, Richards VP. Heterogeneous lineage-specific arginine deiminase expression within dental microbiome species. Microbiol Spectr 2024; 12:e0144523. [PMID: 38411054 PMCID: PMC10986539 DOI: 10.1128/spectrum.01445-23] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/04/2023] [Accepted: 02/06/2024] [Indexed: 02/28/2024] Open
Abstract
Arginine catabolism by the bacterial arginine deiminase system (ADS) has anticariogenic properties through the production of ammonia, which modulates the pH of the oral environment. Given the potential protective capacity of the ADS pathway, the exploitation of ADS-competent oral microbes through pre- or probiotic applications is a promising therapeutic target to prevent tooth decay. To date, most investigations of the ADS in the oral cavity and its relation to caries have focused on indirect measures of activity or on specific bacterial groups, yet the pervasiveness and rate of expression of the ADS operon in diverse mixed microbial communities in oral health and disease remain an open question. Here, we use a multivariate approach, combining ultra-deep metatranscriptomic sequencing with paired metataxonomic and in vitro citrulline quantification to characterize the microbial community and ADS operon expression in healthy and late-stage cavitated teeth. While ADS activity is higher in healthy teeth, we identify multiple bacterial lineages with upregulated ADS activity on cavitated teeth that are distinct from those found on healthy teeth using both reference-based mapping and de novo assembly methods. Our dual metataxonomic and metatranscriptomic approach demonstrates the importance of species abundance for gene expression data interpretation and that patterns of differential expression can be skewed by low-abundance groups. Finally, we identify several potential candidate probiotic bacterial lineages within species that may be useful therapeutic targets for the prevention of tooth decay and propose that the development of a strain-specific, mixed-microbial probiotic may be a beneficial approach given the heterogeneity of taxa identified here across health groups. IMPORTANCE Tooth decay is the most common preventable chronic disease, affecting more than two billion people globally. The development of caries on teeth is primarily a consequence of acid production by cariogenic bacteria that inhabit the plaque microbiome. Other bacterial strains in the oral cavity may suppress or prevent tooth decay by producing ammonia as a byproduct of the arginine deiminase metabolic pathway, increasing the pH of the plaque biofilm. While the benefits of arginine metabolism on oral health have been extensively documented in specific bacterial groups, the prevalence and consistency of arginine deiminase system (ADS) activity among oral bacteria in a community context remain an open question. In the current study, we use a multi-omics approach to document the pervasiveness of the expression of the ADS operon in both health and disease to better understand the conditions in which ADS activity may prevent tooth decay.
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Affiliation(s)
- Allison E. Mann
- Department of Biological Sciences, Clemson University, Clemson, South Carolina, USA
| | - Brinta Chakraborty
- Department of Oral Biology, College of Dentistry, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA
| | - Lauren M. O'Connell
- Department of Biological Sciences, Clemson University, Clemson, South Carolina, USA
| | - Marcelle M. Nascimento
- Division of Operative Dentistry, Department of Restorative Dental Sciences, College of Dentistry, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA
| | - Robert A. Burne
- Department of Oral Biology, College of Dentistry, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA
| | - Vincent P. Richards
- Department of Biological Sciences, Clemson University, Clemson, South Carolina, USA
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7
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Chang HW, Lee EM, Wang Y, Zhou C, Pruss KM, Henrissat S, Chen RY, Kao C, Hibberd MC, Lynn HM, Webber DM, Crane M, Cheng J, Rodionov DA, Arzamasov AA, Castillo JJ, Couture G, Chen Y, Balcazo NP, Lebrilla CB, Terrapon N, Henrissat B, Ilkayeva O, Muehlbauer MJ, Newgard CB, Mostafa I, Das S, Mahfuz M, Osterman AL, Barratt MJ, Ahmed T, Gordon JI. Prevotella copri and microbiota members mediate the beneficial effects of a therapeutic food for malnutrition. Nat Microbiol 2024; 9:922-937. [PMID: 38503977 PMCID: PMC10994852 DOI: 10.1038/s41564-024-01628-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/20/2023] [Accepted: 01/31/2024] [Indexed: 03/21/2024]
Abstract
Microbiota-directed complementary food (MDCF) formulations have been designed to repair the gut communities of malnourished children. A randomized controlled trial demonstrated that one formulation, MDCF-2, improved weight gain in malnourished Bangladeshi children compared to a more calorically dense standard nutritional intervention. Metagenome-assembled genomes from study participants revealed a correlation between ponderal growth and expression of MDCF-2 glycan utilization pathways by Prevotella copri strains. To test this correlation, here we use gnotobiotic mice colonized with defined consortia of age- and ponderal growth-associated gut bacterial strains, with or without P. copri isolates closely matching the metagenome-assembled genomes. Combining gut metagenomics and metatranscriptomics with host single-nucleus RNA sequencing and gut metabolomic analyses, we identify a key role of P. copri in metabolizing MDCF-2 glycans and uncover its interactions with other microbes including Bifidobacterium infantis. P. copri-containing consortia mediated weight gain and modulated energy metabolism within intestinal epithelial cells. Our results reveal structure-function relationships between MDCF-2 and members of the gut microbiota of malnourished children with potential implications for future therapies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hao-Wei Chang
- Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA
- Center for Gut Microbiome and Nutrition Research, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA
- Department of Pathology and Immunology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA
| | - Evan M Lee
- Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA
- Center for Gut Microbiome and Nutrition Research, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA
| | - Yi Wang
- Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA
- Center for Gut Microbiome and Nutrition Research, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA
- Department of Pathology and Immunology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA
| | - Cyrus Zhou
- Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA
- Center for Gut Microbiome and Nutrition Research, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA
| | - Kali M Pruss
- Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA
- Center for Gut Microbiome and Nutrition Research, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA
- Department of Pathology and Immunology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA
| | - Suzanne Henrissat
- Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA
- Center for Gut Microbiome and Nutrition Research, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA
- Architecture et Fonction des Macromolécules Biologiques, CNRS, Aix-Marseille University, Marseille, France
| | - Robert Y Chen
- Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA
- Center for Gut Microbiome and Nutrition Research, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA
| | - Clara Kao
- Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA
- Center for Gut Microbiome and Nutrition Research, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA
| | - Matthew C Hibberd
- Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA
- Center for Gut Microbiome and Nutrition Research, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA
- Department of Pathology and Immunology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA
| | - Hannah M Lynn
- Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA
- Center for Gut Microbiome and Nutrition Research, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA
| | - Daniel M Webber
- Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA
- Center for Gut Microbiome and Nutrition Research, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA
- Department of Pathology and Immunology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA
| | - Marie Crane
- Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA
- Center for Gut Microbiome and Nutrition Research, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA
| | - Jiye Cheng
- Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA
- Center for Gut Microbiome and Nutrition Research, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA
| | - Dmitry A Rodionov
- Infectious and Inflammatory Disease Center, Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute, La Jolla, CA, USA
| | - Aleksandr A Arzamasov
- Infectious and Inflammatory Disease Center, Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute, La Jolla, CA, USA
| | - Juan J Castillo
- Department of Chemistry, University of California, Davis, CA, USA
| | - Garret Couture
- Department of Chemistry, University of California, Davis, CA, USA
| | - Ye Chen
- Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA
- Center for Gut Microbiome and Nutrition Research, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA
- Department of Chemistry, University of California, Davis, CA, USA
| | - Nikita P Balcazo
- Department of Chemistry, University of California, Davis, CA, USA
| | | | - Nicolas Terrapon
- Architecture et Fonction des Macromolécules Biologiques, CNRS, Aix-Marseille University, Marseille, France
| | - Bernard Henrissat
- Department of Biotechnology and Biomedicine (DTU Bioengineering), Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby, Denmark
- Department of Biological Sciences, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
| | - Olga Ilkayeva
- Sarah W. Stedman Nutrition and Metabolism Center, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, USA
- Duke Molecular Physiology Institute, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, USA
- Department of Medicine, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, USA
| | - Michael J Muehlbauer
- Sarah W. Stedman Nutrition and Metabolism Center, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, USA
- Duke Molecular Physiology Institute, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, USA
| | - Christopher B Newgard
- Sarah W. Stedman Nutrition and Metabolism Center, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, USA
- Duke Molecular Physiology Institute, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, USA
- Department of Medicine, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, USA
- Department of Pharmacology and Cancer Biology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, USA
| | - Ishita Mostafa
- International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b), Dhaka, Bangladesh
| | - Subhasish Das
- International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b), Dhaka, Bangladesh
| | - Mustafa Mahfuz
- International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b), Dhaka, Bangladesh
| | - Andrei L Osterman
- Infectious and Inflammatory Disease Center, Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute, La Jolla, CA, USA
| | - Michael J Barratt
- Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA
- Center for Gut Microbiome and Nutrition Research, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA
- Department of Pathology and Immunology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA
| | - Tahmeed Ahmed
- International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b), Dhaka, Bangladesh
| | - Jeffrey I Gordon
- Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA.
