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.

Biology is designed for multi-semester biology courses for science majors. It is grounded on an evolutionary basis and includes exciting features that highlight careers in the biological sciences and everyday applications of the concepts at hand. To meet the needs of today’s instructors and students, some content has been strategically condensed while maintaining the overall scope and coverage of traditional texts for this course. Instructors can customize the book, adapting it to the approach that works best in their classroom. Biology also includes an innovative art program that incorporates critical thinking and clicker questions to help students understand—and apply—key concepts.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:Explain systems biologyDescribe a proteomeDefine protein signature

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:

"_Clostridioides difficile_ infection (CDI), the most common hospital-acquired infection in the U.S., can cause severe diarrhea and even death, and more than 15% of infected individuals experience recurrent infection within 8 weeks. CDI is related to gut microbiome imbalance, but the factors that influence recurrence are not well understood. To identify potential predictors of recurrence, researchers sequenced and metabolically profiled the gut microbiomes of 53 patients with CDI over time. Compared to patients with no recurrence, patients with recurrent CDI had slower recovery of gut microbial diversity, and depletion of important anaerobic microbes, such as certain _Clostridium_ species. The patients with recurrent CDI also had delayed recovery of microbial metabolites in the gut, which was likely associated with dysfunction of the microbiome or of the host tissue..."

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:

"Of all the forms of cancer, few are as aggressive as pancreatic adenocarcinoma. The discovery of a tumor in the pancreas is often accompanied by an extremely poor prognosis, even when surgery is an option. But a new technique could help doctors design better treatment strategies for patients with this type of cancer. A recent study carried out by researchers from France and the US highlights a promising new approach to rapidly distinguish pancreatic cancer cells from healthy ones and to predict a patient’s chances of survival after diagnosis. Such predictive power would allow physicians to better assess a patient’s surgical needs and recommend a more personalized treatment plan..."

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 composition of the gut microbiome is affected by diet as well as obesity, which can itself be diet-related, but the comparative influences of these factors are unclear. To explore the complex interactions among diet, obesity, and gut microbes, researchers examined female monkeys fed either a Western or Mediterranean diet. Metagenomic sequencing of fecal samples revealed that diet was the main contributor to gut bacterial diversity. Compared with the Western diet group, the Mediterranean diet group had greater overall diversity and different abundance of 54 bacterial species. Within each diet group, leaner and heavier monkeys also had subtly different microbiomes. Interestingly, the Western diet-fed group had more Prevotella copri and had high-P. copri and low-P. copri subgroups. High-P. copri monkeys had lower diversity than low-P. copri monkeys and different proportions of some microbes. Untargeted metabolomics of urine and plasma also suggested that the high-P..."

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 omega-3 fatty acids EPA and DHA may help prevent metabolic diseases and alleviate microbiome disruption, but how these fatty acids affect the gut microbiome and metabolome in diabetes remains unclear. To learn more, a new study examined the gut health of diabetic (db/db) mice fed EPA-/DHA-supplemented diets. Both EPA and DHA improved blood sugar-related indices in diabetic mice without affecting body weight and distinctly altered mouse gut microbiomes and fecal metabolomic profiles. In addition, both fatty acids accelerated gut glutamate degradation, which was strongly correlated with Coriobacteriaceae bacterial abundance. EPA and DHA increased the levels of beneficial short-chain fatty acids, while EPA decreased the levels of the bacterial endotoxin LPS. Notably, all of the effects were more evident for EPA than for DHA..."

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:

"Staphylococcus aureus is a common commensal that can cause an array of serious human diseases, from mild skin infection to life-threatening disease. S. aureus can rapidly adapt to selective pressures such as antibiotics, and this ability is enhanced by biofilm formation on implanted medical devices. With antibiotic resistance on the rise, there is a growing need to find non-antibiotic alternatives to treat serious infections. One such alternative is bacteriophage therapy, which introduces viruses that selectively infect and kill bacteria. A recent study sought to better understand the impact of bacteriophage therapy on the host microbiome. In a follow-up to a case study of a patient with an implanted cardiac device who was treated with bacteriophage therapy combined with antibiotics for a persistent S. aureus infection, researchers used high-throughput sequencing to evaluate patient microbial samples from the gut, saliva, and skin..."

