This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"The period shortly after birth is a critical window for microbiome establishment. Antibiotics can impact this process, often negatively, but most of the research to date has been conducted on full-term infants and has rarely included infants that never received antibiotics, complicating the analysis. A recent study sought to close these gaps and examined the skin and gut microbiomes of preterm infants. While gestational age at birth had some influence on the maturation of the microbiome, postnatal age had a stronger impact. But brief exposure to antibiotics reversed the maturation trajectory between weeks one and three after birth, and antibiotic exposure impacted the abundance of potentially beneficial gut microbes. Some bacteria in our microbiome generate short-chain fatty acids, like butyrate and acetate, that our cells can use, but at three weeks after birth, the antibiotic-exposed infants had an altered microbiome with reduced capacity to produce these important metabolites..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Antimicrobial resistance is a looming threat to global health. As a result, the livestock industry is moving away from using antibiotics in feed to enhance growth. But this shift may have led to increased rates of systemic infections and reduced production efficiency. Alternatives for antibiotic growth promotants (AGPs) are needed, but the mechanism behind the efficiency of AGPs is largely unknown. So, a recent study systematically evaluated the composition and function of the chicken gut microbial community in response to AGPs. The impact of AGPs was dependent on the birds' age and diet as well as the intestinal sampling location. Overall, AGPs had a limited impact on the abundances of specific microbial groups but did shift which groups were influential and exclude others. The chicken gut microbiome functionally responded to AGPs by changing the expression of multiple pathways, including by increasing expression of cell wall formation and antimicrobial resistance mechanism genes..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Antibiotic resistance is a growing threat to human and animal health, and this problem is accelerated by the transfer of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) between individual bacteria. ARGs tend to accumulate in the gut microbes of animals, and they reflect the resistome, or collection of ARGs, of the environment. Thus, one way to monitor the resistome of an environment could be sampling the gut microbiomes of animals. To that end, researchers examined the gut resistomes of two domesticated honeybee species, _Apis cerana_ and _Apis mellifera_. The resistome corresponded most strongly with the honeybee host species, rather than geographic region. The more heavily managed species, _A. mellifera_, carried the most ARGs and had the heaviest load of transferrable ARGs. However, transferrable ARGs were common in the microbiomes from both honeybee species..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Antibiotics are critical treatments for bacterial infections, but antibiotic resistance is a growing problem. Wastewater treatment plants may foster resistance development, since sewage contains both human pathogens and antibiotics or their metabolite. The activated sludge (AS) stage commonly used to treat sewage at these plants is especially microbe-rich and may encourage transfer of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) through reproduction (vertical transfer) or movement of mobile genetic elements (horizontal transfer). To learn more, a recent study profiled ARGs and their neighboring genes at five wastewater treatment plants on three continents. Overall, ARG abundance was lower in AS than in incoming sewage (IN). In addition, ARGs tended to colocalize with plasmids and other mobile genetic elements to a greater extent in IN than AS, indicating decreased horizontal transfer potential..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Antibiotic resistance is a growing problem worldwide—and in outer space. Spaceflight can promote biofilm formation and antimicrobial resistance development, and astronauts are especially vulnerable to infection due to the unique demands of spaceflight. To support future space travel, it is critical to understand exactly how spaceflight affects microbial diversity and virulence. To learn more, researchers recently used a machine learning algorithm to analyze sequencing data from the Microbial Tracking (MT)-1 mission, which sampled microbes at eight locations on the International Space Station during three flights. The model predicted the presence of hundreds of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in the 226 bacterial strains isolated from the flights, including strains of the potentially very pathogenic bacterium Enterobacter bugandensis and the food poisoning-related bacterium Bacillus cereus..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Resistance to antibiotics is a growing global threat to human and animal health. Much of the current research into antibiotic resistance has focused on the human gut, but significantly less of it has examined rivers, which are akin to a terrestrial ‘gut.’ To close this gap, researchers examined the antibiotic resistance genes and their hosts in the 3rd longest river in the world, the Yangtze. They identified 1853 species of antibiotic-resistant bacteria that collectively carried 31 types of antibiotic resistance genes. Human pathogenic bacteria carried a disproportionately large share of the resistance genes. Specifically, human pathogens accounted for 5.9% of the host population found in the river sediment, but they carried 46% of the resistance genes there. In the water column, human pathogens carried 64% of the resistance genes while representing only 13.4% of the host population. The dominant antibiotic resistance genes differed from those found in the human gut, anthropogenic systems, or lakes..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Antibiotics are powerful for fighting infection. But they could create a dangerous imbalance in the gut, where the eradication of harmful bacteria might make room for gut fungi to invade. To find out, researchers analyzed stool samples from 14 healthy participants. Samples were collected over 3 months following a 6-day course of antibiotics. While the bacterial community mostly rebounded over those 3 months, the fungal community shifted from one characterized largely by mutually beneficial interactions (red) to one fraught with competitive interactions (blue) with half of the bacterial-fungal interactions detected before the antibiotic treatment disappearing 3 months later. Metagenomics data revealed that certain bacteria normally help keep opportunistic fungal pathogens like Candida albicans in check. Understanding how could help researchers find ways to restore balance to the gut microbiome following drug treatment or during disease..