- Center for Gut Microbiome and Nutrition Research, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA.
- Department of Pathology and Immunology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA.
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8
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Chang HW, Lee EM, Wang Y, Zhou C, Pruss KM, Henrissat S, Chen RY, Kao C, Hibberd MC, Lynn HM, Webber DM, Crane M, Cheng J, Rodionov DA, Arzamasov AA, Castillo JJ, Couture G, Chen Y, Balcazo NP, Lebrilla CB, Terrapon N, Henrissat B, Ilkayeva O, Muehlbauer MJ, Newgard CB, Mostafa I, Das S, Mahfuz M, Osterman AL, Barratt MJ, Ahmed T, Gordon JI. Prevotella copri-related effects of a therapeutic food for malnutrition. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2023:2023.08.11.553030. [PMID: 37645712 PMCID: PMC10461977 DOI: 10.1101/2023.08.11.553030] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 08/31/2023]
Abstract
Preclinical and clinical studies are providing evidence that the healthy growth of infants and children reflects, in part, healthy development of their gut microbiomes1-5. This process of microbial community assembly and functional maturation is perturbed in children with acute malnutrition. Gnotobiotic animals, colonized with microbial communities from children with severe and moderate acute malnutrition, have been used to develop microbiome-directed complementary food (MDCF) formulations for repairing the microbiomes of these children during the weaning period5. Bangladeshi children with moderate acute malnutrition (MAM) participating in a previously reported 3-month-long randomized controlled clinical study of one such formulation, MDCF-2, exhibited significantly improved weight gain compared to a commonly used nutritional intervention despite the lower caloric density of the MDCF6. Characterizing the 'metagenome assembled genomes' (MAGs) of bacterial strains present in the microbiomes of study participants revealed a significant correlation between accelerated ponderal growth and the expression by two Prevotella copri MAGs of metabolic pathways involved in processing of MDCF-2 glycans1. To provide a direct test of these relationships, we have now performed 'reverse translation' experiments using a gnotobiotic mouse model of mother-to-offspring microbiome transmission. Mice were colonized with defined consortia of age- and ponderal growth-associated gut bacterial strains cultured from Bangladeshi infants/children in the study population, with or without P. copri isolates resembling the MAGs. By combining analyses of microbial community assembly, gene expression and processing of glycan constituents of MDCF-2 with single nucleus RNA-Seq and mass spectrometric analyses of the intestine, we establish a principal role for P. copri in mediating metabolism of MDCF-2 glycans, characterize its interactions with other consortium members including Bifidobacterium longum subsp. infantis, and demonstrate the effects of P. copri-containing consortia in mediating weight gain and modulating the activities of metabolic pathways involved in lipid, amino acid, carbohydrate plus other facets of energy metabolism within epithelial cells positioned at different locations in intestinal crypts and villi. Together, the results provide insights into structure/function relationships between MDCF-2 and members of the gut communities of malnourished children; they also have implications for developing future prebiotic, probiotic and/or synbiotic therapeutics for microbiome restoration in children with already manifest malnutrition, or who are at risk for this pervasive health challenge.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hao-Wei Chang
- Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110 USA
- Center for Gut Microbiome and Nutrition Research, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110 USA
- Department of Pathology and Immunology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110 USA
| | - Evan M. Lee
- Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110 USA
- Center for Gut Microbiome and Nutrition Research, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110 USA
| | - Yi Wang
- Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110 USA
- Center for Gut Microbiome and Nutrition Research, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110 USA
- Department of Pathology and Immunology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110 USA
| | - Cyrus Zhou
- Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110 USA
- Center for Gut Microbiome and Nutrition Research, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110 USA
| | - Kali M. Pruss
- Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110 USA
- Center for Gut Microbiome and Nutrition Research, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110 USA
- Department of Pathology and Immunology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110 USA
| | - Suzanne Henrissat
- Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110 USA
- Center for Gut Microbiome and Nutrition Research, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110 USA
- Architecture et Fonction des Macromolécules Biologiques, CNRS, Aix-Marseille University, F-13288, Marseille, France
| | - Robert Y. Chen
- Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110 USA
- Center for Gut Microbiome and Nutrition Research, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110 USA
| | - Clara Kao
- Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110 USA
- Center for Gut Microbiome and Nutrition Research, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110 USA
| | - Matthew C. Hibberd
- Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110 USA
- Center for Gut Microbiome and Nutrition Research, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110 USA
- Department of Pathology and Immunology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110 USA
| | - Hannah M. Lynn
- Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110 USA
- Center for Gut Microbiome and Nutrition Research, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110 USA
| | - Daniel M. Webber
- Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110 USA
- Center for Gut Microbiome and Nutrition Research, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110 USA
- Department of Pathology and Immunology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110 USA
| | - Marie Crane
- Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110 USA
- Center for Gut Microbiome and Nutrition Research, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110 USA
| | - Jiye Cheng
- Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110 USA
- Center for Gut Microbiome and Nutrition Research, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110 USA
| | - Dmitry A. Rodionov
- Infectious and Inflammatory Disease Center, Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute, La Jolla, CA 92037 USA
| | - Aleksandr A. Arzamasov
- Infectious and Inflammatory Disease Center, Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute, La Jolla, CA 92037 USA
| | - Juan J. Castillo
- Department of Chemistry, University of California, Davis, CA 95616 USA
| | - Garret Couture
- Department of Chemistry, University of California, Davis, CA 95616 USA
| | - Ye Chen
- Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110 USA
- Center for Gut Microbiome and Nutrition Research, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110 USA
- Department of Chemistry, University of California, Davis, CA 95616 USA
| | - Nikita P. Balcazo
- Department of Chemistry, University of California, Davis, CA 95616 USA
| | | | - Nicolas Terrapon
- Architecture et Fonction des Macromolécules Biologiques, CNRS, Aix-Marseille University, F-13288, Marseille, France
| | - Bernard Henrissat
- Department of Biotechnology and Biomedicine (DTU Bioengineering), Technical University of Denmark, DK-2800 Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark
- Department of Biological Sciences, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
| | - Olga Ilkayeva
- Sarah W. Stedman Nutrition and Metabolism Center, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27710 USA
- Duke Molecular Physiology Institute, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27710 USA
- Department of Medicine, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, 27710 USA
| | - Michael J. Muehlbauer
- Sarah W. Stedman Nutrition and Metabolism Center, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27710 USA
- Duke Molecular Physiology Institute, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27710 USA
| | - Christopher B. Newgard
- Sarah W. Stedman Nutrition and Metabolism Center, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27710 USA
- Duke Molecular Physiology Institute, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27710 USA
- Department of Medicine, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, 27710 USA
- Department of Pharmacology and Cancer Biology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27710 USA
| | - Ishita Mostafa
- International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b), Dhaka 1212, Bangladesh
| | - Subhasish Das
- International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b), Dhaka 1212, Bangladesh
| | - Mustafa Mahfuz
- International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b), Dhaka 1212, Bangladesh
| | - Andrei L. Osterman
- Infectious and Inflammatory Disease Center, Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute, La Jolla, CA 92037 USA
| | - Michael J. Barratt
- Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110 USA
- Center for Gut Microbiome and Nutrition Research, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110 USA
- Department of Pathology and Immunology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110 USA
| | - Tahmeed Ahmed
- International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b), Dhaka 1212, Bangladesh
| | - Jeffrey I. Gordon
- Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110 USA
- Center for Gut Microbiome and Nutrition Research, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110 USA
- Department of Pathology and Immunology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110 USA
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9
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Béchade B, Cabuslay CS, Hu Y, Mendonca CM, Hassanpour B, Lin JY, Su Y, Fiers VJ, Anandarajan D, Lu R, Olson CJ, Duplais C, Rosen GL, Moreau CS, Aristilde L, Wertz JT, Russell JA. Physiological and evolutionary contexts of a new symbiotic species from the nitrogen-recycling gut community of turtle ants. THE ISME JOURNAL 2023; 17:1751-1764. [PMID: 37558860 PMCID: PMC10504363 DOI: 10.1038/s41396-023-01490-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/21/2023] [Revised: 07/21/2023] [Accepted: 07/27/2023] [Indexed: 08/11/2023]
Abstract