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:

"Our microbiome has profound impacts on our health, and technological advances have allowed for ever-growing pools of data from microbiome-wide studies. This means that our microbiome could be used to estimate disease risk, but the nature of the data makes the endeavor difficult. Similar issues with using genetics to predict disease risk led to the development of the polygenic risk score. Motivated by the success of that framework, a team of researchers recently developed the microbial risk score (MRS). MRS summarizes the complex microbial profile by first identifying a sub- community consisting of disease-associated microbial taxa and then integrating those microbial taxa into a continuous score based on the alpha diversity of the identified sub-community. MRS can be easily integrated with the other risk scores built upon metatranscriptomics, host genetics, or host transcriptomics, making it useful for 'multi-omics' approaches as well..."

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:

"Diarrhea is common among calves and causes huge losses to the global cattle industry. Fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) is one promising approach to prevent and treat calf diarrhea. However, achieving success with FMT is difficult because of farm management differences, a lack of good donors, and the difficulty of recipient selection. To guide more effective FMT, a recent study investigated factors related to FMT success or failure in 20 donor–recipient pairs. The overall success rate for diarrhea improvement was 70%. Selenomonas bacteria were found in both donors and recipients when FMT was successful, suggesting that Selenomonas may be a biomarker of donor–recipient compatibility, and Sporobacter was identified as a potential biomarker for good donor selection. Pairs of correlations between specific microbial taxa and metabolites were also linked to success, and low levels of pre-FMT glycerol 3-phosphate, dihydroxyacetone phosphate, and isoamylamine were predicted to facilitate good results..."

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:

"Flavonoids are ubiquitous, nutritionally non-essential natural products of plants and they are frequently used to promote health. However, flavonoid metabolism and the impact of flavonoids on gut microbiomes are not well understood. Bamboo is particularly flavonoid rich, making giant pandas, with their all-bamboo diet, a unique research target. A recent study examined the diet, feces, and plasma of giant pandas to get a comprehensive view of flavonoid metabolism and its impact on the gut microbiome. The researchers found that bamboo leaves had more flavonoids than bamboo shoots. They also found that only a small fraction of dietary flavonoids were absorbed into the bloodstream and that the gut microbiota extensively utilized and transformed the flavonoids. The seasonal shifts in the flavonoid profile of bamboo drove changes to the gut microbial composition..."

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:

"This small hormone found in the mitochondria is known as MOTS-c. MOTS-c is known to regulate metabolic functions throughout the body, most importantly turning glucose into usable energy. Now, new research shows that MOTS-c could help boost glucose metabolism when injected into obese mice fed a high-fat diet. The implications for humans: improved control over blood sugar levels for those with type 2 diabetes and obesity. The findings are among the latest supporting the use of MOTS-c as an exercise mimetic, a drug that stimulates biochemical changes normally activated only through exercise. In animal models of obesity and diabetes, researchers have found that certain metabolic pathways are overactivated. These include the breakdown of fats and energy sources other than glucose. The detection of products and by-products of this breakdown serve as clues that normal, healthy metabolism has gone astray..."

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:

"Obesity is rapidly becoming a critical health concern globally. Growing evidence connects the microbiota-gut-brain axis to the pathophysiology of obesity. Gut bacteria can produce proteins that influence our hormonal and metabolic pathways, regulating satiety and hunger hormones. One such protein is ClpB, a chaperone protein expressed by E. coli. ClpB mimics the body’s hormones -- promoting satiety and regulating energy, blood pressure, and growth. A recent study examined the association between gut bacterial ClpB-like gene function and obesity. Using DNA sequencing and metabolomics, the researchers examined gut bacteria from people with or without obesity. They found that the bacterial species associated with more ClpB-like gene function were reduced in subjects with obesity and important bacterial characteristics, such as high ClpB expression and a negative association with obesity, could be transferred to mice through fecal transplantation..."

