Parallel Analysis of Cystic Fibrosis Sputum and Saliva Reveals Overlapping Communities and an Opportunity for Sample Decontamination
Lu et al.
The finding, in our words
Expectorated sputum from people with cystic fibrosis contains higher bacterial load but less diversity than saliva, with differences more pronounced in advanced disease. Salivary contamination has minimal impact on sputum microbiome analysis, supporting sputum as a valid lower-airway sample.
A paraphrase to the Library’s standard, never the abstract. The source is one link away and is always the authority.
Self-collected oral and stool samples revealed distinct microbiome compositions in patients with endometriosis compared to controls, with Fusobacterium enrichment specifically observed in oral samples from moderate to severe cases. These results support the feasibility of decentralised self-collection for non-invasive biomarker screening in reproductive health.
Hicks et al., BJOG : an international journal of obstetrics and gynaecology · source ↗
The Guangzhou Nutrition and Health Study integrates 14-day real-time continuous glucose monitoring with multi-omics data, including serum and faecal metabolomes, proteomes, and gut microbiome sequencing, to explore biomarkers and mechanisms of metabolic disease.
A scoping review of 52 studies found most were high-quality RCTs using CGM, metabolomics and microbiome analysis in endurance athletes, yet evidence linking these biomarkers to performance, recovery or long-term health remains insufficient. This gap between biomarker discovery and clinical validation must be closed before these decentralised tools can guide precision nutrition.
In a prospective adult cohort, the salivary microbiome remained stable over six months in uninfected individuals and those with mild-to-moderate SARS-CoV-2 infection, whereas severe symptoms were linked to temporary reductions in microbial diversity.
Saliva is a validated diagnostic matrix for steroids, hormones, therapeutic drugs and drugs of abuse that can be collected non-invasively by patients at home. The review stresses that rigorous collection, handling and storage protocols are critical to prevent false results in decentralised settings.
Boroumand et al., Journal of separation science · source ↗