While genome sequencing has expanded our knowledge of symbiosis, role assignment within multi-species microbiomes remains challenging due to genomic redundancy and the uncertainties of in vivo impacts. We address such questions, here, for a specialized nitrogen (N) recycling microbiome of turtle ants, describing a new genus and species of gut symbiont-Ischyrobacter davidsoniae (Betaproteobacteria: Burkholderiales: Alcaligenaceae)-and its in vivo physiological context. A re-analysis of amplicon sequencing data, with precisely assigned Ischyrobacter reads, revealed a seemingly ubiquitous distribution across the turtle ant genus Cephalotes, suggesting ≥50 million years since domestication. Through new genome sequencing, we also show that divergent I. davidsoniae lineages are conserved in their uricolytic and urea-generating capacities. With phylogenetically refined definitions of Ischyrobacter and separately domesticated Burkholderiales symbionts, our FISH microscopy revealed a distinct niche for I. davidsoniae, with dense populations at the anterior ileum. Being positioned at the site of host N-waste delivery, in vivo metatranscriptomics and metabolomics further implicate I. davidsoniae within a symbiont-autonomous N-recycling pathway. While encoding much of this pathway, I. davidsoniae expressed only a subset of the requisite steps in mature adult workers, including the penultimate step deriving urea from allantoate. The remaining steps were expressed by other specialized gut symbionts. Collectively, this assemblage converts inosine, made from midgut symbionts, into urea and ammonia in the hindgut. With urea supporting host amino acid budgets and cuticle synthesis, and with the ancient nature of other active N-recyclers discovered here, I. davidsoniae emerges as a central player in a conserved and impactful, multipartite symbiosis.
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Affiliation(s)
- Benoît Béchade
- Department of Biology, Drexel University, 3245 Chestnut St., Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA.
| | - Christian S Cabuslay
- Department of Biology, Drexel University, 3245 Chestnut St., Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA
| | - Yi Hu
- Department of Biology, Drexel University, 3245 Chestnut St., Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA
- State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology and Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Biodiversity Science and Ecological Engineering, College of Life Sciences, Beijing Normal University, 100875, Beijing, China
| | - Caroll M Mendonca
- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, 60208, USA
| | - Bahareh Hassanpour
- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, 60208, USA
| | - Jonathan Y Lin
- Department of Biology, Calvin University, 1726 Knollcrest Circle SE, Grand Rapids, MI, 49546-4402, USA
| | - Yangzhou Su
- Department of Biology, Calvin University, 1726 Knollcrest Circle SE, Grand Rapids, MI, 49546-4402, USA
| | - Valerie J Fiers
- Department of Biology, Drexel University, 3245 Chestnut St., Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA
| | - Dharman Anandarajan
- Department of Biology, Drexel University, 3245 Chestnut St., Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA
| | - Richard Lu
- Department of Biology, Drexel University, 3245 Chestnut St., Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA
| | - Chandler J Olson
- Department of Biology, Drexel University, 3245 Chestnut St., Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA
- Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alabama, 1325 Hackberry Ln, Tuscaloosa, AL, 35487, USA
| | - Christophe Duplais
- Department of Entomology, Cornell University, Cornell AgriTech, Geneva, NY, 14456, USA
| | - Gail L Rosen
- Ecological and Evolutionary Signal-Processing and Informatics Laboratory, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Drexel University, 3141 Chestnut St., Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA
| | - Corrie S Moreau
- Department of Entomology, Cornell University, Cornell AgriTech, Geneva, NY, 14456, USA
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, 14853, USA
| | - Ludmilla Aristilde
- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, 60208, USA
| | - John T Wertz
- Department of Biology, Calvin University, 1726 Knollcrest Circle SE, Grand Rapids, MI, 49546-4402, USA
| | - Jacob A Russell
- Department of Biology, Drexel University, 3245 Chestnut St., Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA
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10
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Cho H, Qu Y, Liu C, Tang B, Lyu R, Lin BM, Roach J, Azcarate-Peril MA, Aguiar Ribeiro A, Love MI, Divaris K, Wu D. Comprehensive evaluation of methods for differential expression analysis of metatranscriptomics data. Brief Bioinform 2023; 24:bbad279. [PMID: 37738402 PMCID: PMC10516371 DOI: 10.1093/bib/bbad279] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/07/2023] [Revised: 06/23/2023] [Accepted: 07/18/2023] [Indexed: 09/24/2023] Open
Abstract
Understanding the function of the human microbiome is important but the development of statistical methods specifically for the microbial gene expression (i.e. metatranscriptomics) is in its infancy. Many currently employed differential expression analysis methods have been designed for different data types and have not been evaluated in metatranscriptomics settings. To address this gap, we undertook a comprehensive evaluation and benchmarking of 10 differential analysis methods for metatranscriptomics data. We used a combination of real and simulated data to evaluate performance (i.e. type I error, false discovery rate and sensitivity) of the following methods: log-normal (LN), logistic-beta (LB), MAST, DESeq2, metagenomeSeq, ANCOM-BC, LEfSe, ALDEx2, Kruskal-Wallis and two-part Kruskal-Wallis. The simulation was informed by supragingival biofilm microbiome data from 300 preschool-age children enrolled in a study of childhood dental disease (early childhood caries, ECC), whereas validations were sought in two additional datasets from the ECC study and an inflammatory bowel disease study. The LB test showed the highest sensitivity in both small and large samples and reasonably controlled type I error. Contrarily, MAST was hampered by inflated type I error. Upon application of the LN and LB tests in the ECC study, we found that genes C8PHV7 and C8PEV7, harbored by the lactate-producing Campylobacter gracilis, had the strongest association with childhood dental disease. This comprehensive model evaluation offers practical guidance for selection of appropriate methods for rigorous analyses of differential expression in metatranscriptomics. Selection of an optimal method increases the possibility of detecting true signals while minimizing the chance of claiming false ones.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hunyong Cho
- Department of Biostatistics, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, United States
| | - Yixiang Qu
- Department of Biostatistics, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, United States
| | - Chuwen Liu
- Department of Biostatistics, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, United States
| | - Boyang Tang
- Department of Statistics, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, United States
| | - Ruiqi Lyu
- School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States
| | - Bridget M Lin
- Department of Biostatistics, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, United States
| | - Jeffrey Roach
- Research Computing, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, United States
| | - M Andrea Azcarate-Peril
- Department of Medicine and Nutrition, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, United States
| | - Apoena Aguiar Ribeiro
- Division of Diagnostic Sciences, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, United States
| | - Michael I Love
- Department of Biostatistics, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, United States
- Department of Genetics, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, United States
| | - Kimon Divaris
- Division of Pediatric and Public Health, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, United States
- Department of Epidemiology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, United States
| | - Di Wu
- Department of Biostatistics, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, United States
- Division of Oral and Craniofacial Health Sciences, Adam School of Dentistry, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, United States
- Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, United States
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11
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Salas-Espejo E, Terrón-Camero LC, Ruiz JL, Molina NM, Andrés-León E. Exploring the Microbiome in Human Reproductive Tract: High-Throughput Methods for the Taxonomic Characterization of Microorganisms. Semin Reprod Med 2023; 41:125-143. [PMID: 38320576 DOI: 10.1055/s-0044-1779025] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/08/2024]
Abstract
Microorganisms are important due to their widespread presence and multifaceted roles across various domains of life, ecology, and industries. In humans, they underlie the proper functioning of multiple systems crucial to well-being, including immunological and metabolic functions. Emerging research addressing the presence and roles of microorganisms within human reproduction is increasingly relevant. Studies implementing new methodologies (e.g., to investigate vaginal, uterine, and semen microenvironments) can now provide relevant insights into fertility, reproductive health, or pregnancy outcomes. In that sense, cutting-edge sequencing techniques, as well as others such as meta-metabolomics, culturomics, and meta-proteomics, are becoming more popular and accessible worldwide, allowing the characterization of microbiomes at unprecedented resolution. However, they frequently involve rather complex laboratory protocols and bioinformatics analyses, for which researchers may lack the required expertise. A suitable pipeline would successfully enable both taxonomic classification and functional profiling of the microbiome, providing easy-to-understand biological interpretations. However, the selection of an appropriate methodology would be crucial, as it directly impacts the reproducibility, accuracy, and quality of the results and observations. This review focuses on the different current microbiome-related techniques in the context of human reproduction, encompassing niches like vagina, endometrium, and seminal fluid. The most standard and reliable methods are 16S rRNA gene sequencing, metagenomics, and meta-transcriptomics, together with complementary approaches including meta-proteomics, meta-metabolomics, and culturomics. Finally, we also offer case examples and general recommendations about the most appropriate methods and workflows and discuss strengths and shortcomings for each technique.
