Pets and your micro biome

Interesting study about how connected your microbes are to your pet. As a pet-owner, I can understand this connection for sure! Microbes from folks within a family are more common if they have a dog than if they don't.

http://elife.elifesciences.org/content/2/e00458/article-info

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/04/18/177746969/bacteria-on-dog-lovers-skin-reveal-their-affection

So I salute our family dog Melky for the job he does in keeping our microbes consistent within the family!

Zit microbiomes

Can't help but love the title, eh? So these researchers did microbial analysis both of skin from clear-skinned students and skin from acne-ridden students. The main bacterium Proprionibacteium acne was present on both but when they did genomic analysis they were able to detect strain-level differences. What was different about the two?

P. acne on acne-ridden students: contained "gene islands" associated with skin issues. A "gene island" is a series of genes in the genome that are in the same segment, associated with some particular process, and are often times thought to have entered the genome via some kind of genetic event.

P. acne on healthy skinned-students had genes that had something to do with viral blocking (the secondary source I was reading was not very detailed on this)

current students will find the last couple of paragraphs in the secondary summary articel at Biotechniques to be interesting. Read it and see if you can see Koch's Postulates popping up

Here's the primary resource if anyone wants to follow up on this

Fitz-Gibbon et al. Journal of Investigative Dermatology aop, (2013) | doi:10.1038/jid.2013.21.

Want to share microbial profiles?

A research group in Europe is looking for participants in a microbial gut profiling study. One of their side enticements is that they will - if you want - put you in contact via social networking with other people worldwide who share your microbial profile. Sounds weird but really I think this is brilliant. Gut microbes impact us in ways that we don't fully understand yet. There may be many other people who have figured out good balance with their microbes that you can learn from. OK, that still sounds weird, but cool in a sciency way

http://my.microbes.eu/

Here's the more sensationalized interpretation....
http://www.mnn.com/health/fitness-well-being/stories/new-social-network-matches-people-based-on-gut-bacteria

Long term diet affects your gut microbe composition

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2011/08/31/science.1208344

the food you eat acts very much like an enrichment disturbance to your gut microbes!