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Among the many complications patients with diabetes can experience, cognitive decline is one of them. Diabetes-induced cognitive decline, or DICD, begins with damage to the central nervous system and can result in impaired learning, memory, and judgment. A recent study found that in mice with DICD, injection with the antidiabetic protein FGF1 improved cognition. In a water maze task designed to test memory, diabetic mice treated with FGF1 (db/db+FGF1) reached their goal significantly faster than untreated mice with diabetes (db/db). And the brains of untreated mice (db/db) showed more shrinkage than those of treated mice (db/db+FGF1). Further research should help clarify how FGF1 reduces symptoms of both diabetes and DICD and whether FGF1 might be an effective treatment option for patients with DICD..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Renal cancer affects over 400,000 people each year, and new treatment options are needed. A new study unraveled a paradox taking place in the immune systems of cancer patients. Myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs), driven by tumor cells, have the ability to suppress the immune responses of T cells, preventing T-cell recognition of tumor cells and allowing immune escape. However, mice and humans with renal tumors do not experience systemic immunosuppression. Researchers used mice to examine renal cancer-derived exosomes (RDEs), extracellular vesicles derived from tumor cells. They found that the proportion and activity of MDSCs in the spleen and bone marrow changed after internalization of RDEs. RDE-stimulated MDSCs inhibited T cell proliferation and cytotoxicity, and these effects were antigen-specific and driven by the molecule HSP70 in RDEs and TLR2 on MDSCs, explaining the targeted immunosuppression of the renal cancer-specific immune response..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"The rapid spread of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a growing public health and environmental problem, except, presumably, in remote regions like Antarctica. Antarctica is considered the most pristine continent because of its minimal human activity confined to specific research stations, so it’s an ideal location to study the early mechanisms of AMR acquisition. Existing evidence suggests that although human gut bacteria have colonized native wildlife around research stations, AMR in birds and seals is minimal. However, the research so far has been limited, and the standards and methods used have varied widely. In addition, much of the continent remains unsampled, making a comprehensive AMR assessment impossible. Implementation of continent-wide standards for AMR reporting would help future studies produce meaningful and comparable results that can be used to understand AMR acquisition in other regions of the globe..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Antimicrobials are commonly used in agriculture and are important for animal health. This use drives most of the antimicrobial use globally and has led to an increase in antimicrobial resistance (AMR), including resistance to antimicrobials that are critical in human medicine. Researchers recently examined the AMR profiles of over 400 pigs, including wild boars, Tibetan pigs, and commercial pigs, under multiple rearing modes. They identified over a thousand potential antimicrobial resistance gene (ARG) sequences that belonged to 69 different drug resistance classes. From this dataset a few patterns emerged. Tetracycline resistance was the most enriched, but aminoglycoside resistance had the most unique ARGs. Farm-reared pigs had higher AMR levels than semi-free-range pigs or wild boars..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is an increasingly serious threat to global public health. New resistance mechanisms reduce our ability to treat common infectious diseases. Although microorganisms possessing AMR genes are thought to have emerged from natural habitats, better understanding is needed. A new study sought to examine the consequences of introducing antimicrobials into natural environments. Using lichen – a model for well-defined micro-ecosystems consisting of hundreds of microbial species – researchers evaluated changes in microbial communities following exposure to different antimicrobials. They found that the native lichen microbiome comprises highly diverse and low-abundance intrinsic antimicrobial resistance genes (ARGs) to cope with antimicrobial pressure. Antimicrobial-specific shifts occurred in the structure and function of the microbiome following 10 days of exposure to antimicrobials..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Background: In modern animal husbandry, breeders pay increasing attention to improving sow nutrition during pregnancy and lactation to favor the health of neonates. Sow milk is a main food for piglets during their first three weeks of life, which is not only a rich repository of essential nutrients and a broad range of bioactive compounds, but also an indispensable source of commensal bacteria. Maternal milk microorganisms are important sources of commensal bacteria for neonatal gut. Bacteria from maternal milk may serve as an additive to confer a health benefit on the composition of the indigenous microbiota of piglets. Methods: The sow milk microbiota was collected using the culturomics methods of Continuous Culture and Interval Sampling, following by the identification of 16S rDNA gene sequences..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Polyphenols are micronutrients found in a variety of plant-based foods, including red wine, chocolate, and green tea. Daily consumption of polyphenols offers several health benefits. The polyphenol EGCG, found in green tea, possesses anti-inflammatory properties and has been linked to a reduced risk of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). But one important factor that’s remained underexplored in studies of EGCG is the effect of the gut microbiome. Now, a new study of gut microbes in mice may pave the way for understanding EGCG's anti-inflammatory effects in the intestine. Researchers first confirmed that feeding EGCG to mice with colitis alleviated symptoms of disease. Experiments then showed that EGCG altered the makeup and function of the intestinal microbial community. The team found that EGCG had the same protective and microbiome-altering effects even when given to mice before they developed colitis..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Radiation is a powerful therapy for fighting cancer. But it can prove toxic to tissues in the bone marrow and gastrointestinal tract, a condition known as acute radiation syndrome. In 2017, researchers discovered that transplanting fecal matter from healthy mice to mice with acute radiation syndrome can alleviate radiation toxicity. To find out how, the researchers analyzed fecal pellets from mice receiving radiation to treat tumors. They discovered elevated levels of indole 3-propionic acid, or IPA, a protective antioxidant produced by microbes in the gut, suggesting that IPA is lost following exposure to radiation. Administering IPA orally to irradiated mice recouped this loss. and produced notable improvements in the spleen and thymus of mice with acute radiation syndrome without accelerating tumor growth. The evidence suggests that administering IPA could be a safe way to prevent acute radiation syndrome during radiotherapy without requiring fecal matter transplantation..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.