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Affiliation(s)
- Eduardo Salas-Espejo
- Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Faculty of Sciences, University of Granada, Granada, Spain
| | - Laura C Terrón-Camero
- Bioinformatics Unit, Institute of Parasitology and Biomedicine "López-Neyra" (IPBLN), CSIC, Granada, Spain
| | - José L Ruiz
- Bioinformatics Unit, Institute of Parasitology and Biomedicine "López-Neyra" (IPBLN), CSIC, Granada, Spain
| | - Nerea M Molina
- Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Faculty of Sciences, University of Granada, Granada, Spain
| | - Eduardo Andrés-León
- Bioinformatics Unit, Institute of Parasitology and Biomedicine "López-Neyra" (IPBLN), CSIC, Granada, Spain
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12
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Ojala T, Häkkinen AE, Kankuri E, Kankainen M. Current concepts, advances, and challenges in deciphering the human microbiota with metatranscriptomics. Trends Genet 2023; 39:686-702. [PMID: 37365103 DOI: 10.1016/j.tig.2023.05.004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 12.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/02/2022] [Revised: 05/24/2023] [Accepted: 05/25/2023] [Indexed: 06/28/2023]
Abstract
Metatranscriptomics refers to the analysis of the collective microbial transcriptome of a sample. Its increased utilization for the characterization of human-associated microbial communities has enabled the discovery of many disease-state related microbial activities. Here, we review the principles of metatranscriptomics-based analysis of human-associated microbial samples. We describe strengths and weaknesses of popular sample preparation, sequencing, and bioinformatics approaches and summarize strategies for their use. We then discuss how human-associated microbial communities have recently been examined and how their characterization may change. We conclude that metatranscriptomics insights into human microbiotas under health and disease have not only expanded our knowledge on human health, but also opened avenues for rational antimicrobial drug use and disease management.
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Affiliation(s)
- Teija Ojala
- Department of Pharmacology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
| | | | - Esko Kankuri
- Department of Pharmacology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
| | - Matti Kankainen
- Hematology Research Unit, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland; Laboratory of Genetics, HUS Diagnostic Center, Hospital District of Helsinki and Uusimaa (HUS), Helsinki, Finland.
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13
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Zhang S, Heil BJ, Mao W, Chikina M, Greene CS, Heller EA. MousiPLIER: A Mouse Pathway-Level Information Extractor Model. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2023:2023.07.31.551386. [PMID: 37577575 PMCID: PMC10418102 DOI: 10.1101/2023.07.31.551386] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 08/15/2023]
Abstract
High throughput gene expression profiling is a powerful approach to generate hypotheses on the underlying causes of biological function and disease. Yet this approach is limited by its ability to infer underlying biological pathways and burden of testing tens of thousands of individual genes. Machine learning models that incorporate prior biological knowledge are necessary to extract meaningful pathways and generate rational hypothesis from the vast amount of gene expression data generated to date. We adopted an unsupervised machine learning method, Pathway-level information extractor (PLIER), to train the first mouse PLIER model on 190,111 mouse brain RNA-sequencing samples, the greatest amount of training data ever used by PLIER. mousiPLER converted gene expression data into a latent variables that align to known pathway or cell maker gene sets, substantially reducing data dimensionality and improving interpretability. To determine the utility of mousiPLIER, we applied it to a mouse brain aging study of microglia and astrocyte transcriptomic profiling. We found a specific set of latent variables that are significantly associated with aging, including one latent variable (LV41) corresponding to striatal signal. We next performed k-means clustering on the training data to identify studies that respond strongly to LV41, finding that the variable is relevant to striatum and aging across the scientific literature. Finally, we built a web server (http://mousiplier.greenelab.com/) for users to easily explore the learned latent variables. Taken together this study provides proof of concept that mousiPLIER can uncover meaningful biological processes in mouse transcriptomic studies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shuo Zhang
- Department of Systems Pharmacology and Translational Therapeutics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
- Penn Epigenetics Institute, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
| | - Benjamin J. Heil
- Genomics and Computational Biology Graduate Group, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
| | - Weiguang Mao
- Department of Computational and Systems Biology, School of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
| | - Maria Chikina
- Department of Computational and Systems Biology, School of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
| | - Casey S. Greene
- Department of Pharmacology, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Denver, CO 80045, USA
- Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Denver, CO 80045, USA
| | - Elizabeth A. Heller
- Department of Systems Pharmacology and Translational Therapeutics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
- Penn Epigenetics Institute, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
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14
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Vogel AL, Thompson KJ, Straub D, App CB, Gutierrez T, Löffler FE, Kleindienst S. Substrate-independent expression of key functional genes in Cycloclasticus pugetii strain PS-1 limits their use as markers for PAH biodegradation. Front Microbiol 2023; 14:1185619. [PMID: 37455737 PMCID: PMC10338962 DOI: 10.3389/fmicb.2023.1185619] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/13/2023] [Accepted: 05/22/2023] [Indexed: 07/18/2023] Open
Abstract
Microbial degradation of petroleum hydrocarbons is a crucial process for the clean-up of oil-contaminated environments. Cycloclasticus spp. are well-known polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) degraders that possess PAH-degradation marker genes including rhd3α, rhd2α, and pahE. However, it remains unknown if the expression of these genes can serve as an indicator for active PAH degradation. Here, we determined transcript-to-gene (TtG) ratios with (reverse transcription) qPCR in cultures of Cycloclasticus pugetii strain PS-1 grown with naphthalene, phenanthrene, a mixture of these PAHs, or alternate substrates (i.e., no PAHs). Mean TtG ratios of 1.99 × 10-2, 1.80 × 10-3, and 3.20 × 10-3 for rhd3α, rhd2α, and pahE, respectively, were measured in the presence or absence of PAHs. The TtG values suggested that marker-gene expression is independent of PAH degradation. Measurement of TtG ratios in Arctic seawater microcosms amended with water-accommodated crude oil fractions, and incubated under in situ temperature conditions (i.e., 1.5°C), only detected Cycloclasticus spp. rhd2α genes and transcripts (mean TtG ratio of 4.15 × 10-1). The other marker genes-rhd3α and pahE-were not detected, suggesting that not all Cycloclasticus spp. carry these genes and a broader yet-to-be-identified repertoire of PAH-degradation genes exists. The results indicate that the expression of PAH marker genes may not correlate with PAH-degradation activity, and transcription data should be interpreted cautiously.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anjela L. Vogel
- Department of Geosciences, Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
- Department of Environmental Microbiology, Institute for Sanitary Engineering, Water Quality and Solid Waste Management (ISWA), University of Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany
| | - Katharine J. Thompson
- Department of Geosciences, Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
- Department of Environmental Microbiology, Institute for Sanitary Engineering, Water Quality and Solid Waste Management (ISWA), University of Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany
| | - Daniel Straub
- Quantitative Biology Center (QBiC), Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
- Cluster of Excellence: EXC 2124: Controlling Microbes to Fight Infection, Tübingen, Germany
| | - Constantin B. App
- Department of Geosciences, Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
| | - Tony Gutierrez
- School of Engineering and Physical Sciences, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
| | - Frank E. Löffler
- Center for Environmental Biotechnology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, United States
- Department of Microbiology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, United States
- Biosciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN, United States
- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, United States
- Department of Biosystems Engineering and Soil Science, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, United States
| | - Sara Kleindienst
- Department of Geosciences, Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
- Department of Environmental Microbiology, Institute for Sanitary Engineering, Water Quality and Solid Waste Management (ISWA), University of Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany
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15
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Hogle SL, Ruusulehto L, Cairns J, Hultman J, Hiltunen T. Localized coevolution between microbial predator and prey alters community-wide gene expression and ecosystem function. THE ISME JOURNAL 2023; 17:514-524. [PMID: 36658394 PMCID: PMC10030642 DOI: 10.1038/s41396-023-01361-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/06/2022] [Revised: 01/03/2023] [Accepted: 01/06/2023] [Indexed: 01/20/2023]
Abstract
Closely interacting microbial species pairs (e.g., predator and prey) can become coadapted via reciprocal natural selection. A fundamental challenge in evolutionary ecology is to untangle how coevolution in small species groups affects and is affected by biotic interactions in diverse communities. We conducted an experiment with a synthetic 30-species bacterial community where we experimentally manipulated the coevolutionary history of a ciliate predator and one bacterial prey species from the community. Altering the coevolutionary history of the focal prey species had little effect on community structure or carrying capacity in the presence or absence of the coevolved predator. However, community metabolic potential (represented by per-cell ATP concentration) was significantly higher in the presence of both the coevolved focal predator and prey. This ecosystem-level response was mirrored by community-wide transcriptional shifts that resulted in the differential regulation of nutrient acquisition and surface colonization pathways across multiple bacterial species. Our findings show that the disruption of localized coevolution between species pairs can reverberate through community-wide transcriptional networks even while community composition remains largely unchanged. We propose that these altered expression patterns may signal forthcoming evolutionary and ecological change.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shane L Hogle
- Department of Biology, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.