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:

"Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a common metabolic disease that can progress to cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. Iron level is a known factor in the development of NAFLD, but the details of its involvement are unclear. To elucidate the mechanisms at play, researchers applied an integrative systems medicine approach. They examined the fecal metagenome, plasma and urine metabolome, and hepatic transcriptome in three human cohorts, confirming the findings in vitro and using mice. Serum ferritin levels, a marker of hepatic iron stores, was linked to liver fat accumulation and a decrease in gut microbial gene richness. Elevation in ferritin was also associated with changes in the abundance of several bacterial families. Those families were strongly correlated with iron-related liver genes. This iron-related microbiome signature was also associated with the degree of liver fat accumulation..."

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:

"Increasing evidence of gut microbe-metabolite-host health interactions has prompted increasing research on the human gut microbiome and metabolome. Statistical and machine learning-based methods have been widely used to identify microbial metabolites that can be modulated to improve gut health, but whether the findings of individual studies are applicable across studies remains unclear. In a recent meta-analysis, researchers searched for metabolites whose levels in the human gut could be reliably predicted from microbiome composition, using a machine learning approach with data processed from 1733 samples in 10 independent studies. While the predictability of many metabolites varied considerably among studies, the search identified 97 robustly well-predicted metabolites that were involved in processes such as bile acid transformation and polyamine metabolism..."

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:

"Deep shale formations underlie most of North America and are typically inhospitable to microbial life. However, hydrologic fracturing of shale creates space and injects moisture and nutrients into the system, thus allowing new microbial communities to form. These communities can cause problems by corroding infrastructure and souring the hydrocarbon steam. Understanding the behavior of these microbial communities could lead to better management techniques. Recently, researchers examined the microbial genomes and metabolic capacity of fractured shale wells in Oklahoma, USA. Oklahoma shale is much hotter and has lower salinity than the previously characterized formations in the eastern USA. This study found that the Oklahoma formations had greater microbial taxonomic and metabolic diversity than the eastern formations. Sampling over time revealed that this microbial community broke down complex polymers from the fracturing process and used them for nutrients..."

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:

"Sponges are a diverse group of aquatic animals with porous bodies that produce a vast array of natural products, some with important medicinal properties, but their porous body structure also provides ample habitat for symbiotic microorganisms, which can account for up to 35% of their total body weight. Previous studies looking at the unique natural products produced by sponges have rarely taken this close relationship into account, making the extent to which microorganisms actually produce them unclear. To fill this gap, a team of researchers identified the chemical compounds found in the tissues of six sponge species from the Great Barrier Reef and their symbiotic microbes. Several compounds with potential roles in competition and defense against intruding organisms and oxidative stress were specifically attributed to the microbial cells, while the compounds produced by the sponge tissues may provide nutrients to the symbiotic microorganisms and aid in sponge defense..."

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:

"Since the dawn of space exploration, we have been fascinated by the survivability of terrestrial life in outer space. Outer space is a hostile environment for any form of life, but some extraordinarily resilient bacteria can survive. Despite galactic cosmic and solar UV radiation, extreme vacuum conditions, temperature fluctuations, desiccation, freezing, and microgravity, the extremophilic bacterium Deinococcus radiodurans withstands the drastic influence of outer space. A recent study examined the molecular effects of space on this unique microbe. After one year of exposure to low Earth orbit outside the International Space Station during the Tanpopo mission, researchers found that D. radiodurans escaped morphological damage, forming numerous outer-membrane vesicles..."

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:

"Plastics have countless uses. However, the mismanagement of plastic waste has resulted in widespread ocean pollution, which could persist in the marine environment for hundreds of years. But growing research suggests that certain microorganisms could be harnessed to break down this waste. The key is verifying whether plastic-degrading microorganisms actually occur in the biofilms that colonize the surfaces of plastic particles, or the “plastisphere", and understanding their temporal characteristics. Recently, researchers found a high diversity of microbes that varied in their community composition over time when cultured on different types of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic. They also found evidence of PET degradation by these microorganisms based on a combined proteogenomic and metabolomic approach, which confirmed that two newly identified isolates from these communities are able to degrade PET using different pathways, one of which may be novel..."

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