| | - Liisa Ruusulehto
- Department of Microbiology, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
| | - Johannes Cairns
- Department of Computer Science, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
- Organismal and Evolutionary Biology Research Programme, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
| | - Jenni Hultman
- Department of Microbiology, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
- Natural Resources Institute Finland, Helsinki, Finland
| | - Teppo Hiltunen
- Department of Biology, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.
- Department of Microbiology, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.
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16
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Ji Z, Ma L. Controlling taxa abundance improves metatranscriptomics differential analysis. BMC Microbiol 2023; 23:60. [PMID: 36882742 PMCID: PMC9990291 DOI: 10.1186/s12866-023-02799-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/09/2022] [Accepted: 02/17/2023] [Indexed: 03/09/2023] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND A common task in analyzing metatranscriptomics data is to identify microbial metabolic pathways with differential RNA abundances across multiple sample groups. With information from paired metagenomics data, some differential methods control for either DNA or taxa abundances to address their strong correlation with RNA abundance. However, it remains unknown if both factors need to be controlled for simultaneously. RESULTS We discovered that when either DNA or taxa abundance is controlled for, RNA abundance still has a strong partial correlation with the other factor. In both simulation studies and a real data analysis, we demonstrated that controlling for both DNA and taxa abundances leads to superior performance compared to only controlling for one factor. CONCLUSIONS To fully address the confounding effects in analyzing metatranscriptomics data, both DNA and taxa abundances need to be controlled for in the differential analysis.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zhicheng Ji
- Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, Duke University, Durham, USA.
| | - Li Ma
- Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, Duke University, Durham, USA. .,Department of Statistical Science, Duke University, Durham, USA.
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17
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Mehta RS, Mayers JR, Zhang Y, Bhosle A, Glasser NR, Nguyen LH, Ma W, Bae S, Branck T, Song K, Sebastian L, Pacheco JA, Seo HS, Clish C, Dhe-Paganon S, Ananthakrishnan AN, Franzosa EA, Balskus EP, Chan AT, Huttenhower C. Gut microbial metabolism of 5-ASA diminishes its clinical efficacy in inflammatory bowel disease. Nat Med 2023; 29:700-709. [PMID: 36823301 PMCID: PMC10928503 DOI: 10.1038/s41591-023-02217-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 35] [Impact Index Per Article: 35.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/15/2022] [Accepted: 01/10/2023] [Indexed: 02/25/2023]
Abstract
For decades, variability in clinical efficacy of the widely used inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) drug 5-aminosalicylic acid (5-ASA) has been attributed, in part, to its acetylation and inactivation by gut microbes. Identification of the responsible microbes and enzyme(s), however, has proved elusive. To uncover the source of this metabolism, we developed a multi-omics workflow combining gut microbiome metagenomics, metatranscriptomics and metabolomics from the longitudinal IBDMDB cohort of 132 controls and patients with IBD. This associated 12 previously uncharacterized microbial acetyltransferases with 5-ASA inactivation, belonging to two protein superfamilies: thiolases and acyl-CoA N-acyltransferases. In vitro characterization of representatives from both families confirmed the ability of these enzymes to acetylate 5-ASA. A cross-sectional analysis within the discovery cohort and subsequent prospective validation within the independent SPARC IBD cohort (n = 208) found three of these microbial thiolases and one acyl-CoA N-acyltransferase to be epidemiologically associated with an increased risk of treatment failure among 5-ASA users. Together, these data address a longstanding challenge in IBD management, outline a method for the discovery of previously uncharacterized gut microbial activities and advance the possibility of microbiome-based personalized medicine.
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Affiliation(s)
- Raaj S Mehta
- Division of Gastroenterology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
- Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA
- Clinical & Translational Epidemiology Unit, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
- Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Jared R Mayers
- Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
- Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Yancong Zhang
- Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA
- Department of Biostatistics, T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Harvard University, Boston, MA, USA
- Harvard Chan Microbiome in Public Health Center, T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Harvard University, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Amrisha Bhosle
- Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA
- Department of Biostatistics, T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Harvard University, Boston, MA, USA
- Harvard Chan Microbiome in Public Health Center, T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Harvard University, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Nathaniel R Glasser
- Resnick Sustainability Institute, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA
| | - Long H Nguyen
- Division of Gastroenterology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
- Clinical & Translational Epidemiology Unit, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Wenjie Ma
- Division of Gastroenterology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
- Clinical & Translational Epidemiology Unit, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Sena Bae
- Department of Immunology & Infectious Disease, T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Harvard University, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Tobyn Branck
- Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA
- Department of Biostatistics, T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Harvard University, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Kijun Song
- Department of Cancer Biology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Luke Sebastian
- Department of Cancer Biology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | | | - Hyuk-Soo Seo
- Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Clary Clish
- Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Sirano Dhe-Paganon
- Department of Cancer Biology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Ashwin N Ananthakrishnan
- Division of Gastroenterology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
- Clinical & Translational Epidemiology Unit, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Eric A Franzosa
- Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA
- Department of Biostatistics, T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Harvard University, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Emily P Balskus
- Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA
- Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Andrew T Chan
- Division of Gastroenterology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
- Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA
- Clinical & Translational Epidemiology Unit, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
- Department of Immunology & Infectious Disease, T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Harvard University, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Curtis Huttenhower
- Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA.
- Department of Biostatistics, T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Harvard University, Boston, MA, USA.
- Harvard Chan Microbiome in Public Health Center, T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Harvard University, Boston, MA, USA.
- Department of Immunology & Infectious Disease, T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Harvard University, Boston, MA, USA.
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18
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Chen JW, Shrestha L, Green G, Leier A, Marquez-Lago TT. The hitchhikers' guide to RNA sequencing and functional analysis. Brief Bioinform 2023; 24:bbac529. [PMID: 36617463 PMCID: PMC9851315 DOI: 10.1093/bib/bbac529] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/11/2022] [Revised: 10/18/2022] [Accepted: 11/07/2022] [Indexed: 01/10/2023] Open
Abstract
DNA and RNA sequencing technologies have revolutionized biology and biomedical sciences, sequencing full genomes and transcriptomes at very high speeds and reasonably low costs. RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) enables transcript identification and quantification, but once sequencing has concluded researchers can be easily overwhelmed with questions such as how to go from raw data to differential expression (DE), pathway analysis and interpretation. Several pipelines and procedures have been developed to this effect. Even though there is no unique way to perform RNA-Seq analysis, it usually follows these steps: 1) raw reads quality check, 2) alignment of reads to a reference genome, 3) aligned reads' summarization according to an annotation file, 4) DE analysis and 5) gene set analysis and/or functional enrichment analysis. Each step requires researchers to make decisions, and the wide variety of options and resulting large volumes of data often lead to interpretation challenges. There also seems to be insufficient guidance on how best to obtain relevant information and derive actionable knowledge from transcription experiments. In this paper, we explain RNA-Seq steps in detail and outline differences and similarities of different popular options, as well as advantages and disadvantages. We also discuss non-coding RNA analysis, multi-omics, meta-transcriptomics and the use of artificial intelligence methods complementing the arsenal of tools available to researchers. Lastly, we perform a complete analysis from raw reads to DE and functional enrichment analysis, visually illustrating how results are not absolute truths and how algorithmic decisions can greatly impact results and interpretation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jiung-Wen Chen
- Department of Biology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, USA
| | - Lisa Shrestha
- Department of Genetics, University of Alabama at Birmingham, School of Medicine, Birmingham, AL, USA
| | - George Green
- Department of Biology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, USA
| | - André Leier
- Department of Genetics, University of Alabama at Birmingham, School of Medicine, Birmingham, AL, USA
- Department of Cell, Developmental and Integrative Biology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, School of Medicine, Birmingham, AL, USA
| | - Tatiana T Marquez-Lago
- Department of Genetics, University of Alabama at Birmingham, School of Medicine, Birmingham, AL, USA
- Department of Cell, Developmental and Integrative Biology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, School of Medicine, Birmingham, AL, USA
- Department of Microbiology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, School of Medicine, Birmingham, AL, USA
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19
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Jacobs JP, Lagishetty V, Hauer MC, Labus JS, Dong TS, Toma R, Vuyisich M, Naliboff BD, Lackner JM, Gupta A, Tillisch K, Mayer EA. Multi-omics profiles of the intestinal microbiome in irritable bowel syndrome and its bowel habit subtypes. MICROBIOME 2023; 11:5. [PMID: 36624530 PMCID: PMC9830758 DOI: 10.1186/s40168-022-01450-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 25] [Impact Index Per Article: 25.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/23/2022] [Accepted: 12/14/2022] [Indexed: 06/17/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a common gastrointestinal disorder that is thought to involve alterations in the gut microbiome, but robust microbial signatures have been challenging to identify. As prior studies have primarily focused on composition, we hypothesized that multi-omics assessment of microbial function incorporating both metatranscriptomics and metabolomics would further delineate microbial profiles of IBS and its subtypes. METHODS Fecal samples were collected from a racially/ethnically diverse cohort of 495 subjects, including 318 IBS patients and 177 healthy controls, for analysis by 16S rRNA gene sequencing (n = 486), metatranscriptomics (n = 327), and untargeted metabolomics (n = 368). Differentially abundant microbes, predicted genes, transcripts, and metabolites in IBS were identified by multivariate models incorporating age, sex, race/ethnicity, BMI, diet, and HAD-Anxiety. Inter-omic functional relationships were assessed by transcript/gene ratios and microbial metabolic modeling. Differential features were used to construct random forests classifiers. RESULTS IBS was associated with global alterations in microbiome composition by 16S rRNA sequencing and metatranscriptomics, and in microbiome function by predicted metagenomics, metatranscriptomics, and metabolomics. After adjusting for age, sex, race/ethnicity, BMI, diet, and anxiety, IBS was associated with differential abundance of bacterial taxa such as Bacteroides dorei; metabolites including increased tyramine and decreased gentisate and hydrocinnamate; and transcripts related to fructooligosaccharide and polyol utilization. IBS further showed transcriptional upregulation of enzymes involved in fructose and glucan metabolism as well as the succinate pathway of carbohydrate fermentation. A multi-omics classifier for IBS had significantly higher accuracy (AUC 0.82) than classifiers using individual datasets. Diarrhea-predominant IBS (IBS-D) demonstrated shifts in the metatranscriptome and metabolome including increased bile acids, polyamines, succinate pathway intermediates (malate, fumarate), and transcripts involved in fructose, mannose, and polyol metabolism compared to constipation-predominant IBS (IBS-C). A classifier incorporating metabolites and gene-normalized transcripts differentiated IBS-D from IBS-C with high accuracy (AUC 0.86). CONCLUSIONS IBS is characterized by a multi-omics microbial signature indicating increased capacity to utilize fermentable carbohydrates-consistent with the clinical benefit of diets restricting this energy source-that also includes multiple previously unrecognized metabolites and metabolic pathways. These findings support the need for integrative assessment of microbial function to investigate the microbiome in IBS and identify novel microbiome-related therapeutic targets. Video Abstract.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jonathan P Jacobs
- Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases, Department of Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
- G. Oppenheimer Center for Neurobiology of Stress and Resilience, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
- Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Parenteral Nutrition, VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
| | - Venu Lagishetty
- Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases, Department of Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Megan C Hauer
- Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases, Department of Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Jennifer S Labus
- Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases, Department of Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA
- G. Oppenheimer Center for Neurobiology of Stress and Resilience, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Tien S Dong
- Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases, Department of Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA
- Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Parenteral Nutrition, VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Ryan Toma
- Viome Life Sciences, Bellevue, WA, USA
| | | | - Bruce D Naliboff
- Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases, Department of Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA
- G. Oppenheimer Center for Neurobiology of Stress and Resilience, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Jeffrey M Lackner
- Division of Behavioral Medicine, Department of Medicine, Jacobs School of Medicine, University at Buffalo, SUNY, Buffalo, NY, USA
| | - Arpana Gupta
- Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases, Department of Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA
- G. Oppenheimer Center for Neurobiology of Stress and Resilience, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Kirsten Tillisch
- Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases, Department of Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA
- G. Oppenheimer Center for Neurobiology of Stress and Resilience, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA
- Integrative Medicine, VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Emeran A Mayer
- Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases, Department of Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
- G. Oppenheimer Center for Neurobiology of Stress and Resilience, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
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20
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Mallick H, Chatterjee S, Chowdhury S, Chatterjee S, Rahnavard A, Hicks SC. Differential expression of single-cell RNA-seq data using Tweedie models. Stat Med 2022; 41:3492-3510. [PMID: 35656596 PMCID: PMC9288986 DOI: 10.1002/sim.9430] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/25/2021] [Revised: 04/21/2022] [Accepted: 04/22/2022] [Indexed: 12/13/2022]
Abstract
The performance of computational methods and software to identify differentially expressed features in single-cell RNA-sequencing (scRNA-seq) has been shown to be influenced by several factors, including the choice of the normalization method used and the choice of the experimental platform (or library preparation protocol) to profile gene expression in individual cells. Currently, it is up to the practitioner to choose the most appropriate differential expression (DE) method out of over 100 DE tools available to date, each relying on their own assumptions to model scRNA-seq expression features. To model the technological variability in cross-platform scRNA-seq data, here we propose to use Tweedie generalized linear models that can flexibly capture a large dynamic range of observed scRNA-seq expression profiles across experimental platforms induced by platform- and gene-specific statistical properties such as heavy tails, sparsity, and gene expression distributions. We also propose a zero-inflated Tweedie model that allows zero probability mass to exceed a traditional Tweedie distribution to model zero-inflated scRNA-seq data with excessive zero counts. Using both synthetic and published plate- and droplet-based scRNA-seq datasets, we perform a systematic benchmark evaluation of more than 10 representative DE methods and demonstrate that our method (Tweedieverse) outperforms the state-of-the-art DE approaches across experimental platforms in terms of statistical power and false discovery rate control. Our open-source software (R/Bioconductor package) is available at https://github.com/himelmallick/Tweedieverse.
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Affiliation(s)
- Himel Mallick
- Biostatistics and Research Decision Sciences, Merck &
Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ 07065, USA
| | - Suvo Chatterjee
- Epidemiology Branch, Division of Intramural Population
Health Research, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child
Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892,
USA
| | - Shrabanti Chowdhury
- Department of Genetics and Genomic Sciences and Icahn
Institute for Data Science and Genomic Technology, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount
Sinai, New York, NY 10029, USA
| | - Saptarshi Chatterjee
- Department of Statistics, Data and Analytics, Eli Lilly
& Company, Indianapolis, IN 46225, USA
| | - Ali Rahnavard
- Computational Biology Institute, Department of
Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, Milken Institute School of Public Health, The
George Washington University, Washington, DC 20052, USA
| | - Stephanie C. Hicks
- Department of Biostatistics, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School
of Public Health, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA
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21
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Zhang Y, Bhosle A, Bae S, McIver LJ, Pishchany G, Accorsi EK, Thompson KN, Arze C, Wang Y, Subramanian A, Kearney SM, Pawluk A, Plichta DR, Rahnavard A, Shafquat A, Xavier RJ, Vlamakis H, Garrett WS, Krueger A, Huttenhower C, Franzosa EA. Discovery of bioactive microbial gene products in inflammatory bowel disease. Nature 2022; 606:754-760. [PMID: 35614211 PMCID: PMC9913614 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-04648-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 33] [Impact Index Per Article: 16.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/16/2020] [Accepted: 03/15/2022] [Indexed: 01/26/2023]
Abstract
Microbial communities and their associated bioactive compounds1-3 are often disrupted in conditions such as the inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD)4. However, even in well-characterized environments (for example, the human gastrointestinal tract), more than one-third of microbial proteins are uncharacterized and often expected to be bioactive5-7. Here we systematically identified more than 340,000 protein families as potentially bioactive with respect to gut inflammation during IBD, about half of which have not to our knowledge been functionally characterized previously on the basis of homology or experiment. To validate prioritized microbial proteins, we used a combination of metagenomics, metatranscriptomics and metaproteomics to provide evidence of bioactivity for a subset of proteins that are involved in host and microbial cell-cell communication in the microbiome; for example, proteins associated with adherence or invasion processes, and extracellular von Willebrand-like factors. Predictions from high-throughput data were validated using targeted experiments that revealed the differential immunogenicity of prioritized Enterobacteriaceae pilins and the contribution of homologues of von Willebrand factors to the formation of Bacteroides biofilms in a manner dependent on mucin levels. This methodology, which we term MetaWIBELE (workflow to identify novel bioactive elements in the microbiome), is generalizable to other environmental communities and human phenotypes. The prioritized results provide thousands of candidate microbial proteins that are likely to interact with the host immune system in IBD, thus expanding our understanding of potentially bioactive gene products in chronic disease states and offering a rational compendium of possible therapeutic compounds and targets.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yancong Zhang
- Infectious Disease and Microbiome Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA,Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA,Harvard Chan Microbiome in Public Health Center, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Amrisha Bhosle
- Infectious Disease and Microbiome Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA,Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA,Harvard Chan Microbiome in Public Health Center, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Sena Bae
- Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA,Harvard Chan Microbiome in Public Health Center, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA,Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Lauren J. McIver
- Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA,Harvard Chan Microbiome in Public Health Center, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Gleb Pishchany
- Infectious Disease and Microbiome Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA,Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Emma K. Accorsi
- Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA,Harvard Chan Microbiome in Public Health Center, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA,Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Kelsey N. Thompson
- Infectious Disease and Microbiome Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA,Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA,Harvard Chan Microbiome in Public Health Center, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Cesar Arze
- Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Ya Wang
- Infectious Disease and Microbiome Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA,Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA,Harvard Chan Microbiome in Public Health Center, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Ayshwarya Subramanian
- Infectious Disease and Microbiome Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA,Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Sean M. Kearney
- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - April Pawluk
- Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA,Harvard Chan Microbiome in Public Health Center, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Damian R. Plichta
- Infectious Disease and Microbiome Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Ali Rahnavard
- Infectious Disease and Microbiome Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA,Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Afrah Shafquat
- Infectious Disease and Microbiome Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA,Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Ramnik J. Xavier
- Infectious Disease and Microbiome Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA,Gastrointestinal Unit and Center for the Study of Inflammatory Bowel Disease, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA,Center for Microbiome Informatics and Therapeutics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Hera Vlamakis
- Infectious Disease and Microbiome Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Wendy S. Garrett
- Infectious Disease and Microbiome Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA,Harvard Chan Microbiome in Public Health Center, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA,Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA,Department of Medical Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Andy Krueger
- Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Curtis Huttenhower
- Infectious Disease and Microbiome Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA. .,Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA. .,Harvard Chan Microbiome in Public Health Center, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA. .,Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA.
| | - Eric A. Franzosa
- Infectious Disease and Microbiome Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA,Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA,Harvard Chan Microbiome in Public Health Center, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA,These authors jointly supervised this work: Curtis Huttenhower & Eric A. Franzosa
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22
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Dahan E, Martin VM, Yassour M. EasyMap - An Interactive Web Tool for Evaluating and Comparing Associations of Clinical Variables and Microbiome Composition. Front Cell Infect Microbiol 2022; 12:854164. [PMID: 35646745 PMCID: PMC9136407 DOI: 10.3389/fcimb.2022.854164] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/13/2022] [Accepted: 04/05/2022] [Indexed: 12/30/2022] Open
Abstract
One of the most common tasks in microbiome studies is comparing microbial profiles across various groups of people (e.g., sick vs. healthy). Routinely, researchers use multivariate linear regression models to address these challenges, such as linear regression packages, MaAsLin2, LEfSe, etc. In many cases, it is unclear which metadata variables should be included in the linear model, as many human-associated variables are correlated with one another. Thus, multiple models are often tested, each including a different set of variables, however the challenge of selecting the metadata variables in the final model remains. Here, we present EasyMap, an interactive online tool allowing for (1) running multiple multivariate linear regression models, on the same features and metadata; (2) visualizing the associations between microbial features and clinical metadata found in each model; and (3) comparing across the various models to identify the critical metadata variables and select the optimal model. EasyMap provides a side-by-side visualization of association results across the various models, each with additional metadata variables, enabling us to evaluate the impact of each metadata variable on the associated feature. EasyMap’s interface enables filtering associations by significance, focusing on specific microbes and finding the robust associations that are found across multiple models. While EasyMap was designed to analyze microbiome data, it can handle any other tabular data with numeric features and metadata variables. EasyMap takes the common task of multivariate linear regression to the next level, with an intuitive and simple user interface, allowing for wide comparisons of multiple models to identify the robust microbial feature associations. EasyMap is available at http://yassour.rcs.huji.ac.il/easymap.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ehud Dahan
- Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, Faculty of Medicine, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel
| | - Victoria M. Martin
- Department of Pediatrics, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, United States
| | - Moran Yassour
- Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, Faculty of Medicine, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel
- School of Computer Science & Engineering, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel
- *Correspondence: Moran Yassour,
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23
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Pratt M, Forbes JD, Knox NC, Bernstein CN, Van Domselaar G. Microbiome-Mediated Immune Signaling in Inflammatory Bowel Disease and Colorectal Cancer: Support From Meta-omics Data. Front Cell Dev Biol 2021; 9:716604. [PMID: 34869308 PMCID: PMC8635193 DOI: 10.3389/fcell.2021.716604] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/28/2021] [Accepted: 10/31/2021] [Indexed: 12/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Chronic intestinal inflammation and microbial dysbiosis are hallmarks of colorectal cancer (CRC) and inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), such as Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. However, the mechanistic relationship between gut dysbiosis and disease has not yet been fully characterized. Although the “trigger” of intestinal inflammation remains unknown, a wealth of evidence supports the role of the gut microbiome as a mutualistic pseudo-organ that significantly influences intestinal homeostasis and is capable of regulating host immunity. In recent years, culture-independent methods for assessing microbial communities as a whole (termed meta-omics) have grown beyond taxonomic identification and genome characterization (metagenomics) into new fields of research that collectively expand our knowledge of microbiomes. Metatranscriptomics, metaproteomics, and metabolomics are meta-omics techniques that aim to describe and quantify the functional activity of the gut microbiome. Uncovering microbial metabolic contributions in the context of IBD and CRC using these approaches provides insight into how the metabolic microenvironment of the GI tract shapes microbial community structure and how the microbiome, in turn, influences the surrounding ecosystem. Immunological studies in germ-free and wild-type mice have described several host-microbiome interactions that may play a role in autoinflammation. Chronic colitis is a precursor to CRC, and changes in the gut microbiome may be an important link triggering the neoplastic process in chronic colitis. In this review, we describe several microbiome-mediated mechanisms of host immune signaling, such as short-chain fatty acid (SCFA) and bile acid metabolism, inflammasome activation, and cytokine regulation in the context of IBD and CRC, and discuss the supporting role for these mechanisms by meta-omics data.
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Affiliation(s)
- Molly Pratt
- Department of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada
| | - Jessica D Forbes
- Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
| | - Natalie C Knox
- Department of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada.,National Microbiology Laboratory, Public Health Agency of Canada, Winnipeg, MB, Canada
| | - Charles N Bernstein
- Department of Internal Medicine, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada.,IBD Clinical and Research Centre, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada
| | - Gary Van Domselaar
- Department of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada.,National Microbiology Laboratory, Public Health Agency of Canada, Winnipeg, MB, Canada
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24
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Mallick H, Rahnavard A, McIver LJ, Ma S, Zhang Y, Nguyen LH, Tickle TL, Weingart G, Ren B, Schwager EH, Chatterjee S, Thompson KN, Wilkinson JE, Subramanian A, Lu Y, Waldron L, Paulson JN, Franzosa EA, Bravo HC, Huttenhower C. Multivariable association discovery in population-scale meta-omics studies. PLoS Comput Biol 2021; 17:e1009442. [PMID: 34784344 PMCID: PMC8714082 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1009442] [Citation(s) in RCA: 736] [Impact Index Per Article: 245.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/05/2021] [Revised: 12/28/2021] [Accepted: 09/09/2021] [Indexed: 12/13/2022] Open
Abstract
It is challenging to associate features such as human health outcomes, diet, environmental conditions, or other metadata to microbial community measurements, due in part to their quantitative properties. Microbiome multi-omics are typically noisy, sparse (zero-inflated), high-dimensional, extremely non-normal, and often in the form of count or compositional measurements. Here we introduce an optimized combination of novel and established methodology to assess multivariable association of microbial community features with complex metadata in population-scale observational studies. Our approach, MaAsLin 2 (Microbiome Multivariable Associations with Linear Models), uses generalized linear and mixed models to accommodate a wide variety of modern epidemiological studies, including cross-sectional and longitudinal designs, as well as a variety of data types (e.g., counts and relative abundances) with or without covariates and repeated measurements. To construct this method, we conducted a large-scale evaluation of a broad range of scenarios under which straightforward identification of meta-omics associations can be challenging. These simulation studies reveal that MaAsLin 2's linear model preserves statistical power in the presence of repeated measures and multiple covariates, while accounting for the nuances of meta-omics features and controlling false discovery. We also applied MaAsLin 2 to a microbial multi-omics dataset from the Integrative Human Microbiome (HMP2) project which, in addition to reproducing established results, revealed a unique, integrated landscape of inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) across multiple time points and omics profiles.
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Affiliation(s)
- Himel Mallick
- Biostatistics Department, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
- The Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Ali Rahnavard
- Computational Biology Institute, Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, Milken Institute School of Public Health, George Washington University, Washington DC, United States of America
| | - Lauren J. McIver
- Biostatistics Department, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
- The Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Siyuan Ma
- Biostatistics Department, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
- The Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Yancong Zhang
- Biostatistics Department, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
- The Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Long H. Nguyen
- Biostatistics Department, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
- Clinical and Translational Epidemiology Unit, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
- Division of Gastroenterology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Timothy L. Tickle
- The Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - George Weingart
- Biostatistics Department, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
- The Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Boyu Ren
- Biostatistics Department, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
- The Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Emma H. Schwager
- Biostatistics Department, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
- The Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Suvo Chatterjee
- Epidemiology Branch, Division of Intramural Population Health Research, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America
| | - Kelsey N. Thompson
- Biostatistics Department, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Jeremy E. Wilkinson
- Biostatistics Department, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Ayshwarya Subramanian
- Biostatistics Department, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
- The Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Yiren Lu
- Biostatistics Department, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Levi Waldron
- Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, CUNY School of Public Health, New York City, New York, United States of America
| | - Joseph N. Paulson
- Department of Biostatistics, Product Development, Genentech, Inc., South San Francisco, California, United States of America
| | - Eric A. Franzosa
- Biostatistics Department, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
- The Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Hector Corrada Bravo
- Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, United States of America
| | - Curtis Huttenhower
- Biostatistics Department, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
- The Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
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25
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Mallick H, Rahnavard A, McIver LJ, Ma S, Zhang Y, Nguyen LH, Tickle TL, Weingart G, Ren B, Schwager EH, Chatterjee S, Thompson KN, Wilkinson JE, Subramanian A, Lu Y, Waldron L, Paulson JN, Franzosa EA, Bravo HC, Huttenhower C. Multivariable association discovery in population-scale meta-omics studies. PLoS Comput Biol 2021. [PMID: 34784344 DOI: 10.1101/2021.01.20.427420v1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/07/2023] Open
Abstract
It is challenging to associate features such as human health outcomes, diet, environmental conditions, or other metadata to microbial community measurements, due in part to their quantitative properties. Microbiome multi-omics are typically noisy, sparse (zero-inflated), high-dimensional, extremely non-normal, and often in the form of count or compositional measurements. Here we introduce an optimized combination of novel and established methodology to assess multivariable association of microbial community features with complex metadata in population-scale observational studies. Our approach, MaAsLin 2 (Microbiome Multivariable Associations with Linear Models), uses generalized linear and mixed models to accommodate a wide variety of modern epidemiological studies, including cross-sectional and longitudinal designs, as well as a variety of data types (e.g., counts and relative abundances) with or without covariates and repeated measurements. To construct this method, we conducted a large-scale evaluation of a broad range of scenarios under which straightforward identification of meta-omics associations can be challenging. These simulation studies reveal that MaAsLin 2's linear model preserves statistical power in the presence of repeated measures and multiple covariates, while accounting for the nuances of meta-omics features and controlling false discovery. We also applied MaAsLin 2 to a microbial multi-omics dataset from the Integrative Human Microbiome (HMP2) project which, in addition to reproducing established results, revealed a unique, integrated landscape of inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) across multiple time points and omics profiles.
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Affiliation(s)
- Himel Mallick
- Biostatistics Department, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
- The Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Ali Rahnavard
- Computational Biology Institute, Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, Milken Institute School of Public Health, George Washington University, Washington DC, United States of America
| | - Lauren J McIver
- Biostatistics Department, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
- The Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Siyuan Ma
- Biostatistics Department, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
- The Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Yancong Zhang
- Biostatistics Department, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
- The Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Long H Nguyen
- Biostatistics Department, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
- Clinical and Translational Epidemiology Unit, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
- Division of Gastroenterology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Timothy L Tickle
- The Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - George Weingart
- Biostatistics Department, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
- The Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Boyu Ren
- Biostatistics Department, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
- The Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Emma H Schwager
- Biostatistics Department, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
- The Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Suvo Chatterjee
- Epidemiology Branch, Division of Intramural Population Health Research, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America
| | - Kelsey N Thompson
- Biostatistics Department, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Jeremy E Wilkinson
- Biostatistics Department, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Ayshwarya Subramanian
- Biostatistics Department, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
- The Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Yiren Lu
- Biostatistics Department, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Levi Waldron
- Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, CUNY School of Public Health, New York City, New York, United States of America
| | - Joseph N Paulson
- Department of Biostatistics, Product Development, Genentech, Inc., South San Francisco, California, United States of America
| | - Eric A Franzosa
- Biostatistics Department, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
- The Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Hector Corrada Bravo
- Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, United States of America
| | - Curtis Huttenhower
- Biostatistics Department, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
- The Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
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